Various reasons for me not being involved… firstly, NZ has a lot of good people working on fisheries, then while many people believed that I being a “foreigner” was good as I had no agenda… others had a more “who the fu*k are you?” attitude and they were quite vocal about it. Finally, there was better pay for working overseas.
This is not to say that I don't keep a keen interest in it or that I have no intention of returning to it. In fact, I have used NZ experiences and models in my work overseas and have good friends deeply involved in NZ fisheries at every level.
In any case, I always get dubitative when I’m asked to comment on NZ fisheries, since you're immediately cornered into a sector or user… doesn't matter what you take is… You are with us or against us… and I hate that shit. I get accused of being with industry (even if I haven’t worked for industry for over 20 years) or, as I work with government, it means that I’m paid by industry, or as a scientist, I don’t know shit, or as a former UN fisheries officer, I’m part of a conspiracy… and so on
Yet there has been a remarkable amount of noise about the proposed New Zealand Fisheries Amendment Bill. Depending on who you listen to, it is either a long-overdue modernisation of fisheries management, a dangerous weakening of environmental protections, or a total sell-out to industry interests. The problem is that voices are either from a recreational lobby group with the support of massive multinationals with interest in selling trucks, boats and fishing equipment, people involved in making money out of selling spearfishing gear (which I buy) or have a TV fishing program on one side and the minister of fisheries on the other, and that is it
As usual, the reality is more complicated and somewhere in between those poles. So it was great to read a few of my friend Shelton Harley's posts on LinkedIn. Shelton is an avid recreational fisherman originally from Whakatane, but is also a fisheries scientist with over 30 years' experience studying fisheries in New Zealand, Alaska, the western and central Pacific, the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. He obtained his PhD in Canada, where he studied in the years immediately after the infamous cod collapse (and in my opinion, he is part of a group of scientists responsible for the fact that tropical tunas have not collapsed)
I tend to be generally fair with my praise, but he really knows his shit… I would only trust 3 people in terms of NZ fisheries advice, and he is one of them (Adam Langley and Andy McKay are the other 2)
So, based on his writings and my own ideas, here is my take… yet first, I state that I dive into this from a fisheries science and management point of view, not from privacy rights and compliance, so I stay away from the non-science aspects of the bill: i.e., the fines for releasing EM footage
I start where much of the public discussion has focused on headlines—“legalising discards,” “allowing undersized fish to be landed,” “weakening protections.” But also, for me, a key aspect that has not been touched and is buried beneath the politics is some genuinely important questions about how fisheries management actually works in practice, and how it might work better in the future.
The three aspects of the Bill that are particularly interesting to me are: the introduction of multi-year catch decisions and Management Procedures, the proposed changes to discarding rules, and the reform of Minimum Legal Sizes (MLSs). On the surface, these may appear to be separate technical issues. In reality, they are deeply connected by a common theme: incentives.
And in my experience, fisheries management is, in the end, largely about incentives.
New Zealand manages more than 400 individual fish stocks under the Quota Management System. That alone explains part of the challenge. We often talk about “the fishery” as if it were a single entity, but it is really hundreds of small management systems operating simultaneously across species, regions, and fishing methods.
A useful comparison that Shelton does is monetary policy. The Reserve Bank reviews the Official Cash Rate regularly using economic indicators and adjusts it accordingly. Fisheries management operates in a broadly similar way, except that, instead of one OCR, fisheries managers effectively run hundreds of them at once.
The difficulty is scale… only around 20 to 35 catch limits are reviewed each year. At that rate, many fish stocks may go a decade or more without formal reassessment. And it is worth remembering something important: not reviewing a catch limit is still a decision. It is a decision to leave things as they are.
This is where the Bill’s proposals on multi-year decisions and Management Procedures become interesting. At present, catch limits are generally reviewed annually. If the science suggests that a stock needs a significant adjustment but decision-makers prefer a cautious, staged approach, the current system often requires repeating the entire consultation and decision-making process each year. This consumes time, resources, and management attention.
The Bill proposes allowing multi-year pathways to be agreed upon up front. In practical terms, this means a gradual adjustment over several years could be consulted on once, rather than repeatedly.
That may sound bureaucratic, but it matters. Because the real issue here is not simply efficiency, it is management coverage. If structured processes allow managers to deal with more stock more often, that can potentially improve responsiveness across the system.
Management Procedures go a step further. These are essentially pre-agreed rules that determine how catch limits change based on data. In plain language: if the stock looks like this, then management responds like that.
This is not a radical idea. Variants of Management Procedures and Harvest Strategies are widely used internationally, including in some of the world’s best-managed fisheries. We have been dealing with this in the WCPFC for a while now… in fact, and I couldn't give a shit about Ecolables like MSC (I find private certifications neocolonial), but having a Harvest Strategy is one of the conditions.
Environmental organisations and industry groups alike often support them because they reduce ad hoc decision-making and create more predictable, science-based responses; also, and fundamentally, in my opinion, they reduce the space for lobbying and political improvisation.
Of course, no system is entirely automatic. Exceptional circumstances still require judgment. But the principle is important, fisheries management works best when rules are clear before the pressure arrives, not negotiated afterwards in the middle of conflict.
What strikes me about this part of the Bill is that it has attracted relatively little public attention compared with some of the more emotive debates. Yet these procedural changes may ultimately prove more significant in the long term than many of the headline issues.
