HPA's and the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park

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What does it feel like to grow up where crayfish once filled wooden sea tanks and kahawai boiled along the beach all year, then watch that richness fade to mud and empty reef? Sitting above Omaha and looking across to Goat Island, we talk with Tī Point local and former commercial fisherman Barry Talkington about how the Hauraki Gulf slid from abundance to scarcity, and how we can turn it around.

Barry takes us from the mail-truck days of sackfuls of crays to the industrialisation of inshore fishing: bottom trawls, heavy gear, and the sediment plumes that flatten shell and sponge habitats into lifeless mud. He explains why marine reserves like Goat Island are “better than outside,” yet still bounded by the health of adjacent waters. We dig into high protection areas, displacement of effort, and the uncomfortable truth that closures often signal failure, not success.

We also lift the lid on the economics. Quota concentration, closed markets, and rent-seeking leave small-scale fishers squeezed and fillets overpriced, while innovation stalls. Barry argues for de‑industrialising inshore waters, preferring static, selective methods, and reforming the Fisheries Act to set higher biomass standards that rebuild abundance across the entire Gulf. That means separating inshore from deepwater management, restoring fair public value through resource rentals, and opening pathways for local, transparent supply from boat to plate.

This conversation is blunt but hopeful. COVID’s quiet showed fish returning when pressure lifted. Clubs are leading with selective gear and stewardship. Councils can tighten runoff and protect the first few hundred metres of intertidal and shallow reef. Most of all, we can choose laws that leave more fish in the water today so our kids inherit thriving reefs, not stories about them. If the Gulf recovers, everyone wins—customary, commercial, and recreational.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a mate, and leave a review with the one change you’d make to restore the Hauraki Gulf. We’re listening.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome back to the NZSFC Pod and Reel Podcast.
I'm Mike Plant from the NewZealand Sport Fishing Council.
Today, we're sitting in one ofthe most beautiful yet contested
bits of coast in our country,Tea Point, overlooking Omaha and
Goat Island Marine Reserve.

(00:23):
For a lot of Aucklanders, thisis a holiday playground, but for
our guest, it's his home.
You're about to meet BarryTalkington.
Barry grew up just down in thebay behind us.
His earliest memories are of hisfather and uncle unloading
crayfish by hand.
He remembers Omaha Harbour thickwith snapper, Trevallian,
Kawaii, kalp-lined reefs full ofcrayfish, things most of us will

(00:46):
never see in our lifetime.
In this conversation, we askedsome pretty hard questions.
What actually caused the declinein the Hodaki Golf?
What would it take to rebuildabundance in our oceans so your
kids and mine can still catch afeed in our backyard?
Settle in, keep an open mind,stay curious.
Here's my conversation withT-Point Local, former commercial

(01:08):
fisherman and longtime advocatefor the golf, Barry Talkington.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
My father was a commercial fisherman.
After the war, him and hisbrother went fishing, they went
cray fishing.
And uh some of my earliestmemories are of their unloading
their their catch.
Was that down at the wharf thatstill stands?
Not at Lee, down here, down at TPoint.
Okay.
And outside, just at theentrance to the harbour, they
would keep crays in big woodentanks.

(01:34):
They used to call them tanksthat floated made out of pine.
And uh when the unsail day was,unloading day was, they would
tow these tanks in with the boatat high tide up into a little
bay down there.
And as the tide receded, theywould take them out and put them
into chaff sacks, put them onthe back of a little truck, and
take them down to the end of theroad to catch the mail bus as it

(01:56):
went back down to town, the mailmail truck.
So that's that's my earliestmemories of it.

SPEAKER_01 (02:01):
These alien creatures scattering around, or
were they quite contained thecrayfish at the time?

SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Um yeah, th because there was no shortage of them.
They were sh they were big.
And uh uh I can remember uh mydad saying that I asked him one
time, he said, What was yourbest pot?
What was it your best pot?
He said, it had eight crayfishin it and they weighed 64
pounds.
I said he it nearly killed himgetting it on aboard the boat.

SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
The weight to lift that and the technology in those
days was a lot more basic thanwhat you've got in a hand
pulling, right?

SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
Everything was done by hand, there's no winters.
Their peak they worked about 70pots is all they could do.
They lost a lot because uhhaving to haul by hand, you
needed light gear.
Storm come through and you potswould be up on the beach.

SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
So those who don't know where we are, we're north
of Auckland, Tea Point actuallyoverlooks Omaha, which was made
famous when John Key was PrimeMinister and would holiday there
as a kind of a place forhobnobbing Aucklanders to go up
to.

SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Right.
And and for us locals it's justa blot on the landscape.

SPEAKER_01 (03:06):
So so the development has happened since
then, and you've seen a marinereserve start at Lee, which
we'll talk about, and you'vealso seen potential areas being
looked at as high protectionareas or potential marine
reserves.
So today we're going to find outwhy marine reserves start, what

(03:26):
their function is, and whathappens to Kiwis who just want
to catch a feed for their familyor friends, and where we all fit
in, I guess, this game with yourknowledge of a commercial
fishing background as well, ofhow things used to be and maybe
how we're trending.

SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
Oh, we're we're trending down and have been my
whole life.
Um there's just a steady, steadydecline.
Um uh fish losing range, so theycontract to smaller areas where
they're where they're available.
Uh and and that's sort ofnon-stop.
Uh in you're talking aboutOmaha, inside Omaha and

(04:01):
Fongitiao harbour.
There were I could rememberdragging a net and getting half
a ton of snapper, we actuallywanted some craybait, some
praori for craybait.
There was that many fish aroundthere.
The the it's hard to imagine nowfor people to understand what it
was like.
And that's when I was it.
My grandfather was here and mygreat grandfather was here.

(04:23):
So we don't have their storiesof their experience either.
So we're not starting from Idon't start from new, unused, I
start from pretty heavilyexploited.

SPEAKER_01 (04:36):
And uh So I have my own picture of which is 40 years
old, yours are a bit longer thanmine, but we all have our own
exact depletion story somewhat.
And I think that's nationwide aswell.

SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
I think it's t it's typical because we when we're uh
just young growing up, that'swhen we form our impression of
what the sort of natural stateof affairs is.
And as we get older and we seethat decline, we think that our
experience is the startingpoint.
What we don't know oracknowledge is what went before
that that that led us to thatstarting point.

(05:09):
So we get a series of staircasesof people's experiences, each
one thinking that they're thatthey're observing the decline,
but they're only observing thissmall portion just of the whole
slope.

SPEAKER_01 (05:21):
Aaron Powell Because I remember kawaii smashing up on
the beach and catching a ten ortwelve pound snapper off the
rocks.
That that would be a veryremarkable day to see either of
those two things these days.

SPEAKER_00 (05:32):
This Omaha Bay out here was uh full of kawaii.
You couldn't you couldn't tow aa dummy along that beach without
catching kawaii any any day, anymonth of the year.
They just lived there.
They lived around the rocks atthe top of the kelp.
Uh now it's very rare to see aschool of kawaii in there.

SPEAKER_01 (05:51):
Aaron Ross Powell What other fish were in the Gulf
that we may not catch so muchthese days that that you've
noticed have live out of thegolf.
Because I remember a lot of JohnDory.
As a kid, you'd catch a babysnapper and a John Dory would
eat that.
I don't see John Dory anymorearound the wharfs or that like I
used to as a No, they're quiterare now.

SPEAKER_00 (06:10):
And um and they're taken very small.
Those big old John Dory that youused to get, and they don't see
those anymore.
The big old kingfish that usedto come in in the summertime,
the harbour, uh rubbingalongside of the boats, and uh
uh they don't do that anymore.
And as I was saying, thatharbour was full of snapper
travelli and parori.
Um the snapper and travalli arevery rare, and it's it's it's

(06:31):
sort of a juvenile area, a bitof a nursery area.
That's about all.
The adult populations aren'tthere.
The cockles are gone, the goeducks are gone, crayfish are
gone, the goatfish are gone,it's red mochey's gone.
There's a whole range.
And particularly when you startat high water and you work work
your way down that first shelfof uh of reef.

SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
There'll be people thinking, well, I know a little
honey hole which actually holdscrayfish.
What's he talking about?

SPEAKER_00 (07:00):
Every everybody does.
Everybody everybody has theirspot where they can still go and
get something.
But what's that a measure of?
It's certainly not a measure ofhealth, ecological health.
It's um what it is is uh it canbe a measure of success for one
moment in time.
That's all.
And you'll find that very fewpeople have the same honey hole

(07:21):
that they had twenty years ago.
They certainly don't use thesame equipment they had twenty
years ago.
You see the range of equipmentthat's available now to f for
finding, luring, and catchingfish.
Uh it's a bit the old days whereit was just a s a square hook
and a bit of pink squid on a bitof cool online, uh you wouldn't

(07:42):
you wouldn't catch anything now.

SPEAKER_01 (07:44):
Aaron Ross Powell Well, as a kid launching at West
Haven, doing the Waitamatata,Rangitato, or or the inside of
Waiheke, that was kind of theextent.
And going further than that, youyou never really had to.
The noises was quite anadventure.
But nowadays people are goingthe squiggles.
And so is that what you'retalking about?
More of an adventure to try andcatch what you're used to.

SPEAKER_00 (08:04):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
And you don't see the peoplefishing off the shore that
you're used to, because thecatch isn't there.
So the Kahawai aren't there.
The kelp snapper aren't therebecause the kelp's not there.
And uh anyway, the and the thethe um the depletion, the loss
of the kelp and the depletion ofsnapper have mean that those
kelpies that you used to catchand are are rare now.

SPEAKER_01 (08:25):
So the question is, how did we get here?
And is it one thing we can pointour fingers at or is it a
combination of of things?

SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Aaron Powell Well, people will say it's a
combination of things, but Ithink the the truthfully, the
essential element was theindustrialization of commercial
fishing and the inshore is thatit's sort of acknowledged
internationally that inshorestocks, shallow water inshore
stocks, can't withstandindustrial fishing practices.
So when the um improvements intrawl, pear trawl, sane bigger,

(08:58):
better diesel engines, bigger,better uh nets, better fish
finding technology, all of thatwas just deployed at will on
these inshore fisheries.
I was around at that time and Iand it just crashed it.
It crashed it within 15 years.
The place, the juvenile areaswere were thick with juveniles,

(09:18):
they got cleaned up quite andit's never recovered from from
that onslaught.
You know, it used to uh had agreat friend his old fisherman
used to be at the Great Barrier,moved over here.
And he said the only one rule inthe Gulf, and that's catch a
fish on a hook.
If you just restrict it tocatching your fish on your hook,
you won't have to do much else.

SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
So those who don't know the method of uh like
bottom impact trawling, uhwhat's actually going on here
that's different to long liningor other commercial methods?

SPEAKER_00 (09:49):
The main difference is that the gear moves on the
bottom.
It it it contacts the bottom andmoves.
Long lining or or stray liningor rod and reel just tends to be
benign and it's static.
So it's this movement of gear.
Big uh foot chain, trawl doorsgetting dragged along the
bottom, there's a plume ofsediment that comes up behind

(10:10):
it, resuspends those finesediments that go back and
settle down again and smotherthe the habitat for all sorts of
little creatures.
So you tend to get mud, mudbottoms where once there was
some gravel and shell and andbits and pieces tends to just
homogenize the whole thing intomud.

SPEAKER_01 (10:27):
So once you've done that once, you hear it
sometimes, we only traw theareas we've always trawled.
So is is that an argument tocontinue doing trawling?

SPEAKER_00 (10:37):
No, no, it's it's not.
I I think the recovery th fromseafloor it will be quite slow.
Might be it might be a magickey, but it's just that's part
of the habitat and the cycle ofproductivity that that manifests
in all kinds of ways to littlewee tiny creatures that are
important for other creatures,um small plants and and

(10:59):
creatures that live on the flooror just under the floor.
Uh they are all really essentialfor for productivity.

SPEAKER_01 (11:06):
So this is all being stirred up.
And is it being brought aboardthis the fishing boat when it
comes on board or wh why arethey doing this?

SPEAKER_00 (11:14):
Not not now because there's none left.
But in the 50s uh at Trifina,when single trawling was pretty
m elementary.
It wasn't wasn't particularlysophisticated.
But the Colville Channel wasfull of soft corals.
Was uh it's a high velocity uhwater movement through there,
which sponges and those kinds ofuh creatures like.

(11:37):
And so they thrived there.
But of course they're not muchgood for a trawler because they
tend to get tangled up in thenet.
So the evening shot would be auh uh toes across the channel,
bring it on deck, bring it intoTrifina where they stay for the
night, and as they when they getin there, they'd sort it all out
and chuck it all over the side.
So there'd be sponges and allthis marine life just getting

(11:59):
dumped over the side until therewasn't any left.
And then it's a nice clean shot.
We don't have to do thatanymore.
And I'm not the only one.
I mean I I know people otherpeople who've seen it and and
and witnessed that going on.
So we can't change the history.

SPEAKER_01 (12:12):
No, and and that's what people are saying, we can't
we can't change that back.

SPEAKER_00 (12:15):
No, but but if you left the Colville Channel alone,
it might take ten years, twentyyears, fifty years, a hundred
years, whatever, but that's itsnatural state with the water
velocity and the nutrients, itsnatural state is to attract
those forms of life.
They will they willre-establish, most likely.
And uh and just because there'sn nothing there now doesn't mean

(12:37):
that it's sort of invaluable.
It's that it's uh some of theseattributes can recover.

SPEAKER_01 (12:43):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
And so in the whole ecosystem,when you're trawling like this,
you're going for snapperpredominantly as your target
species.

SPEAKER_00 (12:50):
Aaron Powell Not all the time, but some uh sometimes
they'll they'll uh look they'llgo for terakey, you can traw for
terakey, snapper, gurnard.

SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you're saying you knowyour surface lining or that,
you're never going to catchGurnard that way.
So But the bottom line liningcatches Gurnard.
So you don't need to bottomtrawl for Gurnard, actually.

SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
You don't need to bottom traw for anything.

SPEAKER_01 (13:13):
So so as as an option is as well.
Is it cost effective?
What is the reason what's thebattle for it to to still
remain?

SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
The battle is that those that profit from doing it
don't have to pay the cost ofwhat they're doing.
Because it's you and I that endup with the cost of the
environmental damage, the lossof productivity, habitats
damaged.
Uh that's for everybody's costto pay for that, not the person
who undertook the activity.

(13:42):
And so it's the externalizing ofthat cost onto us that makes it
so profitable.

SPEAKER_01 (13:51):
Do you think Kiwis know who owns the fisheries?
Or or where where is theownership of the fisheries?

SPEAKER_00 (13:58):
No, I think that's probably variable, actually.
I think there's probably a fewview on that.
Um I do I do like the idea thatit is just uh common property
and uh managed on the people'sbehalf by a government agency
for the ben for the benefit forthe public benefit.

SPEAKER_01 (14:16):
So uh it looks to me like there's two angles to
public benefit.
One is GDP receipts fromexporting them, and that helps
prop up the economy.
Um the other is uh beautifulbackyard that we can have
recreation and tourism andsomething to be proud of, the
pure New Zealand.
So these two are at a bit of ajuxtaposition, and those

(14:38):
controlling the fisheries arealso those who are exporting the
fisheries as well.
Is there a bit of a conflict ofinterest there?

SPEAKER_00 (14:45):
There is a bit, but I think it's a bit of shallow
thinking in that as well, isthat if there isn't a productive
ecosystem that is replacing thefish that you take, then you're
not serving anyone's interest.
No one's interest is beingserved.
You might be able to cash out afew fish for the short term, but
if you're declining, you'regonna eventually that's gonna
become unprofitable, as it hasin for for some stocks.

