Fishing for the truth about penguins and dolphins snared in nets

Tuesday, 16 January 2018

Forest and Bird say the Commercial Fishing Industry want to stop public access to videos and images of fish being discarded and seabirds being caught by fishing boats because they say it could be bad for NZ's reputation.

Representatives from the fishing industry appear to be attempting to hide the impact of bycatch from the public.

Endangered species of penguins and dolphins such as Māui's and Hector's are among the creatures that become bycatch and are therefore threatened by fisheries.

A letter sent to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) asks that the Official Information Act (OIA) be prevented from applying to information gathered by electronic monitoring aboard fishing vessels.

A yellow-eyed penguin allegedly caught as fisheries bycatch in an image released under the Official Information Act.

Under the OIA, anyone can request information from a government department or Minister of the Crown - and this applies to MPI's monitoring of fisheries.

**READ MORE:

A sea lion allegedly caught in a trawl net as bycatch, shown in an image released under the Official Information Act.

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* Fisheries compliance report gets mixed reception

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* Fisheries management, biosecurity provided more funding**

This means the proposed Integrated Electronic Monitoring and Reporting System (IEMRS) programme would be covered by the OIA.

A Hector's dolphin allegedly caught as bycatch.

IEMRS information would include fisheries catch reporting, real-time vessel location monitoring, and on-boarding fishing activity. It would also require implementing under the Fisheries Act 1996.

Maui and Hector's Dolphin Defenders launched its ByCatch of the Day campaign asking New Zealanders to boycott fish caught in gillnets.

MPI said the proposed programme would 'allow fisheries to be monitored and managed with far greater certainty'.

The letter to the MPI, from the Deepwater Group, Fisheries Inshore New Zealand, the Paua Industry Council, Seafood New Zealand and the New Zealand Rock Lobster Industry Council on July 4, 2017, was itself released to Forest and Bird under the OIA.

It said the information from monitoring could be used by individuals and organisations that had campaigned against commercial fishing.

It would 'serve as ammunition for their anti-fishing agendas', the letter stated.

The letter refers to images and video of 'incidental interactions with seabirds, legitimate fish discards, treatment of unintended bycatch'.

Used by campaigners, the information could cause 'risks to the seafood industry and to New Zealand's international reputation as a reputable source of quality, sustainably-produced seafood could be significantly impaired'.

The groups hoped an amendment to the Fisheries Act would prevent information collected from being released publicly.

Forest and Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said in a statement: 'In plain English, what they are saying is catching endangered penguins, dumping entire hauls of fish overboard and killing Hectors dolphins looks really bad on TV.

'Well, the solution is to stop doing it, not to hide the evidence. It's hard to think of a more credibility-damaging activity than trying to change the law to so the rest of us can't see what's really happening out there…

'Commercial fishing is vulnerable to criticism, not because it's being misrepresented by media or environmental advocates, but because New Zealanders are shocked by what the fishing industry has got away with.'

The groups involved in the letter were also concerned with the volume of 'private data' that would be collected under the programme - including recordings of 'private work places, private living spaces (decks and processing areas on vessels are both working and living environments for extended time periods) and will contain information on valuable and sensitive private intellectual property'.

A statement from Forest and Bird said: 'Although much of the letter was framed in terms of protecting privacy and commercial sensitivity, the Official Information Act already protects privacy and commercial sensitivity and has done since 1982, something the Ombudsman's Office confirmed to MPI in a briefing paper released at the same time.'

CHANGES TO DATA RELEASE BEING CONSIDERED

MPI fisheries management director Stuart Anderson said ministry officials and the Minister of Fisheries, Stuart Nash, were developing options for the roll-out of digital monitoring.

'Industry has proposed changes to how fisheries data held by MPI should be released. Those proposals are being considered alongside other options including maintaining the status quo. No decision has been made yet,' Anderson said.

'There are many elements to consider carefully in balancing the responsibilities of transparency and public interest while protecting privacy and other sensitive information.'

The fisheries industry is pleased with a delay in implementation as the new Government investigates the issue further.

FISHERY GROUPS RESPOND

Seafood New Zealand said, in a press statement, the seafood industry welcomed 'the collection of additional information under the proposed… (IEMRS)' but still wanted the release of data restricted.

Chief executive of Fisheries Inshore New Zealand (FINZ), Dr Jeremy Helson said a lack of detail from the former Government about IEMRS had frustrated the sector.

It wanted assurance information about personal privacy, commercial sensitivity, and intellectual property would be protected.

However, they still wanted detailed information to be available only to the MPI.

'We agree that the conclusions from data should be shared but would argue that very detailed information should only be available to MPI for fisheries management purposes and its wider release curtailed,' Helson said.

'It's not necessarily about removing this data from being subject to the Official Information Act, it's about striking the right balance between the public's legitimate interest in what goes on in the industry and protecting the individuals involved.

'We want to get the balance right and make sure that information is released in an appropriate way and with the appropriate context.

'This is workplace data collection on a scale never before seen in New Zealand and, if it is used for anything other than to inform better fisheries management, should sound a loud alarm to wider New Zealand.'