Zealand Fisheries Research Articles

Fishery catch is affected by geographic expansion, fishing down food webs and climate change in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Historical fishing effort has resulted, in many parts of the ocean, in increasing catches of smaller, lower trophic level species once larger higher trophic level species have been depleted. Concurrently, changes in the geographic distribution of marine species have been observed as species track their thermal affinity in line with ocean warming. However, geographic shifts in fisheries, including to deeper waters, may conceal the phenomenon of fishing down the food web and effects of climate warming on fish stocks. Fisheries-catch weighted metrics such as the Mean Trophic Level (MTL) and Mean Temperature of the Catch (MTC) are used to investigate these phenomena, although apparent trends of these metrics can be masked by the aforementioned geographic expansion and deepening of fisheries catch across large areas and time periods. We investigated instances of both fishing down trophic levels and climate-driven changes in the geographic distribution of fished species in New Zealand waters from 1950-2019, using the MTL and MTC. Thereafter, we corrected for the masking effect of the geographic expansion of fisheries within these indices by using the Fishing-in-Balance (FiB) index and the adapted Mean Trophic Level (aMTL) index. Our results document the offshore expansion of fisheries across the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from 1950-2019, as well as the pervasiveness of fishing down within nearshore fishing stock assemblages. We also revealed the warming of the MTC for pelagic-associated fisheries, trends that were otherwise masked by the depth- and geographic expansion of New Zealand fisheries across the study period.

Changes in trophic structure of an exploited fish community at the centennial scale are linked to fisheries and climate forces

Understanding how marine food webs are affected by anthropogenic stressors is an important steppingstone toward the improved management of natural resources. Stable isotope analysis of historical and modern samples spanning a century indicated that the niche width of an exploited fish community increased after the expansion of New Zealand fisheries. Since the 2000s most species increased their reliance on food webs supported by pelagic production, compared to coastal production supported by macroalgae, and shifted to a higher trophic level. Overall changes were coincident with ocean warming, climate oscillations, prey abundance and fishing intensity, but their effects were specific to each fish assemblage analyzed. Data derived from historical samples revealed how anthropogenic stressors can drive long-term shifts in the trophic structure of an exploited fish community.

Synergistic effects of harvest and climate drive synchronous somatic growth within key New Zealand fisheries

Fisheries harvest has pervasive impacts on wild fish populations, including the truncation of size and age structures, altered population dynamics and density, and modified habitat and assemblage composition. Understanding the degree to which harvest-induced impacts increase the sensitivity of individuals, populations and ultimately species to environmental change is essential to ensuring sustainable fisheries management in a rapidly changing world. Here we generated multiple long-term (44-62years), annually resolved, somatic growth chronologies of four commercially important fishes from New Zealand's coastal and shelf waters. We used these novel data to investigate how regional- and basin-scale environmental variability, in concert with fishing activity, affected individual somatic growth rates and the magnitude of spatial synchrony among stocks. Changes in somatic growth can affect individual fitness and a range of population and fishery metrics such as recruitment success, maturation schedules and stock biomass. Across all species, individual growth benefited from a fishing-induced release of density controls. For nearshore snapper and tarakihi, regional-scale wind and temperature also additively affected growth, indicating that future climate change-induced warming and potentially strengthened winds will initially promote the productivity of more poleward populations. Fishing increased the sensitivity of deep-water hoki and ling growth to the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). A forecast shift to a positive IPO phase, in concert with current harvest strategies, will likely promote individual hoki and ling growth. At the species level, historical fishing practices and IPO synergized to strengthen spatial synchrony in average growth between stocks separated by 400-600nm of ocean. Increased spatial synchrony can, however, increase the vulnerability of stocks to deleterious stochastic events. Together, our individual- and species-level results show how fishing and environmental factors can conflate to initially promote individual growth but then possibly heighten the sensitivity of stocks to environmental change.

