Seafood New Zealand says they will keep advocating for the Fisheries Amendment Bill in the next parliamentary cycle, after the select committee report back was delayed until after the election,.

Chief executive Lisa Futschek says the reforms add tools such as electronic reporting and geospatial positioning to the fisheries management system, and they are overdue and a net positive for sustainable fisheries.

She says much of the opposition rested on misinformation rather than fact.

“Sustainability remains a cornerstone of our fisheries management system and our quota management system, which is world-leading,” she says.

She says a second misconception was that the bill cut transparency and the public’s ability to have a say.

“We will still have sustainability rounds, and we will still have public consultation on any significant changes to our Fisheries Act.”

She believes the reforms have been portrayed as a contest between recreational and commercial fishers.

“We don’t really see this as a battle at all – we see it as common sense changes.”

Futschek says the bill has been wrongly linked to bottom trawling.

“The bill does not speak to the methods of fishing, so it is not connected to bottom trawling in any way.”

Public sentiment has been fuelled by online images that do not reflect how bottom trawling happens in New Zealand, she says.

“Bottom trawling occurs in less than 2% of New Zealand’s fisheries waters every year, 31% of our EEZ is, in fact, closed to bottom trawling.”

Futschek says 97% of commercial species landed each year are assessed as coming from fish stocks scientifically shown to be healthy, and that the industry continues to innovate and lighten its gear to limit its impact on marine ecosystems.

“We do not want to catch tomorrow’s fish today.”

She says fisheries management and the science behind it is technical and complex, and that public concern about getting it right is the right sentiment to have.

She says last year the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations ranked the South West Pacific, the region New Zealand sits within, second in the world for sustainable fisheries.

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