Keith Mawson: Egmont Seafoods owner says new fishing regulation proposals will reflect the leap in the industry's technology.

A seafood company says new fishing regulation proposals will hopefully reflect the leap in the industry's technology.  

The Government's wanting public consultation on changes to the Fisheries Act.  

It would allow catch limits to be more readily extended or reduced, and let boats with cameras installed, dump unwanted catch at sea. 

Egmont Seafoods owner Keith Mawson told Francesca Rudkin parts of the system haven't changed for 40 years, but their technology's come a long way since then. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the fishing industry is welcoming a proposed major shakeup
of the Fisheries Act. It would see a loosening of
catch regulations and restrict who can access camera footage from
fishing boats, meaning only MPI and the courts would have
access to the footage. Keith Morson as a fisherman and
owner of Eggmont Seafoods in New Plymouth, and he joins me, now,

(00:21):
thank you for your time, Keith, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning, Francesca Hey, is this a win for you? Look,
this has been in the something that the industry has
been wanting to get addressed for a long period of time.
You know, they're quite a management system has been in
force now for nearly forty years, but we've had a
real change in technology on our vessels, the amount of

(00:47):
transparency that we have, and you know, there's a lot
of technology that the fishermen are dealing with these days.
So the regulations of the Fisheries Act needs to take
into account the changes that we've had within the industry.
So you know, the changes that are being recommended or

(01:09):
that are being addressed in this discussion paper are certainly
things that we've been having to deal with for a long.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Period of time, Keith, the catching regulations are they holding
you back?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Look, it's really complex. The catching regulations that we're having
to deal with on a day to day basis make
it really difficult for the guys on the water and
also for the land based operators as well. So I
think this will simplify and make it easier for both

(01:42):
the harvesters on the water and the operators on land
to be able to get on and do their business.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
What do you think about anyone being able to access
footage from boats?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, Look, I know that people want and there's certainly
been some bad press around the fresh fishing industry for
a long period of time, but we're in a really
heavily regulated environment and it's very transparent what we do
on a day to day basis. A lot of these
fishermen are out on the water for three, four or

(02:18):
five days at a time, living on those vessels. To
have footage of those operations available to the general public,
you know, I just don't think that that should necessarily,
you know, just just be as visible as people would
like it to be. You know, the regulators certainly have

(02:41):
access to that information and they can see what fishermen
are doing, where they're doing it, how they're doing it,
and I just don't know that that's something that should
be available to the general public. It could be taken
out of context if they clip or take certain parts

(03:01):
of a fishing activity, and we've seen that play out
in the past sometimes with NGOs. So no, I don't
think that footage that our fishermen are supplying is necessarily
something that should be in the public. Tonay, Okay, Can
I just go.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Back to catching regulations for a moment. Loosening the catch regulations?
Would that be quite area specific?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Look, it's like I said, it's really complex. For example,
you have some fish species that have got minimum legal
sizes snapper, tero key. You've got other species that haven't
got minimum legal sizes. So if you have a small snapper,
you can return that to the sea legally. If you

(03:47):
have a small gernerd, you're required to bring that back in.
So it's not necessarily a loosening of the regulations. It's
just providing the ability for the fishermen to make some
decisions around what species they should be bringing.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
In from an economic point of view. But whilst they
are harvesting, they're still going to be recording all of
their cats against quota, so there's not going to be
a sustainability issue. It's just about simplifying their ability to
operate and return tists to the sea. If it has

(04:29):
no real economic value, there's no sense in bringing in
small gerner that's just going to end up in landfill.
It's father off to be returned to the sea and
go back in the food chain.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Okay, thank you very much for your time in talking
us through that. That was Keith Morson. He's a fisherman
and owner of Egorant Seafoods in New Plymouth. For more
from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks.
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