(15:09):
Um and the public won't get toenjoy a a fishery because it
won't be there.
And you know, the theparticipation of the public in
fishing is largely successdependent.
So if if they continue to go outfor the weekend fishing and
don't catch anything, well, theymight as well try something
else, some other recreation.

(15:29):
So there's uh there's a level ofof success which is required to
keep the public engaged andparticipating.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
And there's a whole industry tied into that by
humans and rods.
And a lot of Kiwi businessesbuilt off that.

SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
There's a huge industry there, uh which isn't
really acknowledged.
I mean that the the normal wayof looking at it is that
commercial fishing is all aboutthe money and that
non-commercial fishing is allabout playing.
And that's just that's just nottrue.
They both have uh a big economicinvestment in them, and they
both need to be carefullyconsidered.

(16:03):
But paramount in all thoseconsiderations is to maintain
the e productive ecosystem.
Don't let it keep running downlike it is now, and every
fifteen years decide that you'llmake a new plan.
So you make write up a nice newrosy plan that looks very much
like the last one that youdidn't do anything about, full
of all aspirational language andnice cuddly words, but don't do

(16:26):
anything.
And so another fifteen yearslater, oh, we've gone down
another slope.
We better have another plan.
So we'll have another plan.
Um, so it's not even a band-aidapproach because I've got a plan
here from 1985 which talks aboutthe same things of which the
Haraky Gulf sea change plan is.

SPEAKER_01 (16:43):
All these people are coming together with good
intentions, but it's thestrategy or or Is there an
elephant in the room then not inthe Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_00 (16:50):
I don't believe it is in in in all undertaken in
good faith.
Okay.
Uh that there's a there's a anan implicit bias in government
agencies that see their role infacilitating commercial fishing
and they they kind of um look attheir job in that light.

(17:10):
That they're sort of instructedtheir strategic plan is to
partner with industry andincrease export.
And and that's Kiwi is feedingthe world, us.
And I think is that where someof this friction is?
Sure.
There's plenty of fish if if youwant to go to Sydney, but
there's not so much if you wantto go to Waiheke.
So this bias comes through inpolicy all the time, and it

(17:32):
leads to this sort of stagnantposition where no change occurs,
and you get this rolling seriesof of hand-wavy plans that that
lack any meaningful action orachieve anything useful.
Um you can always shuffle theshuffle the cards around a
little bit and say, oh well,I've done something.

(17:52):
But if but if you haven'tinterrupted the decline in
stocks and biodiversity, if youhaven't halted that and reversed
its trend, then I don't see thepurpose of a plan.
And if you look at the seachange planned as a classic
example of uh the the theWaikato and Auckland Councils
getting together and investing alot of ratepayers' money.

(18:13):
The Harake Gulf Marine Park wasestablished by legislation in
year 2000, so it's 26 years old.
It's uh a forum to bringtogether all the agencies that
that that participate in themanagement of the Gulf.
And the idea is to get them allon the same page.
So their actions are allintegrated and that and they're
all forward-looking.

(18:35):
And every three years uh write areport on the status of the
Gulf, the State of the Gulfreport.
Well, right since the first one,the State of the Gulf reports
have been describing more andmore depletion and more and more
ecosystem strength, lessproductivity.
So what happened to thisintegrated vision?

(18:58):
And uh so when it comes tomanaging the the the fishery
resources in in the Gulf, in thein the park, the first thing you
need is to describe the park asa fisheries management area.
Once you've got a discrete areain which you can address, then
you can look at nuancedmanagement where it might be
needed.
But while it just sits in thislittle pocket of a great big

(19:20):
area from East Cape to NorthCape, it's it doesn't get any it
doesn't get any attention thatreflects the purpose of the
marine park, which is as alargely recreational and a sort
of flagship uh marineenvironment, and f certainly for
economic reasons, economic use,but um also for conservation and

(19:46):
and just the public use.
So it might just be for sailing,canoeing, might be for a bit of
fishing, it might be forwhatever.
Uh and alongside that theremight be some aquaculture going
on and there might be some bitof commercial fishing going on.
It it wasn't uh it didn't umprevent anyone from from
operating in there.
But the lack of a specificfisheries management area means

(20:10):
that there's no nuancedmanagement in the in the in the
Gulf.

SPEAKER_01 (20:15):
So is it smarter thinking or better collective
thinking?

SPEAKER_00 (20:19):
What what where have we gone wrong at three CG?
Oh, I think there's that there'sno app uh real appetite to do
what's needed.
Is that the aren't uh the peoplea lot of the people who want to
improve the state of the Gulfbelieve that all you need is
some marine reserves.
You know, if you just have somemarine reserves, that's a silver
bullet.
You know, that'll t everythingwill be tickety-boo.

SPEAKER_01 (20:40):
Okay, so that's a great point because we're
looking over one down here, onethe oldest one in the country,
and I think even worldwide it'squite leading as far as locking
up an area.
Let's see that window into whatwe could have had.
How do you explain that topeople who are watching this and
never come across uh a bad wordabout a marine reserve?

(21:01):
Because there marine reservesdon't seem to be the magic
bullet that everyone thoughtthey were initially.
There are issues with marinereserves, right?

SPEAKER_00 (21:10):
Yeah, yeah, they're not a silver bullet.
There is no silver bullet.
And uh and it's uh it it's uh itin fact does more harm than good
by people signing up to thisvision of we just need a few
marine reserves and w andeverything's good.
Because what the experience atGoat Island here has taught us
is that the reserve, the f themarine life inside the reserve

(21:30):
will be more diverse, morehealthier, and and more
balanced, the ecosystem morebalanced than that outside.
But a distill only relative tothat outside.
It it doesn't go back to virginstate, unfished state, because
it's constantly rubbing upagainst the boundary.

SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Fish have tails and they don't listen to man-made
borders.
Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 (21:51):
So you get an improvement in the reserve
relative to the to the adjacentwaters, right?
So if you want to have a reallygood marine reserve, you've got
to have really good adjacentwaters.
Okay.
Right?
So the secret to a successfulmarine reserve is to lift the
abundance and diversity acrossthe whole park.

(22:11):
And if you don't do that, thenthe little reserves that you put
in will just make this littlebit of difference.
It won't ever won't ever beanything spectacular or
particularly great.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (22:20):
So what about people who want to make the whole park
a marine reserve or join up allthese little ones and make a
huge no-take area?
What's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 (22:27):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Well, I think it would be justan absolute waste.
I think the resources can beused, but the tendency is to
overuse and uh and just use forshort you know short-term
thinking.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (22:39):
Because the problem we've got now is these little
windows, if we call them that,of Goat Island being a marine
reserve.
Now these proposed, or nowthey've come into ore, actually,
HPAs.
Um, but in between them, it'sbusiness as usual, controlling,
overtake, these kind ofbehaviors are still happening,
runoff, there's all the factorsstill there.

SPEAKER_00 (22:59):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Which mean that the HPAs arenever going to flourish and to
be anything particularly usefulor grandiose as people imagine
they're going to be, because theadjacent waters are continuing
to degrade.
And the the fishing that used tooccur in there is just being
displaced.
It's not going away, it's justbeing displaced to deplete some

(23:19):
other area.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (23:20):
So I feel like the average Kiwi goes, Oh, I'm happy
to sacrifice that spot for acouple of years to give it a
chance to come back.
They're buying into this a andtrying to do their best for it.
Can you give us a bit of acrystal ball prediction into how
that's going to play out?

SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
No, I don't think it's going to be successful at
all.
Because I think that people buyinto marine reserves, if the
rest of the golf is healthy.
They don't mind not going thereand not going over here if they
can go there and succeed.
But if they can't, if they cango over there and now there's
four times as many people tryingto fish over there, and there's
no bloody fish anyway, uh, theyjust get squeezed out.

