Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association. Vol 40. No. 7. April 13 1977

Our Biggest Natural Resource.... — ....Down the Drain?

Our Biggest Natural Resource....

....Down the Drain?

Only 25% of the fish caught in New Zealand waters are caught by our fishermen. Tarakihi stocks are declining rapidly. Why?

Salient reporters Richard Bohmer and Bruce Robinson interviewed the President of the Wellington Trawlermen's Association. P J Stevens, on the problem of foreign fishing activity and the prospects for the local industry.

Fisherman hauling in a net

Salient: What effect are the foreign trawlers having?

Stevens: There is a decline coming about through foriegn trawling. It's a matter of horsepower. The more horsepower you apply the more fish you catch. These big ships are using very small mesh nets. They catch fish down to whitebait size. (New Zealand regulation mesh is four inch) All your immature fish are taken. This will have within a few years a very profound effect on the amount of fish. The regeneration rate will be affected dramatically.

Their type of fishing is virtual plunder of the sea. There is evidence of this all round the world where these big fleets have worked. Generally they create barren deserts.

Salient: You've noticed a difference yourself in the size of catch you're taking?

Stevens: Oh yes ... When we fish in grounds where they have fished we notice a dramatic difference. We also believe that in many cases that foreign vessels fishing 50 miles away from where NZ vessels might work can still affect catches because fish move. You don't necessarily need to catch them in one place to affect another place.

If they take all the fish off the Chatham Rise they can dramatically affect the whole East Coast of New Zealand.

Salient: On the specific question of Tarakihi, what affect has the foreign fishing had?

Stevens: All the foreign vessels say they don't catch these species of fish. This is what our Government tries to tell us. I say that's a lot of absolute hooha — a lot of lies. We've been on these Japanese ships and the captain up on the bridge says "Tarakihi — no, don't catch". "Ling — no, don't catch". All these popular species of fish — "don't catch". And then then we've gone down the hold and some uninformed or misinformed crewmen race round showing you "All the Tarakihi, no. 1, All the Ling, no. 1". They catch Ling that bloody long. They're all juvenile Ling, thousands and thousands of them They say they're catching Barracouta and they're not. There has been a massive effect on Tarakihi and it's continuing all the time. It won't stop.

A lot of fish that are being taken out are being taken off virgin ground that has never been fished before and therefore the figures will be high. New Zealand has a very very slow and low regenerative rate of fish. A very low zooplankton count — very low. We have not much fish here.

There is always fish on virgin ground but the test of a ground is after its been fished for 5, 6, or 10 years. What then can it sustain. That's the test of a ground's economic viability.

Salient: About this recent incident on the gentleman's agreement with the Soviet trawlers on where they were to fish. What was the story behind that?

Stevens: That was a long story. It was never entirely clear. We wanted to talk to the Russians ourselves and were prevented from doing so by the NZ Government. We believe that Foreign Affairs asked the Russians not to fish in some sensitive areas and this area in Cook Strait was one of them. They were known spawning grounds of Tarakihi. It was agreed by biologists that a combined Russian effort on these grounds would lead to their ultimate destruction. It was agreed that if the grounds and the fish in them were destroyed the fishing industry in that particular area would be seriously affected.

We believe that the Russians agreed to have some deferral but now we have them back again.

We must remember that the Russians tell so many bloody lies. You never know where the truth starts and the lies finish. They might say that some of their boats have come straight from Vladisvostock and they didn't know this, that and the other, but you can't tell me that the Russians let their skippers sail all round the ocean without them being informed.

Salient: One development of that has recently been that overseas interests like the United States and Japan have started forming joint-stock companies with NZ firms to fish our waters ....?

Stevens: I think we've got to be very wary of this because inevitably in history we find that the host country, which would be New Zealand in this case, is generally the loser.

We could grade New Zealand as a third world country in regard to fishing. You couldn't show me one third world country that has profited from the use of a natural resource when a big power has aided or helped them develop it or financed it. Look at the metal deposits all round the world. It's not the small country that has the resources that makes the money; it's the big country that gobbles them up. And that would be the case with New Zealand fishing.

