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Orange roughy commercial catch reduced to an all time low
15 November 2007
The Minister of Fisheries, Jim Anderton, has set the total allowable commercial catch (TACC) for orange roughy, in the New Zealand EEZ at its lowest level of 13,082 tonnes for the 2007-08 fishing year.
This is an 11 percent reduction from the 2006-07 TACC of 14,721 tonnes. The total catch of 14,167 tonnes in that year was 9 percent less than the previous year.
The total catch is now 24 percent of the highest catch of 54,000 tonnes in 1989. Sixty percent of that catch came from the Chatham Rise, the most productive area in the New Zealand orange roughy fishery. |
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The annual orange roughy catch has been in continual decline since it peaked at 54,000 tonnes in 1989. |
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Most of the catch reduction will be implemented in the East and South Chatham Rise. This area is part of the Chatham Rise and southern New Zealand fishery (ORH 3B) in which the 2007-08 TACC has been reduced 9 percent from 11,500 to 10,500 tonnes.
The actual ORH 3B commercial catch of 11,271 tonnes in 2006-07 was down by 1,283 tonnes (10 percent) from 12,554 tonnes in 2005-06.
The 2005-06 TACC limit of 12,500 tonnes in the ORH 3B fishery was reduced by 8 percent to 11,500 tonnes in 2006-07.
The current allowable Chatham Rise catch is 27 percent of the 1988/89 peak of 38,300 tonnes.
The actual 2006-07 commercial catch in the Chatham Rise catch is 35 percent of the peak in 1988/89 of 32,300 tonnes.
Continued reduction of the quota raises questions about the sustainability of orange roughy.
When setting catch limits for the last two fishing years, the Fisheries Minister has expressed significant reservations about the quality and reliability of the scientific stock assessment of orange roughy on the Chatham Rise.
Many seamounts and smaller hills on the Chatham Rise that were principal orange roughy habitats, have been scraped clean from extensive bottom trawling.
Another area where the Minister of Fisheries has reduced the TACC is the northern North Island orange roughy fishery (ORH 1), which is down to 870 tonnes per year, a 38 percent reduction from 1,400 tonnes in 2006-07.
In 2006, the commercial catch in the northern North Island fishery was reduced by 43 percent to 800 tonnes, but was increased during the 2006-07 fishing year.
The actual catch in ORH 1 in 2006=07 was 1,035 tonnes, which was 365 tonnes less than the TACC, and down 14 percent from the previous year.
The Western South Island orange roughy fishery (ORH 7B) has been closed altogether with little prospect of it reopening in the short or middle term. The TACC was 110 tonnes in the 2006-07 fishing year.
The reduced catch limits follow a familiar downward trend. As orange roughy stocks decline, the management system which the government commonly calls the best in the world, simply keeps lowering the allowable catch. |
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Impractical South Pacific RFMO voluntary interim measures
New Zealand supports voluntary interim measures for bottom fishing and pelagic fisheries adopted this year by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (RFMO) in Renaca, Chile in May, and Noumea in September. The measures took effect on September 30th.
The RFMO requires that bottom trawling may only continue if a peer-review is satisfied there will be no significant adverse effect on vulnerable seamount, hydrothermal vent, cold water coral and sponge field ecosystems.
Areas where vulnerable ecosystems are known or likely to occur must be closed to bottom fishing unless, conservation and management measures are established, or it is determined that bottom fishing will not have significant adverse impacts on vulnerable ecosystems, and the long-term sustainability of deep sea fish stocks. |
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It is known from bycatch that deepsea coral is destroyed by bottom trawling. RFMO voluntary interim measures requiring fishers to show there will be no adverse effect are impractical in the near term.
The collection of deepsea data and species at depths of 800 to 1500 metres, and the definition of ecosystems is a very expensive undertaking that will take many years. Expectation that the fishing industry will do it voluntarilly and immediately is unrealistic. |
Even finding species or benthic habitats within the vast expanse of the high seas is an undaunting task.
With terrestrial natural resource exploitation, the equivalent of RFMO interim measures is an environmental impact statement. An EIS will often stop activities based on the protection of one species. An EIS is not normally required to define an ecosystem.
It cannot be determined that bottom trawling will not have significant adverse impacts on vulnerable ecosystems, because ecosystems cannot be immediately defined.
In any case, in areas where vulnerable ecosystems are known to occur, there is no way that conservation and management measures can protect deepsea species.
It is impossible for bottom trawling to not have a significant adverse impact on vulnerable ecosystems, because it destroys everything in its path over large areas.
Instead, restrictions are necessary on the destruction of known vulnerable species, especially slow-growing and long-living species such as coral. This will simply exclude bottom trawling.
The Minister of Fisheries, Jim Anderton, has confirmed that the new rules would limit high seas bottom trawling by New Zealand vessels.