(23:57):
And for no great benefit.
It's not like the HPA, I mean,they differ by their location.
I think uh the ones at theMakahina's will be um uh uh
effective.
Um northern side of LittleBarrier, um I don't think will
make much difference.

SPEAKER_01 (24:19):
We've tried to have our say as you know a group of
recreational fishers.
There's been submissions putthrough by Legacy and the Sport
Fishing Council.
There's been a lot of scienceand attending forums and
workshops the whole way through.
This has still happened.
Now we're seeing a bit of apublic uproar at it happening.
How did we get here?
And if we use that as a bit of alearning, what could we do

(24:41):
different in the future to tostop this kind of approach?

SPEAKER_00 (24:46):
My own view is that it was insincere, that the
agencies engaged in the seachange process were not really
um engaged in an unbiased way,and that I don't think there was
ever an intention to address theunderlying issues of
over-exploitation, ofsedimentation running off.

(25:08):
Because the whole ecosystem inthe Gulf is being squeezed from
from fish depletion, fromfishing, damage to the near
shore and the and the sea floorcoming out of s sedimentation
and uh and still this ridiculousum permission to use industrial
bottom contact methods that justsimply exacerbate that problem.

(25:32):
Because remember, it wasn't thatlong ago when you could go and
get a feed of muscles off therocks, no problem.
Inner gulf um mussel beds, theywere fine.
But what happened when they putan industrial application on?
They said we can dredge, wedon't forget them one at a time,
we can dredge them off thebottom, right?
Yeah, for about six or sevenyears until there's no muscles,

(25:53):
and there hasn't been since.
Who pays the price of that?
The water quality and the gulf.
Yeah, those things were massivefiltration system running there,
gone.
Uh now just soft mud.

SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
I see a lot of finger pointing these days, and
look, you were previously acommercial fisher, and now
wrecks are pointing fingers atthem.
Uh commercial guys are saying,Look, I'm just trying to earn a
crust, you know.
How would you like it if you hada camera in your workplace, all
these kind of things.
What do you think is the the wayforward for everyone to maybe
get over this little argy-bargyand and collectively do

(26:24):
something meaningful for theGulf War?
What do we need to do there?

SPEAKER_00 (26:28):
Oh, I think that's um it's never gonna happen by
joint stakeholder working groupsbecause people go in there,
protect their corner, and do notsign up for a long-term vision
at all.
That because I've got a loan,I've got to pay, you know,
commercial fishermen have got tomake a crust, they've got to
make it work.

(26:49):
Um so everybody gets verydefensive.
And that in the sea changeprocess, I was uh on the first
um stock, fish stock andbiodiversity groups, and it was
very obvious right from thestart that it was like our job
here in this process is tominimize any impact on us.
Right?
So everybody took their cornerand everybody promoted a view

(27:10):
that had the least impact onthem.
And the agencies weren'tsincere, they weren't buying
into it either, they just w werepretty benign.
Um, it takes uh a real strengthof regulatory intervention to do
it.
If you just sort of waiting forpeople to agree uh doesn't work.
It hasn't worked.

(27:31):
And and writing stupid toothlessplans every 15 years that make
no difference at all and saying,oh, we're doing it, we're
managing it.
You know, these these closures,the the scallops, the loss loss
of shellfish, um all of these,the loss of craze, they're all a
badge of failure.
Every one of those fisheriesthat are closed, no, sorry,

(27:52):
there's none none left therenow, not enough to take anymore,
we close them.

SPEAKER_01 (27:55):
An acknowledgement that we have this big history of
mismanagement that goes backdecades, that ends up Marine
reserves almost that as well, uhan acknowledgement of some
failure?

SPEAKER_00 (28:06):
Because if things were abundant and healthy, we'd
be if there wouldn't be thisscreen for marine protected
areas, not to the extent thatthere is, if the health of the
Gulf is better.
But people are get aredesperate.
They say we've got to dosomething.
Yeah, you've got this idea thatwell, if we've got to turn half
of the Gulf into a marinereserve, then that's what we'll

(28:26):
do.
We won't look at other tools.
We won't look at at um thecouncils who who promoted and
paid for this plan can't evenmanage their own runoff.
They can't manage their ownrules and regulations on
developers.
They just don't have theresources, they don't have the
people to to do it.
So the they can't regulate thesedimentation, they don't have

(28:47):
the uh ability to do it.
So it's just it's just pricedin.
It's just accepted as part ofthe deal.

SPEAKER_01 (28:52):
Aaron Ross Powell For those out of Auckland, I was
in Myrangay Bay the other day,and where there used to be one
house which would have had maybea hundred square metres of roof
and and a family of four or fivelive there, there's now fourteen
houses that are all on that samesection.
That's all going down towardsMyoranga, and that's Auckland
wide.
You know, it's intensification.

(29:12):
Some will say that's the priceof progress barrier.

SPEAKER_00 (29:15):
But if and that's true, if if that's the if that's
the view of people that, oh no,well, that's just what happens.
Well then stop worrying aboutmarine parks and spatial plans
and things and and just price itin and get and carry on till
there's nothing left.

SPEAKER_01 (29:30):
Because that's stirring up sediment and
squashing the seafloor, right?

SPEAKER_00 (29:34):
And I saw it out at just at Walquith, at the back of
Walquith there, hillsides ofbare clay for for over a year,
all getting flushed with everyrain down the Marangi River.
Then the oyster farmers can'tharvest because the water
quality is not good enough.
And then the sewerage plantoverflows and puts another dump
down there, which is again thecouncil can't manage that.

(29:54):
Um So it's just this big thisbig sink that goes down.
And uh and the Gulf, theecosystem in the Gulf pays the
price.

SPEAKER_01 (30:04):
So who would want to get into commercial fishing
these days?
Because it seems like the oddsare stacked against you.
You're fishing often for someoneelse's quota who's taking the
money.
So you're not fishing like yourgreat-grandparents or
grandparents under similarcircumstances fish for.
Long, hard days at sea, timeaway from family, none of that's
changed either.

(30:24):
That's still part of it.
It's a dangerous occupation.
I know guys love it and it'stheir and it's your intrinsic
feeling.
I am a fisherman, you know,that's what I do.
Um but it seems a real battleunder the current current
situation.

SPEAKER_00 (30:37):
Oh, it is, it is.
And there's no or very littleinvestment going into inshore
fishing.
Uh and the small-scale inshorefishermen, which is the most
efficient of uh less fuel, um uhlighter footprint.
They can change what they'redoing if circumstances demand

(30:57):
it.
Um just about uh gone.
They're just lost from all theseports, like the local ports from
here.
Uh there's just a steady trickleof them.

SPEAKER_01 (31:06):
So these are the small Kiwi businesses that we've
always liked to back, you know.
And those are disappearing.

SPEAKER_00 (31:11):
They're disappearing.
And in their place are comingbig purpose-built trawlers that
are you know designed to tocatch a thousand tons a year is
their is their plan.
Um And is that being exported oris that feeding Kiwis?
Oh, a bit of both.
It's a bit of both.
Um the the New Zealand market'squite big uh f for fish.

(31:33):
These are restaurants, whichYeah, and supermarkets.
A lot goes through supermarketstoo now.
Uh and of course, Australia is abig market.

SPEAKER_01 (31:41):
Yeah.
But the cost is what people arecomplaining about across the
board, right?
So Napa fillets, even a wholecar wire's uh there's an expense
to that now.
But then on the flip side, goingto catch one, fuel cost, ice
cost, everything else to do theright thing, and then quite
often you'd be out there allday, maybe catch nothing.
So it's a bit of a risk there aswell.

(32:02):
So it's quite a bleakproposition to to get a protein
source into your diet.

