This is a loosely attributable follow up to my environmental post yesterday but is slightly different.
My father was a huge proponent of the rights of people to use rivers and the foreshore for all people in this country. Although he wrote with a passing interest on the foreshore issue, his legacy to many New Zealanders and his children was his continuing fight to make sure all river users had a fair shot at their recreation. When he was in the Manawatu he lobbied consistently for the rights of recreational river users on the Manawatu, Pohangina and Oroua rivers. His pet beef was the freedom jet boat users thought they had to use the river willy nilly without due deference to other river users (fisherfolk, families swimming, kids playing in the shallows, etc).
When he moved to Masterton in the mid 90's he continued his fight but this time for Ruamahanga River. We as kids had no idea how much activism he represented until he died and we had the pleasure to see that he had been lobbying parliament for the rights of all river users right throughout the country, not just his home patch.
Unfortunately on his death, things apparently went back to how they were and several family members have been upset to see his hard work get destroyed. That was the work my father did. Now I'm not my father, and though I admire his work, my area of specialty is on the foreshore and coast of this wonderful country.
I had the misfortune the other night to watch a programme on TV where fisheries officers, police and others broke up a huge paua poaching gang. It's fair to say that most were in it for the quick money, but operations like this kill our country for those of us who want to get kaimoana the legal way. The more people take advantage and break the law, the less there is for bona fide fishermen. I served in the Navy Survey fleet for 27 years around this country and I grew to absolutely love this place and I'm fully aware there is no other country like it in the world. We can leave work Friday, drive for around an hour to the coast, and fish and catch something for kai that night, be it paua, koura, schnapper, or a small Gournard. That's what makes this country a wonderful place to live in.
But more and more seedy characters are willing to take that right away from us. No not Maori, the unscrupulous criminals with greed on their mind. Maori are right in what they say about the foreshore, it has to be protected for the good of all New Zealanders, but more especially Maori who's major diet is fresh fish, especially coastal iwi. If they continue to use their conservation of the fishery hat then it works for me.
I've been a sea fisherman since I was about 12, never cottoned on to the trout or salmon fishery, not as much fun. Sea fishing meant you could catch any variety of fish and you never knew what it was until it surfaced in front of you. And 99% of it was edible. But having fished all around New Zealand there is a terrible trend that some species are over fished, in particular the Schnapper fishery and the Kahawai/Kingfish fisheries. Thirty years ago they were in plentiful numbers, now you would be lucky to get your quota in one hit. But some do, and as evident on the same programme a week later, the schnapper fishery is still being decimated by unscrupulous fishermen (one boat had 157 undersized schnapper in their boat).
Now for various reasons river fishermen have to have a license to fish, so why not the sea fishermen, the so called recreational fisherman? Let's license all boats that go to sea firstly, that's all boats, and then separately issue a temporary license to all boats that have fishing gear in them. Two reasons, if they get caught illegally fishing then their gear is seized, but they are also banned from fishing for a period and their fishing license withdrawn. If they get caught again in another boat without a license, they go to court. Repeat offenders will be dealt with and we protect our fishery.
Now I will so bold as to state that a large number of transgressors have differing ethnic origins and pretend to use their poor use of the English Language to offer up as an excuse as to why they are fishing illegally. Licensing kaimoana gatherers does away with that issue. If they sit a test on bag limits and sizes for all species for their license then they know if they are fishing illegally and will have the full weight of the law placed upon them. Then the rest of New Zealand can do what they have always done, taken their quota and had a good feed that night with the whanau and friends.
If you know someone that fishes illegally, do what my Dad did years ago, make everyone aware of their rights as users of this countries bounty.
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