They\u2019re nothing new, but Ministry of Primary Industries Fisheries Managers admit that fish dumping \u2018is so widespread, the current system is failing, and
\n officials have been unable to get on top of it since day one of the Quota Management System (QMS)\u201d.<\/p>\n
They have said unreported fish dumping is having an impact on fish stocks, and that if those wasting fish, and hiding dumping, were prosecuted in accordance
\n with the law, about half the current fishing operators would go out of business. But the evidence of the impacts of this untenable, unsustainable squandering
\n of our marine life, has been clear for the public to see too.<\/p>\n
We all bear witness to, and commonly hear of decline. Ask any fisher and they\u2019ll tell you the big snapper have gone, the flounder have gone, the crayfish
\n have gone, and mud and kina barrens are in their place.<\/p>\n
Where once, fish schooled inshore, these days the seas are like deserts. Even with the \u2018world\u2019s \u201cbest\u201d fisheries management system\u2019 in the QMS, we\u2019re managing
\n fish stocks often to less than 20% of their pre-harvest numbers.<\/p>\n
It appears that corruption is entrenched in the fishing industry and its relationship with MPI. Scientists say \u2018deals have been done\u2019 between fishing operators
\n and MPI, meaning known transgressions remain unprosecuted.<\/p>\n
Video footage arising from cameras on boats has revealed evidence of Hector\u2019s dolphins being caught and killed in nets, dumped, and not reported, but no
\n prosecutions took place because of those deals.<\/p>\n
There are claims of \u2018capture\u2019 by the fishing industry of MPI, especially since in some cases, the fishers and the observers, are one and the same. Strong
\n links between the National Party and the Seafood Industry Council, and Peter Goodfellow, chair of the Council and Director of Sanfords who is also
\n President of the National Party, make many conservationists doubt the chances of proper, sustainable fisheries management in the best interests of
\n the marine environment rather than political allegiances.<\/p>\n
At the same time, pressure on the marine environment is compounded by the sheer volume of recreational fishers. If everyone took their maximum daily catch,
\n the oceans would be empty. Indeed, in some areas, they virtually are.<\/p>\n
Rather than fooling ourselves that we are responsible environmental and resource managers with world class fisheries systems, we would do better to admit
\n we are failing to manage the environment with much rigour at all. With species under such mismanagement, we retain little resilience for other, natural
\n or unusual forces that could cause collapse \u2013 such as disease, or the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n
The Government\u2019s failure to address these known issues is nothing less than scandalous, for both present and future generations \u2013 of people, and fish.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ongoing revelations about fishing by-catch, dumping, misreporting and entrapment of dolphins in nets should give us all cause for concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3751,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724\/revisions\/3751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}