The boss of seafood company Sanford has a provocative idea for sharing the lucrative snapper fishery, reports Geoff Cumming.
A chief executive of Volker Kuntzsch's pedigree doesn't do things by accident, especially in an industry as unforgiving as fishing ... we might think.
Kuntzsch, 51, helms our biggest seafood company, Sanford, after a globe-trotting career that has taken him to the upper echelons of Japanese seafood giant Nissui, as head of its billion-dollar US operations.
But even a strategist of his standing is surprised by the furore over his offer to remove Sanford's fleet from the Hauraki Gulf, the most productive part of our most lucrative inshore fishery - snapper.
When Kuntzsch told the annual Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Seminar that Sanford was willing to give up the Gulf - on condition that recreational fishers record and report their catch - it was more than a warning shot across the bow.
It already seemed brave enough for a figurehead of industrial fishing - whose harvesting methods are blamed for declining stocks - to front a gathering of environmentalists worried about the ecological health of the Gulf. But Kuntzsch, whose deep Afrikaans accent is reminiscent of a South African rugby forward, unsurprisingly stole the show with his "offer".
Praise rippled from the conservation movement to Parliament, with Environment Minister Nick Smith terming the pledge "constructive and helpful".
But not just recreational fishers smelt something under the floorboards; Sanford's competitors were also caught off-guard. So was Sanford's board: chairman Paul Norling met his CEO a few days later and suggested, says Kuntzsch, "it would have been nice if you had mentioned this beforehand".
Volker Kuntzsch, CEO of Sanford Seafood company. Photo / Nick Reed
For two years, commercial and recreational fishing representatives and the Ministry for Primary Industries have been inching towards consensus on managing Snapper 1 - the area from North Cape to East Cape, where the collision between commercial and recreational fishing interests is most fraught.
The Hauraki Gulf is the engine room of this fishery but its productivity is threatened not just by commercial harvesting, but by runaway population growth. At summer peak, as many as 1800 trailer boats and launches converge on its fishing spots.
Evidence that the fishery was in trouble led to proposed cuts in 2013, triggering protest and a Government backdown. The "multi-sector strategy group" launched afterwards has goals which include a sustainable fishery shared 50:50 between commercial and recreational fishers.
Scientists claim that, with better management, the current harvesting limit of 8050 tonnes could eventually be raised to 12,000 tonnes - more fish in the sea for everyone.
Clearly, Kuntzsch, who succeeded Eric Barratt at Sanford early last year, isn't happy with progress. He predicts that population growth will see commercial fishing barred from the Gulf anyway within 20 years.
He says though the strategy group (chaired by Sir Ian Barker, QC) has got the warring parties talking, a major breakthrough is needed. Instead, the process looks likely to drag on for a couple more years.
"I don't get the feeling we are very close to a result here," says Kuntzsch.
Trawling is already excluded from the inner Gulf (the boundary is drawn from Kawau Island to just north of Coromandel Harbour) and restrictions on other fishing methods apply as far as Great Barrier Island.
This means any spatial clash between recreational and commercial interests is confined to low-intensity longlining on smaller vessels.
The Government has also promised to declare much of the inner Gulf a recreational fishing park, earmarking millions of dollars to compensate affected longliners.
In a sense, then, Kuntzsch's was a hollow offer - but it certainly bagged the prize.
"It's had the reaction I wanted - we need to have public debate if we are to ensure sustainability."
Day trip snapper fishing on board Ultimate Charters. Photo / Michael Craig
Where his predecessor Barratt masked his environmental commitment behind a crusty exterior, Kuntzsch wears sustainability on his sleeve. He softened up the seminar with an image of him cradling a baby black petrel on Great Barrier Island.
So how green is the qualified marine scientist?
"Handling 120,000 tonnes of product every year, you have to be a little bit green if you are wanting to be doing this in another 100 years," he says.
Born in Namibia, Kuntzsch completed his education in South Africa with a masters in zoology. He joined a fishing company because he "wanted to contribute to an industry, not become a nature conservationist on a reserve".
His career path since then has been as nomadic as a great white shark, with stop-offs in Germany, Britain, Tokyo, and the US state of Georgia, as well as Namibia.
A hallmark achievement, while sourcing fish for Unilever in Europe, was working with the World Wildlife Fund to set up the Marine Stewardship Council, a certification system for sustainable commercial fisheries.
Kuntzsch was instrumental in New Zealand hoki becoming the first fish in the world to be MSC-certified.
"That was a big milestone in my life - convincing an industry to go for certification [in 2001].
"The New Zealand industry went from nothing in Europe to exporting thousands of tonnes in the first year."
Two subsequent posts involved turning around loss-making companies. The father of four went back to Namibia after Europe, to a company whose previous management had been chased from the premises by workers armed with machetes.
He found illiteracy and HIV infection rife among the 1200 staff and set out to break down the "culture of silence" about the disease and instil a cultural change. On the business side, he transformed the firm from commodity producer to a value-added seafood supplier and, some years later, it remains profitable.
Though the challenges are different at NZX-listed Sanford, Kuntzsch sees similar potential to shift the focus from commodity wholesaler to value-added supplier - and to engage his 1600 staff.
"It comes down to creating the right atmosphere - making sure people understand where you are heading and taking people along with you."
