The New Zealand authority has proposed to establish 11 traditional Maori fishing reserves in South Westland, doubling the total number already created for the whole country. As a result the small commercial fishing industry at Haast is in tough time. It is fact that a mataitai is an identified traditional fisheries ground established for the purpose of non-commercial customary food gathering. Commercial fishers cannot take fish from a mataitai unless the Minister of Fisheries grants the right by regulation.
The Ministry of Fisheries said that this has not happened for any other mataitai in New Zealand, but South Westland is lobbying to be the first. Eleven commercial cray fishers hold quota between the Hope River, south of Jackson Bay and the Arahura River, just north of Hokitika.
Haast commercial fisherman Kerry Eggeling, who has quota for crayfish and tuna, said commercial fishers operated in four main areas that could be significantly affected by the mataitai proposal. He added that is those areas are shut they would be squeezed into other areas and that could cause overfishing in those places. It is told that there are four areas of concern namely, Popotai and Tumaka Island near Okuru, also known as Open Bay Islands; Barn Island, near the Hope River south of Jackson Bay; Okahu Bay or Jackson Bay; and Paringa, south of Bruce Bay.
Te Runanga O Maakawhio mataitai reserves spokesman Paul Wilson, a former commercial fisherman, said the runanga’s desire to preserve the 11 identified fisheries went back to the 1970s and ’80s, when the reserve areas were documented for the ministry. It is fact that the South Westland commercial fishing industry was “pretty fragile” but an essential industry, with rock lobster fishers the main people to be affected by the mataitai.