Shifting trophic architecture of marine fisheries in New Zealand: Implications for guiding effective ecosystem‐based management

AbstractNew Zealand has led the world in restoration of marine fisheries since the introduction of the Quota Management System in 1986, but challenges remain in minimizing the ecosystem‐level effects of industrialized fishing. We analysed existing long‐term fisheries data sets from 1931 to 2015 in New Zealand to resolve trends in important ecological properties of major exploited fish communities. Increases in community dissimilarities of catch composition in 1931 and 1972, followed by increasing total landings, highlight major expansions of fishing grounds and exploited species during these periods. Mirroring global patterns, the remarkable rise in fishing power, demand and generation of new markets in New Zealand have all contributed to this expansion. Marine Trophic Indices (MTIs) of landings have decreased together with total catch after the year 2000, reflecting smaller catches with a higher composition of lower trophic‐level species in recent years. Differences in relative abundance of species estimated between fisheries‐dependent and fisheries‐independent data were observed, where high‐value species displayed better agreement in relative abundance between data sets. Despite being under a Quota Management System, temporal development of MTI values relative to the timing of industrial expansion of fisheries was remarkably similar to those observed in the North Sea and Brazil, with a single expansion and decline. MTI values presented better long‐term stability in the US fisheries analysed. Analysis of long‐term data and the development of well‐resolved ecological baselines will be the first step towards applying EBM to New Zealand fisheries, in keeping with global trends in fisheries management.

Sustainability in New Zealand's quota management system: A convenient story

New Zealand's fisheries management institutions represent a globally recognised story of a successful sustainable management regime, an accolade perceived to be based on its early and comprehensive adoption of a quota management system (QMS). This article questions these assumptions. There are three main strands to the argument. First, that the interpretation of sustainability in the New Zealand QMS disregards the social while simultaneously accentuating a particularly neoliberal economic paradigm in which sustainability is directed towards sustaining the wealth generating potential of quota holdings. Second, while in theory there is a separation of biological and economic conceptions of sustainability in the QMS, these processes are, in fact, deeply intertwined. Third, that the sustainability brand works to legitimise the privatisation and marketization of marine environments, to protect the income stream of quota investors, and to effectively incorporate and discipline dissent.

Overlap between flesh-footed shearwater Puffinus carneipes foraging areas and commercial fisheries in New Zealand waters

Although the flesh-footed shearwater Puffinus carneipes is a species with large population sizes (tens of thousands of breeding pairs) and widespread sub-tropical distribution across Australasian water masses, it is among the species most threatened by longline fisheries mortality in this region. While bycatch mitigation measures have been very successful in reducing mortality in some species, bycatch of flesh-footed shearwaters is still high, with captures estimated to exceed the sustainable take of 514 birds yr-1 by nearly 200 birds for New Zealand fisheries alone. Management agencies aiming to reduce the impact of fisheries mortality on the populations need to understand which marine areas are being used by flesh-footed shearwaters to better target fishery monitoring and mitigation efforts. Foraging studies of seabirds tell us about their use of resources, i.e. the way species segregate the available habitat and help to identify threats that may affect population viability. Breeding shearwaters were tracked from 2 New Zealand colonies using GPS loggers. Individuals foraged over shelf and deep oceanic waters up to 1200 km from their nesting sites during incubation but were mainly within 370 km during early chick rearing. The intensity of potential interactions increased for trawl and surface longline fishing between the January and February study periods but remained at a similar level for bottom longline fishing. Following the field data collection, changes to fishery monitoring were implemented in the areas where shearwaters foraged.

New Zealand's ecosystem approach to fisheries management

AbstractIn 1986, New Zealand introduced a radical new quota management system (QMS) based on individual transferable quotas (ITQ) for most of its key fisheries. New Zealand's QMS focuses primarily on the management of individual fish stocks through the setting of total allowable catches (TAC) and total allowable commercial catches (TACC, allocated as ITQ) and is therefore essentially a single species‐focussed system. However, New Zealand's Fisheries Act 1996 is designed to ‘provide for utilisation while ensuring sustainability’ and the obligation to ensure sustainability has led to the introduction of many measures to deal with: incidental captures of protected species (primarily marine mammals and seabirds); benthic effects caused by bottom trawl and dredge gear; changes to marine biodiversity; and the protection of habitats of particular significance for fisheries management. Together with directed fish stock management, these measures could be considered to constitute a first‐level ecosystem approach to fisheries management. Many authors have advocated incremental or evolutionary approaches to the implementation of ecosystem approaches, and this paper summarizes developments in New Zealand since 1986 that build on the success of the QMS in this way.

