Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley informed that a study rate New Zealand marine areas as second equal with Alaska as the healthiest in the world. International scientific research paper Rebuilding Global Fisheries evaluating 31 marine areas, mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and New Zealand was published in the Science journal.
According to Heatley the Fisheries Ministry, commercial and recreational fishers, and iwi could take credit but more needed to be done. He added that the ministry must move forward with their world-class fisheries management practices. He told that initiatives like the long-term Fisheries 2030 programme will ensure this happens as all fisheries stakeholders work towards the same goals for this precious resource.
Heatley opined that the hoki fishery was an example of good management delivering sustainable stocks. Ministry of Fisheries’ chief scientist Pamela Mace was one of the authors of the research paper. It is told that several regions in the United States, Iceland and New Zealand have made significant progress in rebuilding stocks devastated by decades of overfishing through careful management strategies.
Lead author Boris Worm of Canada’s Dalhousie University said that half of the 10 regions examined had managed to decrease their exploitation rate (the proportion of the total fish population that is caught) the primary driver of depletion or collapse. He cautioned that the analysis the most comprehensive to date was mostly confined to managed fisheries in developed countries where long-term data on fish abundance is collected.