Because they are really about changing how decisions are made, not simply what those decisions are.
The debate around discards and Minimum Legal Sizes is different. Here, the politics become more visible because the images are more tangible. Undersized fish thrown back dead into the sea tend to provoke strong reactions, understandably so.
The phrase “legalising discards” has circulated widely in criticism of the Bill…but that framing is, at best, incomplete.
Discarding already exists in New Zealand fisheries. Commercial fishers currently return undersized fish that do not count against quota, and Recreational fishers must also release undersized fish, with generally no obligation to retain them.
The important point is that, under the current system, there are situations in which fish are discarded without direct consequences, even when survival rates are low, and this is what we studied already back in 2005.
That matters because incentives matter. If undersized fish do not count against quota when discarded, what incentive exists to avoid catching them in the first place? Particularly in fisheries where post-release survival is low.
This is where the previous government’s policy shift becomes important, and much of the current debate seems to overlook this context. The previous government introduced a principle that fish should only be returned if they are likely to survive. If survival is unlikely, requiring release may simply institutionalise waste, which is actually a fairly logical position.
The current Bill largely operationalises that earlier policy direction by proposing the removal of many commercial MLS requirements, particularly in trawl fisheries where survival rates of returned fish are often poor.
Under the proposed changes, those fish would instead need to be landed and counted against quota.
On the face of it, there is a coherent logic here. If fishers must retain and account for undersized fish, then catching them becomes costly. And if catching them becomes costly, there is a stronger incentive to avoid them.
That is a meaningful change in behavioural incentives.
Yet this is also where concerns raised by recreational groups and environmental NGOs deserve serious attention… Because incentives can cut both ways.
If undersized fish can legally be landed, could markets eventually emerge for smaller fish? Could that alter targeting behaviour over time? I understand why people worry about that possibility.
At the same time, the issue is not quite as straightforward as some of the public rhetoric suggests. Commercial fisheries remain constrained by quota limits. Fishers generally maximise value, not volume alone, and smaller fish often represent lower economic returns.
Besides that small fish are hard to commercialise (and eat!) as commercial fishermen you need to make the biggest return possible for every kilo you catch, and fishing, thanks to mostly the cost of fuel, has never been as expensive as it is now… and if you don’t sell your fish for more money that it costed you to catch it, you’ll be out of business in no time.
So the whole idea that industry will turn to catch undersized fish to send to fishmeal and byproducts where the price is set by the waste of processing bigger fish, would be ruinous to whoever idiotic fishing company try that strategy… so it will not last long.
And while I agree that it is not one at the front of most critics' minds and does not eliminate the risk entirely. But neither does it make the feared outcome inevitable.
And here Shelton’s insight is gold: we are really debating a trade-off between two imperfect systems.
Maintaining existing MLS rules may continue to generate significant waste where released fish do not survive. Removing them may improve accountability and reduce waste, but it also creates concerns about unintended incentives. Neither position is entirely comfortable.
And perhaps that discomfort is healthy.
Too often, fisheries debates collapse into simplistic binaries: conservation versus industry, protection versus exploitation. The reality is usually messier. Fisheries management is full of situations where every option carries risks, costs, and unintended consequences.
What matters is whether the incentives embedded in the system broadly push behaviour in the right direction.
That, ultimately, may be the common thread linking these different aspects of the Bill.
Multi-year decisions and Management Procedures aim to create more structured, predictable management incentives at the governance level. Discard reforms and MLS changes aim to reshape incentives at the operational level.
In both cases, the Bill is attempting to move away from reactive, ad hoc approaches toward systems where behaviours are influenced more directly through pre-agreed rules and accountability mechanisms.
Whether it succeeds is another question.
But the debate would probably benefit from spending less time arguing about slogans and more time examining the incentive structures these changes actually create.
Because fisheries policy is rarely just about fish. It is about the systems we build around people.
And here's the main beef for me: when we get to fisheries policy in NZ… It is a circle of people who are pointing fingers at each other and expecting the other to change, while not offering much in return
Recreational and commercial fishing lobbyists, public servants responsible for fisheries management, politicians, fisheries scientists, and other experts (indeed, whether they are or not) who provide advice we all need to understand the nature and dimensions of fisheries politics in which we operate.
When you say someone is "playing politics," you're generally trying to criticise or even insult them.
But politics is how people talk about and work out their differences. Politics can't happen without people disagreeing. Politics is how disagreements are discussed and resolved, whether in the family, at work, in government, or in a campaign to parliament
Fisheries politics happen at many different levels. It determines which tools are available to control fisheries and how they affect the environment. It clarifies the connection between extraction and protection. It determines how the catch will be split among groups with different needs.
International rules govern the protection and sharing of migratory and straddling stocks between countries. These relationships are based on political rules and norms. Those who want to have the most impact on how fisheries are handled and used can learn these rules and practise them, not just toxically point fingers
People fish for a job, people fish for fun, and people fish because it is part of their culture, but we're in the same game. We are lucky we can debate in NZ, but I believe each sector's sense of entitlement has taken the debate to toxic levels. We are all using the same resources.
In NZ, we are fortunate to be able to fish for fun and recreation without paying a licence, have access to a commercial QMS, and practise legislated customary fishing. We have so much in our favour, yet we are wasting our time pointing fingers at each other.
This has never been so evident to me than in this debate