Experiences with the use of bioeconomic models in the management of Australian and New Zealand fisheries

Australian and New Zealand fisheries are considered the best managed in the world. Much of this is due to the explicit recognition of the role of incentives in the management of fisheries, and the benefits that can be achieved through the maximisation of economic returns as a key management objective. However, while management of fisheries in Australia is supported through the application of bioeconomic models, these play virtually no role in fisheries management in New Zealand. This discrepancy is a direct result of the differing emphasis on how economic objectives are achieved, with Australia targeting maximum economic yield (MEY) while New Zealand targets maximum sustainable yield. We present case studies from Australia illustrating how bioeconomic models have been developed to support fisheries management and briefly discuss the situation in New Zealand. While economic considerations are important in both countries, we find that the explicit MEY target in Australian Commonwealth managed fisheries has been a key driver for the development and use of bioeconomic models in fisheries management.

The evolution of New Zealand's fisheries science and management systems under ITQs†

Abstract Mace, P. M., Sullivan, K. J., and Cryer, M. 2014. The evolution of New Zealand's fisheries science and management systems under ITQs. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 71: 204–215. New Zealand implemented a comprehensive management system using individual transferable quotas in 1986 that has been instrumental in guiding the roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities of fisheries science, fisheries management, and the fishing industry ever since. However, at the time of the initial design, a number of issues were not adequately considered. These relate mainly to the dynamic nature of fish stocks, multispecies considerations, and environmental and other externalities. Subsequent efforts to address these issues have been challenging and many are not yet fully resolved. The outcomes for fisheries science, stock status, multispecies management, ecosystem effects, and fishing industry accountability have been mixed, although mostly positive. Fisheries science, fisheries management, and the fishing industry have all become much more professionalized and their activities have been increasingly streamlined. New initiatives to further improve the system continue to be researched and implemented. Overall, we believe that the positives considerably outweigh the negatives. The initial design has proved to be a system that can be built upon. Comparing New Zealand with most of the rest of the world, key positive outcomes for preventing overfishing are the current lack of significant overcapacity in most fisheries, the development of biological reference points and a harvest strategy standard, the favourable stock status for the majority of stocks with known status, and the development and implementation of comprehensive risk assessments and management plans to protect seabirds and marine mammals.

Local people see and care most? Severe depletion of inshore fisheries and its consequences for Māori communities in New Zealand

ABSTRACTOverfishing has the potential to adversely affect the ecological stability, economic value, social and spiritual integrity of a given area. Of these contexts, relatively little emphasis in literature is placed on the social and cultural consequences of overfishing and marine biodiversity loss.New Zealand's fisheries management system is regarded as one of the best in the world. But is this ‘success’ reflected at the local community scale? This study uses the knowledge of 100 participants from different stakeholder groups including Māori, New Zealand's indigenous peoples, and investigates local perception of the state of inshore fisheries stocks.Quantitative methods were used to assess the relative significance of important seafood species among different groups, while qualitative analysis highlighted main stakeholder concerns. A common consensus among all participants emerged; access to important inshore seafood species had become more difficult during the course of their lifetime with marked declines occurring from the 1970s onwards. Even where food species are present, they are typically harder to obtain, take longer to harvest and/or require expensive gear.Five species of marine invertebrates, three finfish species and one seabird were identified as having considerable worth to stakeholders. Of these, quantitative analysis revealed that pāua (abalone), tuna (eel) and tītī (muttonbird) were of particular significance to Māori stakeholders. Māori discussed pāua almost twice as much as non‐Māori, despite pāua ranking as the most significant species among both ethnic groups. Furthermore, Māori associated the depletion of pāua with a loss of cultural identity, hospitality, tradition, practices, emotional and spiritual connection to their environment. As such, in this paper pāua is defined as a ‘cultural keystone species’, whereby the removal of such a species jeopardizes cultural integrity.This paper serves as a case study bringing to light the disparity between an internationally acclaimed fisheries management strategy and the concerns of local stakeholders. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Precautionary Principle in the New Zealand Fisheries Act: Challenges in the New Zealand Court of Appeal

The New Zealand Fisheries Act 1996 was enacted with the express purpose of protecting the marine environment. Notably, it incorporates the concept of precaution. In 2002-2004 NZ courts decided three cases on the section that incorporates precaution. All these cases struck down decisions where the Minister of Fisheries purported to rely on precaution to support measures protecting marine mammals from the effects of commercial fishing activities.This paper considers the 2004 Court of Appeal decision and assesses its implication for the use of the precautionary principle. The paper first outlines the precautionary principle in international law, and then in New Zealand law. It next describes its incorporation in the Fisheries Act, before focusing on the Court of Appeal decision. The paper concludes with observations that the section incorporating precaution is effectively being used contrary to its intended purpose. This suggests lessons for anyone considering statutory incorporation of the precautionary principle for purposes of environmental protection and is relevant to the regulation of the commercial use of any natural resources.This paper was first written in 2005, presented as a conference paper in 2006, and is the basis for another paper (work in progress) on developments in this area 2010-2012.