SPEAKER_00 (32:08):
Yes, it is.
And it's not getting easier.
Um and fewer people aresucceeding at it.
And I think the the the price isa good good point.
I mean uh that's what's happenedwith the no competition within
the industry.
There's the the whole thing'scaptured by a a few entities,
and um and they're more thancollecting the the the gravy

(32:30):
from the trade.

SPEAKER_01 (32:31):
Uh because why can't some of the boats locally here
feed a restaurant straight offthe boat?
Because what what is the actualtravel of a fish that is caught
here?
Goes down to what Hamilton orAuckland to be filleted?

SPEAKER_00 (32:44):
Yeah.
Some of it some of it can befiltered here, but that tends to
be mostly supermarket um driven.
The supermarket chain owns thelocal fisheries.

SPEAKER_02 (32:55):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (32:55):
Um So yeah, so it goes down, g goes down to
another shed, gets processed,gets filleted, then gets trucked
back again to uh to arestaurant.
Or and the there's a lot oftrouble.
A lot of trouble.
The domestic market's difficultnow for supplying restaurants
and things like that.
I know the the companies arepretty challenged trying to

(33:17):
manage that.
Costs are very high, and uhthere's not much left in it for
the restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 (33:23):
So for Kiwis wanting to do the right thing and maybe
support by purchasing behaviourbetter options than others, what
would you recommend?

SPEAKER_00 (33:32):
Uh look, I don't really have any strong
recommendations for that.
I don't see any particularlyethical or preferred source.
Um and for the main reason thatthe there's so much of the cost
of the fillet in the from thesupermarket is taken by the
quota owner processor.
So the fisherman that gets fivedollars a kilo for his fish, uh

(33:57):
fillet's selling for fiftydollars.

SPEAKER_01 (33:59):
Where is that la tuff?

SPEAKER_00 (34:00):
So there's about twenty there's about twenty
dollars that a kilo that's notneeded in there that somebody is
is pushing aside, pushingbecause just because they can.
And this is because of the quotamanagement.
Yeah, it's a closed it's aclosed system.
There's no competition withinit.
And when you get an industrylike that with no competition,
you don't get innovation, youdon't get value creation, you

(34:23):
just get this capturedrent-seeking behavior where how
much can I sting?
How much can I sting?
And I don't have to worry aboutsomebody else competing because
this is a closed closedindustry.
It's a cartel.
Yeah, and it's like it's likeyou know, we complain about the
two supermarket chains makingsort of a million dollars a day
or whatever it is in uh in superprofits.
Well, that's what happens in thein the uh seafood industry as

(34:44):
well.
That that same closed nature ofthe industry allows for that
rent seeking.

SPEAKER_01 (34:53):
Guess it must be hard for you, Barry, as an
ex-commercial fisherman, toadmit that commercial fishing is
the problem that's caused allthis issue in the Gulf.

SPEAKER_00 (35:01):
Yeah, no, no, I don't uh I don't don't blame the
commercial fishermen completelyfor what's happening.
I have a soft spot for them.
I have a very soft spot forsmall scale commercial fishing.
I have a um I really dislikeindustrial fishing because uh I
see that as one of the primedrivers of the state that we
find ourselves in now.

(35:22):
And over exploitation.
Small scale fishermen areparticularly fuel efficient,
they are flexible, they canchange what they're doing, they
have a very light environmentalfootprint, they can have.
Uh so no, I don't see it as ablanket thing at all.
I think uh it's tode-industrialise, uh and
particularly the Harrick GulfMarine Park, and I'd like to see

(35:44):
all of coastal New Zealand asmuch as possible, where where
alternatives exist to wherestatic methods can be used.
I'd prefer them to be used.
Uh and the small-scale fishermenare particularly in the squeeze
now.
And so I don't see I don't hangmy coat on there, uh coat hanger
at all.
Yeah.
I think they're just doing whatthey're permitted to do and what

(36:07):
they need to do.
So playing by the rules that areat Ab absolutely.
The the problem is not them,it's a problem of the regulator.
What what's been happening overthe decades since 1950 is that
we've been over exploiting thestock.
We're fishing them down tosmaller and smaller sizes.
The the size of fish in thecatch goes down, the um number

(36:28):
of the fish in the water goesdown, uh the the ability of the
of the whole ecosystem to reacha balance is destroyed.
It's it favours one specieswhile losing another.
Uh and uh this um searching forthis myth of maximum sustainable
yield, what's the most fish wecould justify taking?

(36:50):
Without having an impact on thewater, yeah, yeah.
We can make some numbers up thatmake it sound like this is
really cool, how many fish is issomething out of Disneyland.
It's not reflected in theexperience and what happens on
the water.
What what's happening is thatthere's a continual decline
going down.
And every now and again you geta thing like snapper, which has
had a burst, but yeah, who knowshow long that'll last.

SPEAKER_01 (37:10):
But when you say decline, we're essentially
counting dead fish to say that.
We have this many dead fish thisyear.
Last year it was that many.

SPEAKER_00 (37:18):
Yeah, and if you that's just it's a fish in the
water, is that we need torecalibrate the m the amount of
fish in the water that we insistwe have before we start taking
fish.
So we want the nature to replacethe fish we take, not accept and
rationalise a lower and lowerbiomass.
And say, oh no, so it's okay,it's okay, we can still take

(37:40):
these fish from this littlebiomass, this little biomass.
Because once it goes decade overdecade over decade over decade,
suddenly what happens, Mike?
Lapse.
At closure.
Yeah.
Oh, we've got to have an HPAnow, we've got to close this.
There's not enough scallops,anyone close this beach over
here.
Um craze are gone, uh, Harpookare long gone.

SPEAKER_01 (38:00):
So we're celebrating marine reserves, but really we
should uh be in mourning ofgetting to a sea and marine
reserves.

SPEAKER_00 (38:07):
Exactly.
That's just a badge of failure.
And uh and that's probably themost frustrating thing for me,
uh, in my experience, is thesort of inability or
unwillingness to locate,identify the problem, and square
up to it and live with it.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
I think that's where a lot of this frustration online
from is we can't do anything.
We f almost feel shackled likeour hands are behind our back.
And so we'll just carry oncarrying on.
Hey, I may put back the biggerbreeders and I'm doing my part
and I'm only taking what I need,or I'm gifting the frames to
someone who is.
Yeah, little little things.
But if the game, as you call it,is against you, the rules of the

(38:49):
game, and others are playing tothose rules right up to the
boundary, well what what can wedo as kids?

SPEAKER_00 (38:55):
It's the institutional acceptance of low
biomass.
This acceptance that we don'tneed to regulate.
We don't need to regulate.
The science says blip blip blipblip blip blip blip.
So here we go, you know, you cango and catch them.
It's it's perfectly all right.
But if we look back over historyand you get old dudes like me
that look back over over youknow sixty-five years of quite

(39:16):
clear experience, you know, tenmore of partial, you see, that's
not true at all.
There's been this massivedecline, massive decline to
where we are now.
And if you get an old boy likeme, and there's a there's quite
a few around, you say, well, ifif you imagine when you were
fifteen and you were snorkelingand you're doing your thing and
you're growing up here, youknow, for every hundred crayfish

(39:39):
that were on that bit of coast,how many do you reckon are there
now?
One, two, maybe, sometimes?
None on s some bits of coast?
That's the magnitude of thedecline, but it's not reflected
in the advice that that's usedto set catchments.

SPEAKER_01 (39:55):
We're only looking at previous.
How narrow is that view?
Because you're talking aboutyour lifespan.
Then you've also got a bit ofinsight into your father's.
So you're going back quite quitea little while for a for a
decent sliver.
Our fisheries managementcurrently, how thin is that
little view?

SPEAKER_00 (40:11):
It is.
I mean, that's what and that'swhat permits it to still appear
okay when it's not.
Because we look back five years,ten years, and we say, Oh, catch
rate's changed much in the lastten years.
But what about the the 50 beforethat?
Oh, that's we you know, we don'tknow about that.

