Public misled over snapper policing - again!

Last year an independent peer-reviewed scientific report Reconstruction of marine fisheries catches for New Zealand (1950-2010) revealed that New Zealand’s real catch is conservatively more than twice the reported catch, with unreported commercial catch and discards accounting for most of the discrepancy.

Then a leaked Ministry of Primary Industries internal report ‘Operation Achilles’ admitted ‘… the fact that we have known about these dumpings/discarding issues for many years, and would appear to have done little to combat it, would be very difficult to explain...’. This statement suggested incompetence at best or collusion with the commercial industry at worst.

MPI and its minister initially did their best to ignore the situation and sweep the commercial fish-dumping issue under the carpet, but this attitude and other information revealed, prompted a public outcry that resulted in a review of the matter by Michael Heron, QC. The Heron Report found that the MPI’s decision making was ‘flawed’.

One of the measures announced by MPI to try and answer widespread criticism of its actions was to fast-track a system of remote monitoring on commercial boats. But, in typical fashion, they neglected to mention that the company collecting and monitoring the video footage, Trident Systems, is in fact owned by the commercial-fishing-industry companies – a classic case of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

To make matters worse, Trident has since admitted that it ‘lost’ 80% of its camera footage in the all-important Snapper 1 fishery over the critical spawning/schooling season. Then Trident Systems Chairman Jeremy Fleming denied that the monitoring system had anything to do with policing commercial-fishing behaviour anyway!

“The contract is not for surveillance and enforcement – it’s a science-based contract,” he reportedly said, countering the impression given by the MPI and its minister that this new electronic monitoring system would sort out any illegal fishing issues in the commercial industry.

More leaks

The latest chapter in this appalling saga involves yet another leaked MPI report; a Greenpeace press release on June 6 this year stated:

A Government report leaked to Greenpeace shows the public is being misled over the effectiveness of video cameras used to police the fishing industry.

A Ministry of Primary Industries internal document says the new surveillance cameras installed on commercial fishing boats aren’t up to the task of checking on snapper size. The MPI and its minister, Nathan Guy, previously went on record saying the video cameras can be used to make sure fishing fleets are legally compliant, and when they are not, footage can be used to prosecute the fishing companies.

However, the report obtained by Greenpeace directly contradicts this claim. It says the camera footage is not up to standard for compliance and cannot be used as evidence for prosecutions.

“This is yet another blow to the credibility of MPI as a fishing regulator,” says Greenpeace Executive Director Russel Norman.

The MPI report states the cameras cannot accurately measure the exact size of the snapper says Dr Norman. They’re not fit for purpose. This means they won’t be any use in many court actions over fish dumping by commercial fishers.

“It’s a shambles. The minister and the government have claimed that video monitoring will solve the widespread practice of illegal fish dumping in the commercial trawl industry. Yet all this time MPI have been sitting on a report by their own scientists which makes it clear that the video evidence isn’t good enough for a successful prosecution.”

“There is a simple solution to the fish-dumping problem – make commercial fishers land every fish they catch. That way, no fish are wasted, we incentivise onshore value adding and processing, and the video evidence can tell if the fish are dumped.” This approach is backed by the scientists commissioned by MPI to write the report. Greenpeace believes it’s time for a wide-ranging inquiry into the relationship between MPI’s fisheries section and the commercial-fishing industry.

A full copy of the leaked report is available at: http://greenpeace.nz/mpi_report.

Really, minister?

When quizzed by Newshub on June 6, the Minister of Primary Industries, Nathan Guy, dismissed the leaked report, saying it was only “half-finished”.

“The scientists had a look at it. They said it’s very crappy. They put it in the bin,” he said.

However, Newshub also quoted one of the report’s authors, an Associate Professor in Forensic Science who has since left MPI. He said he believed the report was suppressed because it highlighted problems. He rejected the suggestion that it is poor quality or half-finished. In fact, he says it was final and had been peer-reviewed.

After it was written, the author says his bosses reassigned him from fisheries to honey. MPI won’t confirm this, citing privacy reasons.

Despite attacking the report, even Mr Guy accepts the central premise of it is true – MPI cannot accurately assess the size of fish seen in the footage.