The Reconstitution of Property Relations in New Zealand Fisheries

This article discusses structural transformations in small-scale fisheries in a New Zealand community. Expressions of fishing practice and the people who pursue these practices are subject to three different management regimes—Commercial, Recreational and Customary Regulations—each of which is rooted in a particular model of ownership. The community is simultaneously subject to globalization as represented by the local fish processing plant, a burgeoning tourist market, and the Quota Management Regime. These factors intertwine in complex ways to threaten community cohesion; yet, fishers, irrespective of category, express sentiments indicating an emergent level of solidarity based on a shared productive activity and a common distaste for various elements of globalization.

Institutional Reforms in New Zealand Fisheries as an Ecological Modernization Project

Ecological modernization theory precepts have increasingly come to inform natural resource management policies in Western capitalist societies. Our objective is to analyze recent fisheries reforms in New Zealand informed by the theory of ecological modernization. Ecological modernization theory asserts that sustainability and economic growth can be achieved together through the introduction of new technologies, “economization” of the environment through introducing market-based instruments to internalize environmental externalities, and the devolution of responsibilities to relevant stakeholders. We argue, however, that ecological modernization theory, strongly implicit in the language of recent New Zealand fisheries reforms, has produced uneven outcomes as a potential pathway toward sustainability.

Fish and boats: Fisheries management issues in Northland

New Zealand fisheries management has been the focus of a great deal of research, largely because of the early, and very successful, introduction of a neoliberal property regime in the country's commercial fisheries. Less attention has been paid to the other management activities of New Zealand's Ministry of Fisheries. This paper outlines the fisheries management issues arising over the last decade in the region to the north of Auckland and the practices of the Ministry as it worked to address them.

Barriers to Collaborative Governance in New Zealand Fisheries: Pt I

AbstractRecurrent ecological crises in fisheries throughout the world make it imperative that a fundamental re‐alignment of institutional arrangements occurs in order to promote sustainability. Collaborative institutional arrangements that provide incentives for collective action are seen as a more effective way to solve this problem than the more traditional hierarchical regulatory or market led approaches used in the past. While the merits of devolved collaborative governance have been stressed in recent fisheries literature, this paper is the first in a series of two which attempt to critically examine the barriers which impede collaboration in fisheries, using a New Zealand case study. This first paper introduces the New Zealand fisheries context, and continues with a literature review of the theories underpinning collaborative management with insights from the current debates on localised governance of natural resources informed by institutional analysis approaches.

Barriers to Collaborative Governance in New Zealand Fisheries: Pt II

AbstractRecurrent ecological crises in fisheries throughout the world make it imperative that a fundamental re‐alignment of institutional arrangements occurs in order to promote sustainability. Collaborative institutional arrangements that provide incentives for collective action are seen as a more effective way to solve this problem than the more traditional hierarchical regulatory or market led approaches used in the past. While the merits of devolved collaborative governance have been stressed in recent fisheries literature, this paper is the second in a series of two which attempt to critically examine the barriers which impede collaboration in fisheries, using a New Zealand case study. This paper presents a typology of collaboration in New Zealand fisheries, and outlines three barriers to collaboration: the bio‐physical attributes of the resource, community factors and institutional barriers. We conclude the arguing that the success of devolved collaboration has so far been contested and highly uneven in the New Zealand setting.

Assessing primary production constraints in New Zealand fisheries

We investigate the use of an energetically based fishing pressure index (FPI) as a rapid assessment tool to investigate harvests of fishing stocks in relation to energetic limits in New Zealand's (NZ) exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Calculation of the FPI is undertaken by comparing satellite-derived spatial estimates of net primary production (NPP) with estimates of primary production required to support a given catch (PPR) using the simplified trophic model applied by Pauly and Christensen [Pauly, D., Christensen, V., 1995. Primary production required to sustain global fisheries. Nature 374, 225–257]. Historic comparisons of PPR to NPP in NZ's EEZ highlight a reduction in fishing pressure from 20% of NPP required to support catches in 1998 to below 10% in 2006, which suggests NZ fisheries are generally operating well within their energetic limits for the stocks under consideration. However, analysis of data at finer spatial scales shows that in 2006 some fished areas may have exceeded local energetic limits. The use of this technique is discussed in relation to the production and conservation goals of fisheries and in focusing science effort to the most affected areas and species. In particular, the efficacy of applying the technique to finer scale analysis is discussed with regard to the active management of NZ's migratory hoki ( Macruronus novaezelandiae) fishery, where a number of catch areas with high fishing pressures were identified from 1998 to 2002, preceding a large reduction in the total allowable commercial catch (TACC) in 2004.

