| Kahawai
Should be Returned to the Public
option4
Media Release
14
July 2004
Kahawai, often called the people's fish because of its popularity,
should be returned to the public by sensible management says a recreational
fishing lobby group.
Trish Rea, spokesperson for option4, said over exploitation had
decimated kahawai stocks.
"The publics' case is simple," she said. "Non-commercial
fishers are adamant that the kahawai fishery has been stolen from
them through years of excessive purse seining."
Ms Rea said the introduction of kahawai to the tradeable Quota Management
System, scheduled for October, should fully acknowledge the depleted
stocks and the manner in which over-fishing occurred.
Historical catch records were usually the basis for allocating quota.
"It would be an injustice to issue quota based on catch histories
which have be gained at the expense of, and through the plundering
of, other legitimate users such as the 1.4 million recreational
fishers," she said.
A decision that would give the kahawai back to the people from whom
it has been unjustly taken would be the only honourable and just
course of action open to the Minister of Fisheries and government.
Ms Rea said there was precedent in judicial decisions. In 1997 McGechan
J judged in case CP237/95 that commercial catch (TACC) could be
reduced to serve legitimate conservation purposes or to advantage
- deliberately or incidentally - non-commercial fishing interests.
His Honour held that: " It is not outside or against the
purposes of the Act to allow a preference to non-commercials to
the disadvantage in fact of commercials and their valued ITQ rights,
even to the extent of the industry's worst case of a decision designed
solely to give recreationalists greater satisfaction. Both are within
the Act. "
Although this refers to
a TACC reduction it obviously gives the Minister the support of
a court judgement to return kahawai back to non-commercial interests
and the public, when setting the initial quotas.
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