Salient: Is there no future at all with joint companies?

Stevens: Well there's been quite a lot of thought on this. How for instance can you have a joint venture between the New Zealand fishing industry, which is totally and completely unsubsidised with a country, when that country is totally subsidised.

You could never have a joint venture with Russia because their fish prices are held so artificially low they would dictate the price of fish and we would not be able to cover our cost at catching them. No. We are against joint ventures.

Salient: What's the state of the industry. Is it in really bad shape as far as you are concerned?

Stevens: No .... the industry's probably in as good a shape as its ever been in and that's not good. For instance. There is a lack of confidence. Nobody is prepared to invest money in the industry because there is a lack of policy — there is no Government policy on fishing. If we get the 200 mile limit or don't get it who knows what is going to happen? If I was to build a ½ million or million dollar boat tomorrow and put it in the water I've got no guarantee whatsoever that I'm not going to be forced to compete directly with the Japanese, Russians, Taiwanese, Koreans or whoever else the Government might elect to do a deal with or whoever they cannot get out of New Zealand waters as may be the case with the Russians.

Salient: Now how do you feel about the Government's approach to the 200 mile limit?

Stevens: What approach?

Salient: No approach ...?

Stevens: There's no policy.

Salient: How long has the Government before it must make a decision?

Stevens: The decision must be made this year. Steps must be taken this year — even the taking of squid must have an effect on other species. We've got to be very careful not to create imbalances. I think most research scientists, especially on the Government side, tend not to be conservative enough, whereas the Fishing Industry Board and ourselves tend to be conservative. It's far better to build up to a sustainable yeild situation rather than pour in and then try and estimate a sustainable yeild and cut down to it. It's far safer to assume that there is less fish there than there really is and build up and keep adding another unit.

Another thing too........ we're dealing with an ecological situation which is moving very fast and we can't delay decisions for years to wait and see what happens.

Also we've got the ability to view what has happened historically around the world where other nations have come in with big ships and these destructive forms of fishing. We can see what's happened — massive depletions — undersea deserts created. We have the opportunity to look back over the years — it's happened everywhere else and we would be fools to assume that it wouldn't happen here. It would happen here quicker than anywhere because of our very slow regenerative rate.

But I don't see any of these lessons of history being observed in NZ. That's not only true of the fishing industry its true of our social system, our economic system, its true of every bloody thing we've built.

Salient: Is the 200 mile limit a must as far as you're concerned?

Stevens: It doesn't matter a damn whether we have it or not if its not going to be controlled properly. We might as well not have it. We feel that we should have a limit within that. We need a 75 mile exclusive limit. The Government and its agents have made it quite clear that they're going to trade off fishing rights. Now who's going to say what areas are going to be fished. By whom? By what size vessels? What is to be taken?

Who? The same people who are in capable of running the industry now? We've got to have fishermen involvement.

Salient: The Government is going to say to people like the Russians "You give us concessions on our beef and we'll let you fish....."

Stevens: They've said that already. They're jacking it up with the Japs. The New Zealand businessmen's association and the Japanese have had trade talks now for three years, Federated Farmers and exporters have been in on this. But there is no fishing interests that have been consulted to our knowledge.

We're being sold down the drain.

Salient: Do you think the Russians are putting much pressure on our Government over this question?

Stevens: Put it this way. In a depressed economic world where its becoming increasingly more difficult to sell our traditional food products — meat, wool, dairy products etc — any country that buys $100 million worth of these products of us must be posing problems for the Government on whether or not they kick them out. It's a problem of economics. And we don't deny it. But if we're going to be forced to have foreign fishing we should have it on our terms and control it wisely and well for the future. And right now the Russians are out there laughing like hell. They're getting free fish. They're getting fish without paying for the right to take them and they're buying what meat they want on their terms and we're losing our environment.

The Japanese are much the same. They're taking a terrific lot of our stuff and they're holding that out as a sort of fed herring all the time. Its there as a carrot for our Government.

