Common Ground Reached

What happened at FISHinFuture Search 14-16th Feb 2013?

After three days of sharing information and learning from each other, the 66 participants (see pic) at the FISHinFuture Search event in Nelson demonstrated that not only do Kiwis love their recreational fishing, they now want to step up and take care of our fisheries and oceans.

Every single participant at the event agreed to a series of common ground statements (see pic below) that together demonstrate an ethic of care, kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga for the treasures of the sea. These areas of common ground were not reached lightly. It took courage by the participants to share and listen and make the investment of three days.

Visit http://fishinfuturesearch.co.nz/news/ to identify a new way forward for our recreational fishing future.

Sandra Janoff, Future Search co-developer, said “If you make a circle bigger, things get better and conversely if you make a circle smaller things get worse.”

This was the case for the FISHinFuture Search event. The six months of planning to get the ‘whole system’ in the room paid off with diverse perspectives from youth fishers, scientists, industry, government, environmentalists, advocates and fishers from across the country shaking the cobwebs off some beliefs and opening the way for new shared realities.

Up until this point in recreational fishing advocacy, so much energy has been spent negotiating differences that it little energy was left for finding common ground. The FISHinFuture Search event enabled a total focus on finding those areas of agreement.

In the last stretch of the three-day FISHinFuture Search event, a new steering committee was established to pursue progress on the areas of common ground identified, in particular securing enough seed funding to enable action. This committee consists of a range of people (see box) from the event with emphasis being placed on a mix of people who are relatively ‘new’ to the fostering change process and those with experience to secure seed funding and sketch organisational details for a future national body.

So what next?

Updates:
The new steering committee will get together and work out a timeframe for progressing the momentum from the FISHinFuture Search event. Updates at www.fishinfuturesearch.co.nz

Full report:
Within the next two months a full report on the FISHinFuture Search event will be developed and communicated to interested parties. This report will be developed in association with the new steering committee and will be fully accessible at

Your part:
The FISHinFuture Search website is staying open  so all New Zealanders and visitors to New Zealand can post their ideas on what their desired fishing future looks like.

Funding:
The FISHinFuture Search project still requires sponsorship to continue this exciting change process for the good of all recreational fishing in New Zealand. Sponsorship enquiries can be directed to the FISHinFuture Search Project Manager at

In summary, FISHinFuture Search has been an exciting and successful event. It truly was a meeting of diverse minds focussed wholly on creating a new path for our fishing future. The circle is now being made bigger to include all New Zealanders and others so we can all make our fishing better.

Interim steering committee to progress FISHinFuture Search common ground:
Brett Bensemann, Don Boddie, Owen Braddock, Peter Ellery, Richmond Hollis,  Ted Howard, Heath Kamins, Derrick Paull, Stef Railey,
Nikki Searancke, Aaron Shields and Steve Terry.