Recreational anglers have been sold another dummy regarding the Te Paepae Aotea marine reserve said Ross Gildon president of the N.Z. Recreational Fishing Council.

We have recently obtained all of the minutes of the steering committee meetings under the Official Information Act, and are amazed to find that Ngati Awa have a treaty claim in for White Island and that they "will probably turn White Island into a reserve of some kind," when the claim is settled. This will obviously have more affect on our reduced fishing areas. Why couldn't the steering committee come clean and advise us this was happening without having to get the information under the Official Information Act, Gildon said.

It is a bit late in the process with ony a week to go and most people having already made their submission to find out information like this, he said.

The chairman of the steering committee as recently as Tuesday advised in the Whakatane Beacon that there were plenty of places other than the Volkners to catch kingfish knowing full well at the time, Ngati awa's intentions. The steering committee cut White Island out of the application knowing this was going to happen, and increased the size of the Volkners reserve at about the same time.

We are also concerned that the steering committee were given the opportunity of altering an official report prepared by a so called independent consultant Victoria Froude who used to work for DOC, before the report was attached to the marine reserve application to the Director General of DOC. We are aware that alterations were made, which in our opinion nullifies any credibility that the report may have.

At the same steering committee meeting it was discussed that the 1 mile reserve would need to be extended further to take in another hydro thermal system, but the steering committee decided to leave the extensions until a later review. Does this mean that the reserve will be doubled in size in the near future? This application started out as 0.5 mile reserve and who knows where it is going to end.

The Rec Council is beginning to wonder just how many other hidden agendas that we will find in this process, Gildon said. People can now see why we as a Council have no faith in the Department of Conservation. We have seen it all before

Ross Gildon.

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