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High School research highlights conflict over fishing in Tasman Bay
September 24th, 2010
By David Armstrong
Results of research by Bruce Reid's Year 11 Community Issues class this third term brought to the surface ongoing differences of opinion over how fishing in Tasman Bay can be made sustainable, in the process satisfying the demands of commercial and recreational fishers.
The class presented their findings today to the media and a group of fishing industry and recreational leaders, and soon they gained direct insight into how people with strongly opposing views interpret and use statistics to support their arguments.
The findings of the survey, which centred on interviews with 396 Motuekans in the shopping area in mid-August, were presented by Rebecca Adams (pictured left) and Jessica Fletcher (right) using the two PowerPoint presentations chosen as best by their classmates.
Watching were visitors Doug Saunders-Loder, president of the NZ Commercial Fishermans Federation, Geoff Rowling, president of the NZ Recreational Fishing Council, Martin Barlow, the Motueka-based president of Tasfish, and Daryl Crimp, editor of
The Fishing Paper. High School principal Scott Haines also looked on.
After the initial presentation, the industry leaders put their cases strongly, sometimes questioning some of the survey's methods and conclusions in order to find support for their own views.
Some students were surprised and intrigued to see how vigorously passionate opponents will confront and argue their case with conviction, and how keen they are to educate the public toward their view.
The term-long project began with the choice of topic to research. They heard opposing addresses from Doug Saunders-Loder and Geoff Rowling, to explain their views on the issue. They then researched some facts about the existing regulations applying to both commercial and recreational fishers in Tasman Bay. Their concern was that snapper fish stocks in Tasman Bay were under pressure and present restrictions may not be allowing their recovery.
They formed a hypothesis and formulated questions to see if the community would support further restrictions on both commercial and recreational fishing, in order to improve stocks. "We believed that most people in our community would share our concern about snapper stocks and support proposals to further restrict commercial fishing especially in the spawning areas."
The finding of the survey which most surprised the industry officials was that, when asked what people believed the status of snapper stocks were now compared with 10 years ago, only 13% thought they were improving while 44% thought they were declining. People were divided about whether current restrictions (200 tonnes of quota) were allowing snapper stocks to improve.
Of those interviewed, 87% were locals and two thirds had fished in Tasman Bay in the past five years. Only one in four rated their experience as successful although nearly half reported mixed success. Just 11% regarded themselves as regular fishers while 34% never go fishing.
There was strong support (72% up to 84%) for all proposals to further restrict commercial fishing of snapper in Tasman Bay such as reducing the quota, banning trawling in spawning waters, banning trawling in winter off D'Urville Island and restricting commercial fishing to the use of longlines.
However, reducing the recreational fishing bag limit was much less popular with only 44% in favour. Those who claimed to be regular fishers were even stronger supporters of all the proposals further restricting commercial snapper fishing and 51% were opposed to reducing the recreational bag limit.
The collapse of the scallop beds was mainly blamed on commercial dredging by 45%, with 25% attributing blame to recreational dredging and 25% blaming environmental causes such as silting.
In conclusion, the students believe that these results suggest that our community does want further restrictions on commercial snapper fishing before snapper stocks are able to attain a sustainable population. The question now is how can that goal be achieved? What actions are required and who has the authority to implement them?
Read the full report (including questions and results) here »
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