Japan gets iron sands from us that they need, if they didn't need it they wouldn't come here and bloody well get it. They get timber from us. They wouldn't take it if they didn't want it. And they have a big market here of consumer goods, service goods and vehicles and things like this and if our buying from the Japanese and the raw products they get from us is not sufficient to have them to buy here, if that's not sufficient for them to enter into longer term agreements on trade well I don't think fishings going to swing it either.

Salient: If there was a 200 mile limit or a 75 exclusive mile limit could we patrol it?

Stevens: Damn sight easier than a twelve mile limit. This is the biggest red herring ever perpetrated. For instance, lets take the area from East Cape to Kai-koura. That's a considerable stretch of coast. It could well be 400 miles long. Now the trawlerable depth right through that stretch doesn't go out beyond 30 miles offshore. If we've got a 200 mile limit, any foreign trawler that wants to come and fish in that area has got to come 170 miles inside the limit. With a 12 mile limit area he's only got to be 10 feet outside twelve miles and he's legal. Ten feet inside twelve miles and he's illegal. You see the difference?

Salient: Yes.

Stevens: A twelve mile limit is alright but no one seems to have told the fish about that. Most of our fishing is done outside the twelve mile limit, its only been a paper token thing. If you have a look at the chart you'll find that very little of the 1 ½ million square miles is trawlerable.

Now there is also the long line tuna boats. They fish under big subsidies. But it is a form of fishery that we would possibly never enter into in New Zealand. Why not license 100 of them and charge them $5,000 a year for the priviledge of fishing there.

Salient: And plough that money back into the fishing industry?

Stevens: And use it to build our own boats and so forth. There's other areas where I feel we're going to have to involve licensed foreign vessles to fish and thats down in the very southern waters by the Campbell plateau, round the Auckland islands.

Lets assume that we've got 10 Japanese vessels licensed to fish there and no one else. Now they're going to jump up and down and scream like hell if they find some other ship in there aren't they?

Salient. Yes.

Stevens: So there's the nucleus of a policy on this to start with. You've also got the continuing involvement of NZ fishermen all round NZ.

One Orion flight every two or three days would be sufficient. (About what's being done now) Do what the Americans do. If you catch a big Japanese or Korean stern trawler you give them a million dollars, or confiscate the boat. Now apart from the Russians these vessels are company vessels. They're not going to start being charged a million bucks every time they do something wrong; or lose their ship. So they're going to smack their captain's hands aren't they?

The amount of fish they're going to catch on a short foray into an illegal fishing area is hardly going to recompense them for that sort of money.

We only need one frigate to be on hand in a control area. We've got to keep a frigate somewhere in New Zealand. Why not put it in Wellington or Christchurch because this is where your poaching is going to be. Your big trawl area is the South.

A Japanese squid fishing boat with its lights in place.

A Japanese squid fishing boat with its lights in place.

Cut out these forays around the world.

If there's an intrusion, grab the bugger, pull him in and bill him. Set an example. When they say the navy couldn't do this that and the other — its a lot of tommy-rot.

Salient: Could we fish a 200 mile limit?

Stevens: No.

Salient: In fact its only 30 miles as you've said.

Stevens: Well in parts. In other parts its even less. We have the deepest water closest to shore in the world. And a lot of the area within this is deep trenches. And another thing too that I feel has delayed things — and this should never have been done — but it appears that with this 200 mile limit part of it in mineral rights and part of its fishing rights. Now if we had split it apart and said mineral rights being oil and whatever minerals that might be there and life or biological rights we could have got on with the biological thing pretty quick. There's been a great deal of reluctance because people are very concerned about the mineral rights. This is something that'll take a lot longer to hammer out. We've complicated this issue by treating them as one hut they're not. They're two very distinct areas.

Salient: So within the 200 mile limit in some places, only 20 miles of it is fishable and 30 miles in other places — you wouldn't have to fish out to 200 miles to make it worthwhile?

Stevens: I'll put it to you this way. There are areas that we were not prepared to fish and that we could not in the long term see ourselves fishing and, providing that the taking of fish in these areas was not depleting other areas, then we should sell the rights and let them fish it and get something out of it.

