Introduction

New Zealand has a large and diverse marine environment which supports valuable, customary, amateur and commercial fisheries. Aquaculture has also been successful mainly for shellfish, such as green lipped mussels and oysters. Improvements in fishing gear and export markets lead to a rapid growth in commercial fishing capacity in the 1960 and 1970s.  A series of valuable fishers went through a boom and bust cycle as fishers looked to explore new opportunities and maintain profits.  Limiting fishing permits and vessel and gear restrictions had not been able to stop the depletion of stocks. 

By the early 1980s the government started preparing for a major restructure of fisheries management.  Fishers that were deemed to be part-time were not reissued permits. They could no longer sell fish causing hardship in many coastal communities. Fishers that were deemed to be full time had catch rights issued based on catch history.  They were given the option of selling their right back to the government or converting it into Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) for most of the main fish stocks.  Today commercial fishers view their ITQ as a valuable property right, which they defend vigourously.

Quota Management System

The QMS allowed fishers to trade or lease catch entitlement (ITQ).  In theory the quota would end up with those individuals or companies that valued it most, and supposedly get the best return.  Many of the vessel and gear restrictions were removed and fishers could choose when an how to catch their entitlement, knowing that it would be available to them that year.  Largely, the “race of fish”, where everyone competes to be first to catch as much as they can, was eliminated.

The catch reporting system is a key feature of the QMS and all fish caught above minimum size have to be landed and recorded against a fishers quota.  Dumping or high grading of catch is prohibited.  Various catch balancing systems were tried to help fishers have enough flexibility to operate efficiently.  Unfortunately a number of these have been abused to the detriment of fish stocks and other stakeholders.  The current system allows fishers to exceed their annual catch entitlement during the year by paying a penalty fee.  If at the end of the year they don’t buy enough annual catch entitlement (ACE) to cover what the have landed, then they must pay the full deemed value for that fish stock. Through accumulation and aquisition quota is now mostly owned by large companies. The largest is Aotearoa Fisheries which is owned by Moari.