SPEAKER_01 (40:26):
So we it's it it's very variable and it's um
Because I hear stories, I travelthe country at fishing clubs,
it's what I do for work.
Go to some places and they'relike, Oh, grandad used to take
as many crays as he could fit onthe boat and feed them to the
pigs.
Or grandad used to fish MiolaReef and catch harpooker.

SPEAKER_00 (40:45):
Or Well you know, down here at Goat Island, you
were just down there today, juston the right hand side of the
beach, there's those sandstonerocks and they've got gutters
that go up there.
Well, when I was about ten, sothat'll be about nineteen sixty,
if you wanted a crayfish, yougot a fence patent with a piece
of number eight wire on the endof it, you cracked two kinner

(41:06):
over into there and waited likethree minutes and crays came out
from under the ledge, and youjust went, pow, that didn't it.
Thank you.
You know?
So from that level of abundanceto what's there now is a tiny
fraction.
Well, that's a marine reservenow, no take.

(41:28):
Um unfished or undisturbed orunmodified.
And that's fifty years of that.
Right.
And then you and then and thennow you push that out to the
open fished country, and it'seven another step.

SPEAKER_01 (41:40):
So this is getting into the crux of it, I think,
Barry, is we're creating thesehigh protection areas, but
around it, the whole ocean is ina disse situation.

SPEAKER_00 (41:50):
So which imperils the MPA, right?
You're not going to get thebenefit that you want from the
MPA because you're not lookingafter the areas outside.
And that it goes hand in glove.
And and that's what that's whatfrustrates me personally, is
that because I think peopleaccept HPAs if the rest of the

(42:11):
the grounds are being managedand and restored to abundance as
well.
And so that when they go outfishing, they can go and catch a
uh snapper on the in out in themiddle of the bay.
They don't have to hang aroundthe rocks and the trying to get
something.

SPEAKER_01 (42:28):
See, we've had I'm gonna get a little bit
political.
We've had for it fisheriesministers, conservation
ministers of all politicalcolours and stripes, but we're
still trended this way.
So it's not a political ideologyor a leaning that seems to
change this.
What's it gonna take, Barry, toget there?

SPEAKER_00 (42:45):
Well, at the moment it takes collapse and closure.
So how do we how do we wind itback?
It's got to be in the FisheriesAct.
It's got to be by law.
The standards that are in thelaw, the minimum standard that's
currently in the in the law, isfar too low.
And we won't get any meaningfulchange until we reset that
minimum to a higher level andachieve it, which means it's

(43:08):
gonna affect people.
There's it it's gonna requirepeople to leave more fish in the
water until we can build theseanimals' numbers up.
And that's the essence of it.
And there's very littlepolitical will to do that
because that's objected to bythe commercial industry, who in
uh they want the economic level.

(43:29):
So as long as they can catch itand make a profit, uh there's
not much else comes intoconsideration.
And to manage at higher levelsmeans that they've got to leave
more in the water that could becaught.
Mind you, so does the publichave to uh just just take it
easy.

SPEAKER_01 (43:44):
The come the public have frustrations if I'm trying
to do the best.
Here's a lovely 20-poundsnapper.
I know it's a breather, I've gotmy phone, I've handled it well,
I've used circle hooks, I've putit back.

SPEAKER_00 (43:55):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
Then a trawler comes through.

SPEAKER_00 (43:58):
Can you see the frustration?
Yeah, I can see it.
Yeah, and the the trawler won'tcatch a twenty-pounder.

SPEAKER_01 (44:03):
But why won't the trawler ca just so we can
explain that as well.
Like why do we see 20-poundersat the at the um supermarket,
for instance?
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 (44:11):
Be because um each fishing method tends to have a
selectivity um preference.
So for example, trawling willcatch small fish and up to a
certain size.
It's it's uh uh unusual for themto catch large amounts of big
fish.
Um I think I think they swim tooquick.
And uh and so each method hasits own little bias on the size

(44:34):
that it that it achieves.
Um So that's why you don't seethe twenty pounders, you've got
to go and actually catch them ona hook.
You know, that otherwise youwon't see them.
But no, that's that's theessence of the problem.
The essence of the problem isthat we fished everything down
too far.
We don't have an appetite torebuild it.
So if we without the appetite torebuild it, we get HPAs because

(44:56):
people get desperate and theywant to see a change, and
they're told that HPAs will isis will achieve this magic
nirvana.
Uh so that they're sold a uh adamaged bill of goods, really,
on on that.
And if they could justunderstand that the the MPA or
the or the HPA is the health ofthat is determined by the health

(45:17):
outside it.
And if that was just acceptedand and to say that that the
real challenge is notdesignating HPAs, the real
challenge is restoring theentire abundance and diversity
of the system, the strength ofthe productivity, stop pouring
shit down the rivers.
Uh councils do your you know,don't worry about meddling in

(45:38):
the Asia, clean up your side ofthe deal and s and stop this
runoff coming down.
Uh and and at least seriouslyaddress it and try and minimize
it.

SPEAKER_01 (45:47):
Did we see a break in overfishing during COVID?
Is there something noticeablefrom that?
Because people point to that andgo, hey, here's a here's a time
where we actually gave it abreak.

SPEAKER_00 (45:57):
And in that time, fish re-entered this harbour for
the first time.
There was no boat traffic.
So it wasn't just it wasn't justcatching.
It wasn't just that there wasnobody catching.
It was that there was no boattraffic.
So the whole thing just wentquiet.
The whole inshore just wentquiet.
And the fish and everythingsaid, Well, this is all right.
And they yeah, they entered backup because it didn't last long

(46:18):
once it cranked up again.
But uh yeah, so uh There'sthere's something in that, but I
just it just drives me mad,Mike, that what to me is just an
obvious dysfunction in thecurrent system cannot get
attention because of all thefroth around the outside.
We talk about anything exceptthat.
Yeah, so as soon as you say, no,look, let's let's increase this

(46:41):
biomass, right?
Give ourselves a cushion underhere.
That's just an economic loss.
That's you know, I could havesold that could kill that fish
and sold it.

SPEAKER_01 (46:50):
Or you know I feel like uh it's where we're at at
the moment is a lot of fingerpointing.
Like you're the problemcommercial, you're the problem
wreck, we don't know what you'retaking, wreck.
Uh customary, you're taking, wedon't know what you're taking.
How do we come together andaddress the issue?
But this is looking forward now,Barry.
Like what's the thing?

SPEAKER_00 (47:08):
Looking forward, looking forward, the only thing
that's going to solve this, inmy view, is to amend the act.
There's no but there's nopolitical appetite for it.
And without that, all you getare two things.
You get you get this this wehave a joint stakeholder working
group, which puts a whole bunchof dysfunctional people into a
room that simply cannot agree toanything rational because

(47:28):
they're all defending theirposition.
And you get a series ofhalf-bake, aspirational, frothy
plans that don't do anything,but keep people occupied for a
few years while they write themand review them.

SPEAKER_01 (47:41):
So uh does there have to be an admission to
failure first to get past thatto get past that.

SPEAKER_00 (47:48):
Absolutely.
And where's that coming from?
It's not coming from anywherebecause we are seeing the
consequences of it.
Every time there's a a collapseand a closure, uh a loss of a of
a stock, a loss of an area.
Each one of those is a completebadge of failure for the current
system that's not promoted, notidentified, and not pushed out

(48:08):
for the public to say, look, youknow, don't take my word for it
that it's failing.
Here's this one, this one, thisone, this one, and this one that
have gone with barely a mention,with barely a a hiccup.
And there's a big cue behindthem that's that's coming along.

SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
No one likes to be told they've failed or or
they're a failure, or they'vemade a mistake or they've bat
the wrong horse.
But it seems to be a lot of thatthat's happened historically,
and we're still doing the same.
Like we're almost expecting adifferent result from the same
behaviour that we've alwaysAbsolutely.

