Ratification of global fisheries agreement a positive step

The Mar­itime Union says the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of a new glob­al fish­eries agree­ment by the New Zealand Gov­ern­ment is pos­i­tive news.

The Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion of the Unit­ed Nations Port State Mea­sures Agree­ment is designed to fight ille­gal, unreg­u­lat­ed and unre­port­ed (IUU) fish­ing.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says New Zealand still has a long way to go to fix sys­temic prob­lems in the fish­ing sec­tor.

“The con­sis­tent theme is that ille­gal fish­ing is often linked to exploita­tion of crew mem­bers and oth­er abus­es.”

He says the full enforce­ment of cur­rent laws and reg­u­la­tions was still required.

New Zealand is the ninth coun­try to rat­i­fy the agree­ment, which requires 25 rat­i­fi­ca­tions to come into force.

Despite the Gov­ern­ment announce­ment in 2012 that For­eign Char­ter Ves­sels (FCVs) in New Zealand waters would have to be reflagged to the New Zealand flag by 2016, bring­ing them under the full range of New Zealand law, there have been ongo­ing prob­lems in the indus­try.

Recent exam­ples include a seri­ous injury to a New Zealand Gov­ern­ment observ­er on a FCV result­ing in the ampu­ta­tion of an arm in Jan­u­ary this year, and raids by author­i­ties on FCVs in Timaru for sus­pect­ed ille­gal activ­i­ty in 2013.

Two FCVs with his­to­ries of crew prob­lems have incurred sub­stan­tial costs to the tax­pay­er after being seized by author­i­ties in Dunedin for ille­gal fish­ing.

“New Zealand is a mar­itime nation and we depend on the ocean for our liveli­hood. We must treat it and those who work on it with respect and care,” says Mr Fleet­wood.