What the heck is going on with crayfish and scallops? The same old story really...the ongoing symptoms of a failing Quota Management System. Besides from the insultingly short 18 working day timeframe for public consultation and submissions the key points are as follows: Crayfish - Most areas up for review Commercial sector currently catch over 13 times more crays than the public do. With over 2 million pot lifts being made a year it’s not surprising! Meanwhile recreational catch has plummeted. Recreational fishers are now only managing to catch 44% of their annual allowances. We want real crayfish, not paper ones! Commercial fishers in 3 zones are exploiting a loophole allowing them to take undersized crayfish to satisfy market demands. This has to stop! Commercial and recreational catch rates in the greater Auckland and Bay of Plenty (Cray 2) are the worst in the country because of shamefully low stock levels. The plan being considered by the Minister will fail to restore the Cray 2 stock - Too little, too late. Crayfish submission Scallops - Nelson/Marlborough Most of the scallops in Tasman Bay and Golden Bay have been dredged up or smothered in mud. Last year they closed Tasman Bay and Golden Bay and commercial fishers shifted their efforts to the Marlborough Sounds We must stop the overfishing and the damaging dredging of previously closed commercial areas in the Sounds that will impact long standing recreational fisheries. The stock as a whole is below 10% of the unfished biomass (the MPI hard limit) so, according to their own set of rules, the scallop fishery must be closed. If we don’t take action now, the fishing public will probably be faced with cuts to bag/size limits in the future despite not being the cause of the problem. Scallop submission Campaign LegaSea will very soon be launching a slightly different campaign format to previous campaigns. We are putting an open letter to minister Nathan Guy outlining the concerns about the lack of respect that his ministry is showing towards the public and we will be encouraging people to support the letter. When this is live, Ill flick you an email and ask that you support the campaign by sharing with your network via email, Facebook (if you are inclined) etc. While crayfish and scallops might not be as popular as, say snapper, it is hugely important that we collectively keep the heat on and attract ministerial and media attention to expose this scam. Please help us! Before we start the campaign we want to do a drive to get even more people into our reach. You can help by: 1. Sharing this post on your Facebook page or posting the attached image on your Facebook page 2. Sending the attached image and a message to your network encouraging them to join our network. Any feedback or questions most welcome.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 11:13:58 +0000
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