‘Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll steal your fish’. At least that is what comes to mind following recent news about commercial fisheries and MPI.

The exposure of misreporting discarded fish and the failure to prosecute is damaging to New Zealand’s longstanding reputation. Since 1986, the quota management system has attracted international admiration for invention and a willingness to try something new.

The system works if fishers comply with reporting rules, but it will not work well if they don’t. It is well known that systems like ours can generate perverse incentives. The worst of these is discarding unwanted fish. This is a serious problem, which is why the Minister is fast tracking a new reporting and monitoring system. 

However, before further stones are thrown at commercial fishing, let’s acknowledge that discarding is a problem worldwide. And it is not just a problem with commercial fishing. It is a widespread problem in recreational fisheries too.

New Zealand’s recreational fisheries management actually requires discarding by making it an offence for a recreational fisher to retain undersized fish. And it does so without any reporting rules.

Minimum size limits and daily bag limits are used for various reasons, including reducing effort, creating a more equitable distribution of catch, and protecting fish that might survive catch and release. Yet their use may not contribute much to improve fish stocks if discarded fish are likely to die.

For example, the mortality of fish pulled from deep water is generally high. Any increase in their size limit could be counterproductive, as undersized fish will likely die when discarded. The use of bag limits could lead to discarding of smaller fish, if fishers prefer to fill their limit with larger fish.

Fortunately, many recreational fishers are aware of the effects of discarding and keep within limits. But, the extent of discarding is unknown, and estimates can have wide margins of error.

There is another saying, ‘Any population of fish in a natural state does not need to be managed. What fisheries managers are trying to do is manage people in relation to their impact on fisheries.’ In other words, fisheries management is a difficult, though required, duty of government.

Over the next year or so, The New Zealand Initiative will aim to work with government, stakeholders and iwi leaders to explore new solutions to problems in the commercial and recreational fisheries, so watch this space.