Seabird bycatch in New Zealand trawl and longline fisheries, 1998-2004

Fisheries bycatch is a threatening process for populations of procellariiform seabirds, and is of particular importance for the conservation of albatross, an especially threatened group at a global scale. There is a high level ofendemism of albatross and petrels in New Zealand waters, and around one-third of the world's species of procellariiform seabirds breed in this area. Therefore, understanding the levels of mortality of these species in the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone is important for global conservation of the order. For New Zealand fisheries for the 1998-2004 fishing years, we estimated total seabird bycatch using data from scientific observers with model-based estimation procedures. Although sectors of the fishing activity were not evenly covered by observers, we were able to estimate seabird bycatch for large scale fisheries by vessel size (split at 28 m length), season, area and year. Approximately 5500 seabirds (credible interval between 2000 and 10 000) are estimated to be landed in New Zealand trawl and longline fisheries annually, as a result of interactions with fishing gear. Few data were available for the small vessels, thus estimates are highly uncertain. Mortalities are likely to be most common in trawl fisheries at approximately 2000-3000 seabirds annually, with the greatest contribution coming from large vessels. Around one half of these birds were albatross. For large surface longline vessels we estimated that fewer than 500 seabirds were killed annually during the main tuna fishing season. For large demersal vessels, seabird mortality was estimated to have decreased from around 1800 seabirds in 2001 to 600 seabirds in 2004. We report observed captures by species for each fishing method and area for the fishing years 1998-2004. Thirty-one species of Procellariiformes were identified during this period, over half of which are threatened species. For some species, such as White-chinned Petrel, Procellaria aequinoctialis and White-capped Albatross, 1halassarche steadi, several hundred individuals were caught. For 15 species, fewer than 10 individuals were identified. However, the unrepresentative deployment ofobserver coverage across fishery areas makes it difficult to interpret the conservation implications of species captures. A high proportion of the petrel species was observed caught primarily from areas surrounding their breeding sites while albatross were caught across breeding and non-breeding areas. Greatly improved observer sampling ratios, and studies of population status and trends, are needed to understand the conservation implications of the effects of New Zealand trawl and longline fishing mortalities on seabird populations.

The promise and perils of building a co-management regime: An institutional assessment of New Zealand fisheries management between 1999 and 2005

Abstract This article uses a longitudinal survey (1999–2005) of commercial stakeholder organizations (CSOs) to assess the development, strengths and weaknesses of New Zealand's fisheries co-management over its first six years. After presenting the current characteristics and activities of CSOs, the institutional analysis and development (IAD) Framework is used to examine the regime. Results show a pattern of strengths and weaknesses with some areas substantially improved since earlier waves of the survey, while other areas have experienced surprising setbacks. These results suggest that in 2005 the regime remained fragile. Finally, New Zealand's recent move towards inshore “Shared Fisheries” management is explored in light of these findings.

Spatial conflicts in New Zealand fisheries: The rights of fishers and protection of the marine environment

Abstract New Zealand fisheries legislation provides commercial fishing rights to holders of individual transferable quota (ITQ). The settlement of fisheries claims against the Crown by Maori, New Zealand's indigenous people, brought about the transfer of ITQ holdings to Maori, and an obligation on the Crown to recognise and provide for indigenous (customary) fishing rights over fishing grounds and other areas that have been of special significance to Maori. Some types of customary fishing areas exclude commercial fishing and could affect recreational fishing. Fisheries legislation requires that regulatory measures be put in place to avoid, remedy or mitigate the adverse effects of fishing. The Government also aims to protect marine biodiversity by having 10% of New Zealand waters in some form of protection by 2010. The legislative processes for protecting the marine environment and establishing customary fishing areas include assessment of effects on fishing rights. This paper explores the conflicts that arise from legislative obligations to uphold the rights of fishers, to sustain fishstocks and to protect the marine environment. The paper concludes that inconsistent legislative obligations and their disparate processes have led to spatial conflicts and a race for the allocation of space. Legislative obligations need to be integrated to maintain a balance between use of fisheries resources and protection of the marine environment.