{"id":2904,"date":"2015-11-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/scott-macindoe-advocate-for-fish-and-ocean-fauna\/"},"modified":"2023-05-11T19:16:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T06:16:28","slug":"scott-macindoe-advocate-for-fish-and-ocean-fauna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/greenplanetfm\/scott-macindoe-advocate-for-fish-and-ocean-fauna\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Macindoe - Advocate for Fish and Ocean Fauna"},"content":{"rendered":"

He is an active environmentalist, a good fisherman, a talented networker, a successful businessman, a green-fingered gardener & a loving family man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to claim our oceans and fisheries back before it is too late.\u201d<\/span>
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There are multiple challenges to our fisheries here in NZ.  We all know that due to industrial netting, fish numbers are falling, some spectacularly and this is happening both globally and locally. This also includes dwindling stocks of crustaceans as well as shellfish. At the same time we are having to deal with poorer water quality such as increasing acidic levels as well as an increase in the overall NZ population especially in Auckland who are keen consumers of fish.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is intensifying pressure on the local commons, which translates to the area of sea that all fish-life inhabit and that for the last so many thousands of years there has been a customary right, for anyone to go down to the beach or get into a boat and catch a fish or three, to feed their family and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

This interview is in many ways is an expos\u00e9 of the Fishing Industry in NZ, which is the fourth largest fisheries in area on our planet!<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

This is how Legasea came into being: As a fund raising, resourcing organisation that obtains good reliable consistent information of what fish we have in our waters … and how we can keep healthy fish in our waters for the foreseeable future.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

In the first few minutes of this interview Scott mentions how Maori for the last 800 years or so had customary rights that allowed them to go down to the sea and catch fish, kai moana, for their family and also visitors who were staying at their pa or marae, and that this was a very large part of their culture.  <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Today, throughout NZ there are about 7% of fishermen who join clubs, however, most just get in their small boat or go down to the beach and catch fish, often every few weeks or even weekly.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

About 600,000 NZers are fishing on a regular basis … approximately 200,000 in the greater Hauraki Gulf or Auckland Area.   <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

However, things are changing.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

We the NZ public are being constantly told that there is an arm wrestle of a war between recreational and commercial fishermen - which is not the case at all. It\u2019s because of the Ministry of Primary Industries who are in partnership with NZ\u2019s \u2018primary industries\u2019 are basically looking at doubling the exports of primary products by the year 2025 that\u2019s their mission - fishing, farming, forestry, viticulture, aquaculture, insatiable harvesting or extracting - which is something like $80 million a day extra, to meet that target, so as to feed out fairly out of control consumer habits.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

The knock on effect of this is smaller bag reductions and increases in sizes of fish that can be taken, by recreational fishermen, so this is about allocations between the commercial and non commercial sector.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Overall, only about 5% of the fish caught in Aotearoa are caught non commercially. In the inshore fisheries there are only a handful of fisheries where the recreational catch is more than the commercial sector.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Area 1 North Cape to East Cape of NZ.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Snapper -  Maori name Tumare, the commercial sector land 4,500 tonnes per year and recreational land 3.500 tonnes. Stats (2013) which have gone down significantly since then - including lack of availability of fish.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

We catch all species nationwide per annum at 10,000 tonnes of which 4.500 are snapper.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Note that 2,500 tonnes of snapper are sold to Australia at $9.00 per kilo as plate size NZ snapper. 25,26,27,28,29 centimetre snapper, these are very small. Note 30 centimetres and over is the legal size you are now allowed to take in the Auckland area now.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n