SPEAKER_00 (48:39):
And and I I mean I don't I find it difficult to
blame uh like the fisheries NewZealand people who who can are
constantly writing about thesuccess that they have and how
how great a job they do.
Uh that's quite divorced fromreality.
But that's their job.
They can't, uh in all honesty,start trashing their own agency.

(49:03):
They'll be down the road atworking at McDonald's.

SPEAKER_02 (49:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (49:06):
You know, so so that they're stuck.
Even at you know, e even anydoubts or or changes that they
might which they've got to bevery careful about what they do.
Their job is supporting thegovernment's position.

SPEAKER_01 (49:18):
So what are we talking about?
If we get down to the money,we're talking to a couple of
billion dollars a year inexports, and that's including
offshore as well as insurance.
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (49:26):
The insure's the inshore is pitiful.
Um uh it's not not very much atall.

SPEAKER_01 (49:29):
So what are we sacrificing in the scheme of GDP
you know receipts?
Uh like export receipts.

SPEAKER_00 (49:37):
It it's it's less than half a per cent of GDP.
If the inshore fisheriesdisappeared tomorrow, nobody
would notice.
The economy wouldn't notice it.

SPEAKER_01 (49:45):
But the tourism and the local boat builders and the
everything else could grow offthe back of like a bountiful
ocean that is a destination forfishermen.

SPEAKER_00 (49:54):
An absolute gold mine to have the fish in the
water that that can be sold totourism or put on the table, to
small-scale commercial fishermenwho can maximize its value.
They're not under this pressureto catch this huge quantities of
fish.

SPEAKER_01 (50:10):
I was down in Kikorta recently.
There's a cray fisherman therewho used to have to go out in
all sorts of weather, battlingthe conditions to take his craze
for export.
He's now bought a local hotel,done it up, and he's got pools
at the back of the hotel.
Now he just goes out to the fivenot variables, gets the craze he
needs, puts them in the pool,sells them for a better price to

(50:30):
tourists who come in and getthem than he was getting from
his export.
Happy days.
Like that seem there are otherways of doing this or having
innovation come through, right?

SPEAKER_00 (50:40):
The current system stifles innovation and it it
stifles value creation.
So people aren't out theresearching, you know.
Your your brother-in-law in HongKong wants to buy some flounder,
you know, and he's got a sp he'sgot a special couple of
restaurants sitting on you.
There's none of that'shappening.
Now I say, Oh yeah, we'll go andget these two guys and we'll ph
when suddenly we've got tendollars a kilo more for them by

(51:02):
by finding the right none ofthat happens now.

SPEAKER_01 (51:05):
It's like pairing a nice Kiri wine with a crayfish
and so on.

SPEAKER_00 (51:08):
That whole thing that that that whole thing is uh
that whole innovation drive isgone.
Largely people are just doingwhat they did twenty-five years
ago.
Very little selling dead bodiesto the world is uh is the main
main business.
For the inshore, so economicallyit's not it's not significant.
I think it has uh a ade-industrialized inshore which

(51:32):
had greater abundance, hadsmall-scale commercial fishermen
out there feeding the feedingthe public and finding some
choice export markets as well.
And uh and the public andtourism opportunities that that
would provide uh is a far bettermodel.
But the current legislation andthe way it's structured prevents

(51:53):
any of that happening.

SPEAKER_01 (51:54):
I don't know if you ever came across Fleur Sullivan
who was in Moraki and had herown boat and had a restaurant
and should you ate what Fleurcaught that day.
You didn't have a choice.
You that's what made the menhighly successful.
Have we got openings to to juststart moving that way for those
who are bold enough to or do youneed to be a quota owner?

SPEAKER_00 (52:15):
You need to Yeah, yeah, you have to be a quota
owner, which means a substantialinvestment for uh questionable
returns.
Uh the whole quota pricing thinguh is completely out of hand.
When the system was firstintroduced, alongside the quota

(52:35):
was a resource rental.
And the resource rental was apayment made to the Crown, to to
you and I for taking this fishand selling it.
The idea of the resource rentalthat it would be set at a point
where this quota didn't everachieve very much value.
So you couldn't get a closedsystem and start milking it
because the resource rentalwould go up, right?

(52:55):
Yeah.
And say, oh, well, the quota'snot worth very much, because it
was never intended to be worthvery much.
It was never intended to earn arevenue stream on on its own.
So it became privatized like ashare market, kind of trading a
share, right?
Yeah, and it I mean whathappened was that they lobbied
the the the commercial industrylobbied very hard soon after the
creation to get rid of thatresource rental because then

(53:17):
they could create this capitalvalue around the the quota.
So that was a uh and right fromthat point on, it's just it it
it's prevented the sorts ofinnovations that you're talking
about.
Uh it's made them verydifficult.

SPEAKER_01 (53:31):
I don't know.
The Kiwis I know love to back aKiwi success story.
Someone starts a restaurant, yougo there, got great food, got a
story to it.
It's honest, it's humble.
Um this industrial fishing isn'thonest or humble.
It's it's mass extraction foroverseas mouths.

(53:51):
And I think that's where a lotof the frustration is.
And and combine that with ourfarmers do a similar thing, but
they actually put a lot backinto the grass that feeds the
cattle or the beasts, you know,where fishing seems to be a lot
of extraction, a lot of take,and not much giving back.
How how do we address that?

SPEAKER_00 (54:11):
It is an extractive um industry, very much so.
Uh you you can't give much backexcept by way of resource
rentals.
There needs to the fish is givenaway.
There's no no you're essentiallyrunning a business where you
don't have to buy your stock.
You just get to sell it.
Well, you've just got to get itand then sell it.
And uh and that's one of theproblems.

(54:33):
That there's there's no realbenefit, public benefit from the
monetization of that resource.
I mean we do it with you knoweverything else.
We do it with minerals.
If you want to go gold mining,or if you want to go and get
iron sands or start timber,state timber or whatever.
You'll pay a rental, you'll paya resource rental for it.
And uh there's no reason why itdoesn't apply to fish.

SPEAKER_01 (54:53):
Aaron Ross Powell Kiwis just aren't adding value
to the um uh export chainsystem.
We're selling primary products,whole trees, whole beasts, not
broken down into plywood or intohamburgers.

SPEAKER_00 (55:07):
Fisheries pretty much the same thing.
Pretty much the same.
It's a commodity trading system.
Um there's a little bit of valueadded goes on, but it's pretty,
pretty budget.
Um Is that where we could createmore jobs and more, you know, m
by television?
Only by opening it up.
Only by taking away the barriersto of entry.
As soon as you put up barriersto entry, like high quota costs

(55:30):
to go in, you prevent peoplecoming in.
So you slow down the entry andexit of participants.
And as soon as you slow thatdown, you you lose that fresh
blood that comes in, the freshideas that come in, the contacts
around the place.
You just tend to do what you'vealways done.
And that was, you know, I caughtthe fish, I chilled it, I put it
in a box, I sent it to theSydney fish market, and it got X

(55:52):
number of dollars, and I paidthe fishing industry.
And I'll do the same again nextweek and the week in the week.
There's nobody out there pushingthe edges that you get when it's
an open industry.

SPEAKER_01 (56:04):
What I've got out of today is we're heading almost
like a fork.
One's to just collapse and lockup and collapse under the QMS,
and the others maybe rewritingthe rules, as you could.
Because we're everyone's playingto the rules, but it's creating
this down.

SPEAKER_00 (56:19):
So how do we rewrite the rules or or revisit the QMS
or I think the first the thingthat's missing, and the m one of
the big mistakes that was made,was considering that a single
system would be suitable for thedeep water fishery, which was
developing at the time, and theinshore fishery, which was
overfished and stressed at thetime.

(56:41):
And that we'll just and we'lljust have one system that
encompasses both.
They have very little in common,the two industries.
They have completely differentcapital structures, uh,
different markets, differentproducts, uh whole different
drivers, the whole thing.
The the what was missed beforeand what could be done now is to
separate the two.

