Commercial Fishing in New Zealand

Commercial fishing in New Zealand has really only got underway since 1960. 1960! These little islands are surrounded by a great mass of ocean, always have been, and yet commercial fishing has only became a growth industry in the last 50 years. Some things will never add up.

 

What are some of the possible reasons for this? The weather? - yes, but then that’s also always been around and other countries have coped. The lack of motivation with the population or the lack of Government driven incentives? - possibly. Yet the Maoris were canoe builders. To what purpose did they do this? Surely one can count fishing activities as one incentive to their canoe building? So maybe the New Zealand Government did not push the growth of the industry enough.

 

To feed a growing population, the catch would need to be massive. One would need many, many canoes, each loaded to the hilt to make any dent in the islands’ food source. Also fish have a very short use-by date. This would mean an extremely efficient transport system would need to be in place to move the fish inland and along the coast once they’d been brought to shore.

 

Line fishing and using nets and spears would be possible from a canoe, deep sea trawling on the other hand, would not . New Zealand’s coastline lends itself to small fishing ports, so it would be feasible for many small craft to work the coastal waters. In the history of its development there were many small whaling stations along the coast which adequately fulfilled the role they played.

 

However it was really the need to be able to source fish from the bottom of the ocean, where catches would be large, that determined the growth of commercial fishing in New Zealand.

 

Changes in world fishing regulations boosted New Zealand’s fishing ground to 4,400000 sq miles, making it 4th largest in the world, (some say 6th) It has an unusually wide continental shelf which means that the ocean around them teems with fish of a multitude of varieties.

 

However, the world consumer market asks for: cod and flatfish (these are flounder, halibut, plaice and sole), haddock herring and salmon, tuna, anchovies, grouper, hake, mackerel, pilchard, redfish (or ocean perch) sardines, sea bass, shark, snapper, sturgeon (and caviar) and whiting. This then is what commercial fishing in New Zealand must aim at.

 

The solution to harvest fish far from shore has been to site factory ships in the fishing fields. These are anchored while smaller ships go out trawling the area and returning, ideally, whenever they have a full load. The factory ship speedily turns the fish into a commercially viable product. The head, guts and bones are all used too, being made into fish meal which has a high demand. When the factory ships holds are full, then she returns to the shore of the country which owns her.

 

This whole processing operation requires a lot of capital and know-how to set up. New Zealand approached other nations to partner her in the start-up process in deep water trawling shortly after the treaty was signed which enlarged her fishing grounds. This then was the way forward from about 1960.

 

However, a documentary shown in July 2009 points out that New Zealand is now in a position to harvest its own fish without the help of foreign trawlers. More than half of all the fish caught are not processed in New Zealand, but in Thailand and China. (If you type into Google search – ‘Fishing in New Zealand Documentary’ – you will find more information.)

 

Local fisherman are affected to the point that if a quota is downsized, or falls into jeopardy of some sort, it is local fishermen’s quotas which are shortened and these reductions are given to the factory ships so that their quotas are not curtailed.

 

Only 55% of the vessels used today are those belonging to commercial fishermen of New Zealand, the rest are foreign owned.

 

Hoki and Orange Roughy are the most fish important catch in commercial fishing in New Zealand. The New Zealand government is very particular about managing and sustaining her fishing reserves. Roughly 90% of her reserves are untouched year-by-year. The Maori people today own a third share in the commercial fishing trade.

The factual information in this article is taken mainly from Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia

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