He seems most chuffed by his post-Namibia achievements with Nissui, Japan's second-largest fishing company, first as its global marketing director in Tokyo: "after living in the bush in Namibia then in Tokyo working day and night for one of the biggest [fishing] companies in the world as the only non-Japanese working in a very senior position."
The heights got giddier: he was sent to Brunswick, Georgia, to turn around the troubled King & Prince Seafood subsidiary before being appointed president of Nissui's US operations.
When he applied for the Sanford job, it was his wife who suggested this should be their final stop. His career had brought increasing contact with New Zealand, he liked this country's feel and the "cultural similarities", and he could see the potential in NZ-branded seafood. His children, in their late teens and early 20s, are coming around after the initial culture shock.
Established more than 100 years ago, Sanford is now an integrated operator with activities spanning inshore and offshore (as far as the Ross Sea) and international joint ventures.
Its vessels range from inshore longliners to deepwater freezer trawlers, specialised scampi boats and ice ships. It has diversified into farming green-lipped mussels, Pacific oysters and salmon, and has taken stakes in Chinese and Canadian processors.
Kuntzsch sees potential to reduce the firm's dependence on overseas commodity prices through niche products and initiatives such as live fish exports to Asia.
New Zealand Snapper.
He says the industry is portrayed in a largely negative way, but New Zealand's comparatively clean, green image and (mostly) sustainable fisheries present "a great opportunity to get out there and create some positive capital".
"It's such a great story to talk about ... In order to do that we have to be more transparent. We want people to say Sanford is a good citizen."
Transparency is not a word usually associated with the fishing industry, notorious for activities beyond the horizon ranging from hoovering up under-sized juveniles (which are thrown back dead) to dumping non-target species and breaching quota allowances.
Then there are employment practices on foreign charter vessels, which led to a Government crackdown.
But Kuntzsch insists the industry has made great strides towards transparency, including Government-enforced measures such as on-board cameras, GPS monitoring and reporting of under-sized catches in Snapper 1. He sees sustainability as key to positioning Sanford as the "best seafood company in the world" and an employer of choice.
"I came here thinking everybody in New Zealand is a little bit green - this is what makes the brand so powerful. I've come to learn there are more challenges than I expected but there is still this opportunity."
But first, he has decided to go toe to toe with recreational fishing.
Snapper 1, for both domestic consumption and Asian customers, remains a prized fishery and Sanford holds 24 per cent of the quota. Between 20 and 30 per cent of the company's snapper catch comes from the Hauraki Gulf, where it also targets tarakihi, trevally and gurnard. Sanford operates seven boats in the whole of Snapper 1 and leases quota to other operators, mostly longliners.
Giving up the prime inshore fishery so the recreational sector supplies more data may seem folly but, he says, "we are willing to take that step".
"There are so many fishermen in the Gulf - we have no idea what they are catching and what they are throwing back.
"It would be interesting to know what's being taken out by the recreational sector in order to establish that the resource is sufficient.
"It adds up to being bold and making a statement about that. It was mainly about provoking a reaction." He concedes that, were it to eventuate, the company would continue to fill its quota further out; costs would escalate and small independent contractors would lose their livelihoods.
New Zealand Snapper. Photo / Getty Images
"It will cost us some money, and [cost] certain fishing families."
What he doesn't acknowledge is that snapper stocks outside the Gulf are in far worse shape - his company would be shifting fishing effort to the more vulnerable East Northland and Bay of Plenty fishing grounds. Sixty five per cent of current stocks are concentrated in the Hauraki Gulf, scientists believe. Snapper biomass (the estimate of current stocks compared to pre-commercial fishing levels) is calculated to be as low as 6 per cent in the Bay of Plenty and 24 per cent in East Northland. Hardly sustainable.
Nor are the fishery's other big quota holders, Aotearoa Fisheries and Leigh Fisheries, jumping on board. Iwi-owned Aotearoa points out that its shareholders have quota rights enshrined by the Maori Fisheries Act.
"Measures that seek to restrict that would have to be carefully considered and assessed," the company said in a statement.
"Spatial separation is not a sustainability tool in itself ..." Recreational lobbyists argue that considerable data already exists on how much the sector is catching (and throwing back), through a combination of boat ramp and aerial surveys.
Asking fishers to self-report catch and effort data using smartphone Apps - as Kuntzsch claims is common overseas - is unreliable, says Scott Macindoe of lobby group Legasea. The recreational take is also estimated to have fallen considerably in the past three years, thanks to cyclical variation as much as last year's bag limit and minimum size rule changes.
Kuntzsch fires back: "I'm cynical. If the data was reliable ... they wouldn't have to rely on estimates."
By his own estimate, recreational fishers are landing as much as the commercial allowance of 4500 tonnes. He adds that he doesn't believe Legasea and the Sport Fishing Council reflect the interests of ordinary weekend fishers - this despite the 47,000 submissions which flooded Parliament on the back of their 2013 campaign.
To further muddy the waters, the industry itself is dragging the chain on data, withholding funding for a scientific survey to get a better handle on the fishery's health. The last such "tagging" survey - which allows scientists to reliably estimate stock size and status - was in 1993.
Again, Kuntzsch is unrepentant.
"We feel we have a lot of information about what we are doing. We measure every fish that comes on board. What we don't know is how much is being thrown back by recreational fishers.