We should not just say "Its ours" when at no expense we could sell it.

Salient: Some countries such as the Russians and the Americans have already declared 200 mile zones and at the same time their activities in other countries are such that they don't want 200 mile zones ....

Stevens: Not America. America does not habitually fish in other peoples areas. I don't think we could put America in the same context as the Russians. The American 200 mile zone is more for defence.

The Russians have got more fishing ships than any other country in the world, more tonnage in fishing than any other country in the world.

Salient: There have been lots of research vessels, foreign and local, researching our waters. Have their findings been made available to you?

Stevens: The Japanese make their findings available. The Russians don't — nothing. And I would think if the Russians did say anything that 10 to 1 it would be a lie. New Zealand researchers are now also becoming very suspicious of Japanese figures too. I think they have found them out a few times.

Salient: The Wellington Trawlermans Association and other Trawlermans Associations around the country — do they have any action planned?

Stevens: We're continually lobbying the Government. We in the Wellington Trawlermans Association have never been parochial. As a matter of fact we've put our own problem last on our agenda of action. We've been concerned with things in other parts of the country because ultimately it affects the total industry and we've just been continually lobbying.

I had a meeting with Bill Rowling yesterday discussing points. We'll be having some discussions with Mel Courtney and get stuff publicised. Continually, we're trying to place more knowledge before the public. The public have been very ignorant about this problem because we're a sort of a sport fishing nation and not an industrial fishing nation. We're going through this transition.

We've got a fantastic amount of public support and we have no dissenters. Look at the newspapers, no one dissenting. No one says the fishermen are wrong or that the fishermen are bums or whatever Walking round the streets, people I've never seen before say to me "Oh keep it up" or "You're doing a great job" and that sort of thing. Hundreds of people of my aquaintance say "Keep at it", "Don't give up" and that sort of thing — that gives you a great deal of heart.

And we're trying to put more facts before them all the time. So that if and when the crunch conies we know we'll have the public right behind us.

There's lots of things we'd like to do. We'd dearly like to go out and cut the Russian trawlermens warps like they did in Iceland. But when they did it in Iceland it was the Icelandic Government fighting for the survival of an area of their economy that was very important to them. If we do it we do it as an act of piracy done by the individual so the guy that does it could well expect to go inside for a long time — plus lose his vessel. So you can't expect individuals to act in a situation like this. But if nothing was done and the situation got hotter and hotter and hotter I'm sure that odd individuals, in sheer frustration, would start doing things. Perhaps have a pot-shot here and there. People's tempers and people's frustration usually get vented some way or another.

We've had passive protests. We've written messages on the wharf in Russian to them. But that's been more directed to draw public notice to them rather than to offend their Russian crewmen. Nothing you could do would offend them because they're virtually slaves on their own ships. That doesn't worry them. The Russians are fairly thick skinned. They know they're going to dominate the world one way or another and they probably are. Anything we do only forestalls it.

Salient: What do you think members of the Public can do in this situation?

Stevens: We put a notice in the newspapers. I thought we would put a public notice in the four main centres — just to guage public reaction, it was quite rewarding in a way. All the newspapers in each main centre dashed down to talk to fishermen, did a bit of research and came out with articles.

It inspired TV coverage on the subject. We proved that it's a very live issue and all it needs is a spur and away it goes again.

Salient: Is there anything you would like to add?

Stevens: One thing that concerns me — where has our fighting spirit gone? We sit here on our own, dumbly watching TV or down at the local, drinking beer while the rape of our heritage goes on unchecked around us.

The sea around us is the biggest single environmental thing we have in NZ. Its bigger than our national parks, than our beech forests, than our Manapouries or Rotoruas and all that.

I would say that our battle is not all on the basis of profit or the NZ Fishing Industry going down the drain. Its a matter ter of national, pride. Are we going to let our heritage be destroyed for nothing!

It might be acceptable if we were getting a few billion dollars out of it but we're not even getting a cracker. As a matter of fact its probably costing us.

So, we're not only giving it away we're paying them to take it away, we're paying them to destroy it. This is the sorry part about it.