(57:01):
Because it may well be that theQMS, by and large, suits the
deep water.
It achieves its purpose in thedeep water.
It's not achieving its purposein the inshore.
So separate that out and justdeal to the inshore.
Because remember it's not thathuge.
If it's a small fraction of onepercent of GDP and can disappear
and not be noticed, then surelyit can be managed to better

(57:22):
perform than it is now.

SPEAKER_01 (57:23):
But to get there we need to admit failure.
And our admission to failure ismore marine reserves.
So by proxy, we are admittingfailure by creating more high
protection areas or marinereserves.
Correct.
Correct.

SPEAKER_00 (57:35):
Because that's that's seen as a solution to a
problem.
And uh so it's just again, it'sthis frustration of not
identifying the problem and it'ssquaring up and addressing that.
And once that's done, the restof these things will f tend to
flow and fall into place.
But whatever we pretend that, ohno, we're we're world leading,

(57:56):
we're just this magic countrydown here that's got everything
right.
We just, you know, we're justbrilliant little people down
here.
And uh where others have triedand failed, we've succeeded.
And while we go ahead with that,we're just bullshitting
ourselves.
And we're j and we're losing asteady little stream.
I mean, it's not going over acliff, it's a steady stream.

(58:16):
That's why it's so insidious.
It is.
And it's not until you get anold crank like me who can go
back and remember unloadingcraze in 1955, that you see the
extent of it.
And never on any of that perioddid it go bang over a cliff.
Just changed.

(58:36):
And it just changed until allthe places where we used to
crayfish here in in the bay,they were gone, there's nothing
nothing there.
And and much wider than that.
It's al it's already well forfor the people to say, Oh, there
were never any there were neverany craze in Cowwell.
Well, back in the day thatsupported three people slightly,
it's crayfishing there.
They had Takato in in Cowwow.

(58:58):
So uh you know, there were therewere plenty of crays around.
Be curious.
You know, that's that's what wesuffer from is a lack of
curiosity.

SPEAKER_02 (59:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (59:07):
Is that and I mean, you notice it over your
lifetime, the things peopletalked about local affairs all
the time when there wasn't muchelse to do.
TV was a mysterious black andwhite box in the corner.
And so people have lost the thisthis sort of the curiosity of
the local and and that's thething with fisheries.

(59:28):
Unless you're curious about it,it'll always seem this dark blob
that's impenetrable.
But if you're curious about it,uh it's quite it's quite
understandable and quitelogical.

SPEAKER_01 (59:37):
Thank you for your time with us today, Barry.
It's really good to know thehistory of your backyard here
and how we've got to where weare today.
I think it's really affected meas I'm a new father and I've got
a son who's gonna experience allof this in his own way as well.
And uh it would be tragic forhim to see that kind of
depletion in his lifetime.
So how do we change ourbehaviours as a whole?

(01:00:00):
and and maybe do something aboutthis because it sometimes the
speed of the world and all theseother distractions, it's too
hard to dedicate some some greymatter to to it and uh you know
feel like we can do somethingabout it.
What would your suggestions be?

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:16):
Well I think first um maintain curiosity about
what's happening.
So keep listening.
Keep trying be informed.
Um sign up for the legacynewsletter.
Uh they put out quite a lot ofgood informative material that's
uh that that tries its best itcan to be unbiased and and and
straight.
They try and just tell it how itis.

(01:00:38):
So that's an important importantsource.
And I think don't give upbecause there are people around
who would like to seefundamental change here.
And in a broader way than justgrasping at an MPA as a silver
bullet that's going to suddenlydo it.
There are people around who havea wider view and and legacy

(01:00:59):
encompasses a lot of that and uhit it you know it's not the most
riveting s subject a topic it'snot like following the all
blacks northern tour or or oranything.
It can be a bit you know bonejarring and and boring at times
it seems but it's crucial.
Unless people stand up and gettogether and and together

(01:01:19):
embrace this need for change, afundamental change.
We we can't expect anythingdifferent when we just keep
doing the same things.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:28):
I feel that's a real role fishing clubs have actually
taken upon themselves in recenttimes is yeah they used to go
out and have competitions andkill them all but that whole
attitude has changed to actuallywhat are we going to do for our
backyard patch for our people totry and restore that abundance
and they're bringing in newbehaviours, ways of fishing, a
lot more selective methods andand behaviors.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:50):
Is is that maybe that's a great avenue a great
avenue to to provideinformation, keep those people
informed, keep them engaged andthey talk to their neighbours
and they talk to other peoplearound them that might won't
necessarily belong to the cluband that just broaden the
understanding.
At the moment there's going tobe a lot of people really
disappointed with the HPAs thathave been announced that it's

(01:02:13):
where they've always fished andsuddenly they've been told they
can't fish there anymore.
In some of them they've beentold they can't fish there
anymore while a commercialfisherman can come in and fish
there.
Well that's just a that'sinsulting.
So there's going to be a lot ofpeople that are that are annoyed
at it but it's important thatthey get beyond an understanding

(01:02:34):
just beyond that little littlepiece that's happened there.
If they just stay engaged andjust say well what's really go
what's happening here?
Because if if I'm excluded fromthis area now, what's going to
happen in five years' time?
What does the future look like?
Is there just going to be lessand less?
Are there going to be just nofish?
You know should I invest in anew outboard?

(01:02:54):
Is it going to be is it gonna amI still going to be able to do
this?
So uh they need to to stay awakeand and uh and keep engaged and
keep understanding that thereneeds to be a fundamental change
in our attitude and law thatthat is managing this because we
are failing, as demonstrated bythe HPAs, we are failing.
It's an evidence of commercial,recreational, customary all of

(01:03:17):
us even though we may pointfingers at each other, we
actually need to be bandedtogether to to really make a
change to this exact well I justthink that if you just forget
the division, forget the thecompeting participants or
whatever, and just look at theecological health and wellbeing
of the park, of the Gulf thatbecause if that's not right, no

(01:03:40):
one's gonna get to NeedsMet, noone's gonna get what they want.
They'll all be fighting over thelast scraps.
Yeah.
So put all that aside say we'renot gonna we're not gonna get
into that.
What we're gonna do is recognisethat we've depleted this area
too much for our own good and weneed to change what we're doing
and turn the tide the other way.
And it won't be through writingMickey Mouse plans or putting

(01:04:03):
little postage stance HPAsaround the place with big
promises.
It'll only happen with afundamental change in the law
and the and institutions that weuse to manage them.
Which was one of the good goodaspects of the Ahumuana
initiative was that it reallydealt with that sort of first

(01:04:23):
few hundred meters of the theintertidal zone and the first
few hundred meters where a lotof the human impact can be and a
lot of the human impact from newmigrants can be and uh if that
had been fully in engaged inthis in this Hariki Gulf plan,
then there would have beennuance available in that zone
where you can make special rulesfor special places within the

(01:04:46):
park where that was an issuebecause I suspect that there's a
lot of those intertidal areaswhich just need to be left
alone.
Just like keep away as there iswith the first five to eight
meters of rocky reef.
Leave it alone.
It's it's showing the signs ofover exploitation it the whole
ecological balance has beenthrown out and we've got to

(01:05:07):
change our attitude andbehaviour about what we do in
that shallow zone shallow rockyreef zone.
So there's um I don't thinkthere's any silver bullet there.
I think it's uh that's just partof the process.
Well thank you for your timetoday Barry.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:21):
You're most welcome you're most welcome just so
insightful to hear that and Ireally hope maybe my generation
or at least my sons will be theone that bucks this trend and
the way it's you've seen it butI guess decrease in your
lifetime hopefully there's stilltime to change there is there is
there is and I hope and I hopeit happens I hope I hope our
grandkids can can still go outand experience a vibrant diverse

(01:05:45):
ecosystem out here that you canfish you can use but it's not
used beyond its limits