“It will be a challenge for New Zealand vessels to satisfy the assessment and requirements of the new rules. However, the industry has known for some time that these controls were likely and that they would have to meet them if they want to keep on bottom trawling on the high seas,” he said. |
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A fish as old as the bloody hills .....
Orange roughy live around seamounts, and plateaus just off the continental shelf at depths from 700 to 1,500 metres. It has one of the longest lives of all marine species - 120 to 130 years, and is thought to mature and start reproducing between 23 and 32 years of age. It has a low fecundity and low egg count of 40,000 to 60,000 eggs.
Orange roughy grow to 50 cm in length and weigh up to 3.6 kg, but are commonly caught at 35-45 cm and 0.8 to 1.5 kg. Long living deepsea fish are slow to recover from fishing, and generally are depleted more rapidly and recover more slowly, if at all, than inshore fish. |
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No environmental consideration of bottom trawling in orange roughy allowable catch decision
Bottom trawling is the only fishing method used in the orange roughy fishery of the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone. So a reduction in the orange roughy total allowable commercial catch (TACC) means a little less bottom trawling.
But ongoing, environmentally uncontrolled bottom trawling in the EEZ contradicts the position New Zealand took at the United Nations in the autumn of 2006, and interim measures currently being adopted by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO).
After New Zealand's weak position on a proposed United Nations moratorium on bottom trawling was reported in 2006, the government issued a statement claiming that it was taking a strong stance on bottom trawling.
On September 25th 2006 the Minister of Fisheries Jim Anderton said "... New Zealand already had a very good system of management within its own EEZ that ensured fisheries would remain sustainable and that environmental issues were addressed ..." |
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There is no indication that the fisheries management system in the EEZ is addressing environmental issues. |
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Catches in most of the major fisheries are set close to the maximum sustainable level. The Ministry of Fisheries states that it is not enough to just manage catches sustainably.
According to Ministry documents, the effects fishing has on the wider environment - fish and other creatures caught or killed during fishing, habitat damage, and the flow-on effects on marine ecosystems must also be considered.
The Ministry of Fisheries states that in order to manage fishing's "footprint" on other species, and on marine habitats and ecosystems, limits must be set around the level of effect that is acceptable, and what is not.
These government fishing management policies are being ignored. Damage to the marine ecosystems that provide fish habitat is not considered in quota decisions.
In 2005, the Ministry of Fisheries set out a Strategy for Managing the Environmental Effects of Fishing (SMEEF), describing how these limits will be set.
SMEEF says "Three key factors will be considered when setting environmental limits: weighing up whether effects on species or habitats are sustainable in the long-term; what society feels is the right balance between use and protection; and what the needs of future generations might be." |
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A photograph taken by an onboard observer shows a very large piece of red gorgonian coral, hundreds of years old, being manhandled to dump it back into the ocean. Other pieces of coral are on the deck of the vessel in bottom trawling nets.
 View larger image
See slide show of 70 bycatch images |
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When introducing SMEEF in 2005, then Minister of Fisheries, David Benson-Pope said "... managing fishing's imprint on non-target species, on marine habitats, and on the wider ecosystems in our oceans is to be as important as maintaining the target fish stocks themselves ..."
In a letter to TerraNature on October 27th 2006, Jim Anderton said "... SMEEF seeks to establish acceptable limits of, among other things, the impact of bottom trawling ..."
In his determination of 2007-08 orange roughy quotas, the Minister of Fisheries makes no reference to SMEEF considerations.
In the Minister's report "Review of sustainability measures and other management controls for the 2007-08 fishing year", which explains the 1,000t catch reduction in the Chatham Rise and Southern New Zealand orange roughy fishery, he said "... I am dissatisfied with the information that is currently available ... the inability to age the fish, to estimate recruitment, or to delineate the stocks, appears to me to severely limit the ability of the model to support management decisions ... there needs to be a change in the way this fishery is managed ..."
When making TACC reductions effective from October 1st 2006, Mr Anderton said he was aware of the ongoing difficulties of managing orange roughy and that he would be monitoring the fishery to ensure catch limits are set at a sustainable level.
The Minister's consecutive dissatisfactions during the last two years are a blatant contradiction of the "very good system of management". he referred to on September 25th 2006 when defending New Zealand's so-called strong stance on bottom trawling at the United Nations. |
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The New Zealand governent supports South Pacific RFMO interim bottom trawling measures, but is not taking the same measures in the EEZ. |
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The Fisheries Minister, Jim Anderton, said on September 14th how pleased he was with the RFMO's precautionary and ecosystem approach which advocates long term sustainability over short term fishing opportunities, especially when information is uncertain, and takes environmental impacts into account.
The question now remains whether New Zealand will force its fishing fleet to adhere to South Pacific RFMO voluntary interim measures, which it could have done in 2006 or sooner, in accordance with its alleged "strong stance on bottom trawling".
Or will the government turn a blind eye, just as it has ignored its' own SMEEF management strategies, to allow bottom trawling to continue to destroy benthic ecosystems in the EEZ. |
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