Gary Taylor: Time for Govt to act on principles

The Government has made some bold and encouraging noises recently about the importance it attaches to the environment.

Conservation Minister Tim Groser, speaking to the Conservation Estate Symposium, made the link between the state of the environment and our economic prosperity.

He said of New Zealand's place in the world: "The point of difference is not price or volume but rather brand value based around world class environmental standards ... The demand for consumer goods, and food in particular, that is a product of sustainable environmental practices, is growing. And consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated; unwilling to accept claims that cannot be sourced and validated."

We saw a good example of this last week when the British supermarket chain Waitrose refused to stock New Zealand hoki because it was caught by bottom trawling. Waitrose says bottom trawling is damaging to the ocean floor ecology and it prefers more benign fishing methods because that's what its customers expect.

Interestingly, hoki is certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. But consumers in our international markets are increasingly driving standards higher as they look for the ethical and environmental origins of products.

We can expect more of this and need to keep increasingly vigilant about fine-tuning our environmental standards so they reflect consumer values.

The fishing industry is especially vulnerable to such sentiment. New Zealand is a marine mammal and seabird "hotspot". At least 38 species of dolphin and whale are found here, just under half the world's total. We also have more than 80 species of seabirds, more than anywhere else in the world. Many of the birds are endemic to New Zealand.

Dolphins, seabirds, sea lions and fur seals are often caught as a byproduct of fishing, despite strenuous efforts by fishers to avoid such collateral damage. That places the fishing industry at risk.

Part of the problem is that New Zealand's legislative framework for fishing is biased towards productive rather than conservation values. Decisions about protective measures for seabirds and marine mammals are largely left to the Minister of Fisheries when he makes allocation decisions. And any attempts to put protective measures in place are routinely challenged by the industry.

As I wrote in an earlier column, the industry is currently in the High Court seeking to reduce protection for the endangered Hector's dolphin and the critically endangered Maui's dolphin. There are only around 111 Maui's dolphins left in the world and their future is being decided under an act that is designed to enable the utilisation of fisheries resources, not to protect threatened marine species.

We do have protection-oriented legislation in New Zealand, but the Marine Mammals Protection Act is now more than 30 years old and has not been effectively invoked even to save Maui's dolphin, the world's rarest marine mammal.

Not one species has a population management plan - a key conservation measure - not even our rarest. There is something wrong about that and it's time for a hard look at how we can improve the law to ensure our marine mammals and seabirds cease their slide towards extinction.

Fortunately, we have a great opportunity to do just that. A private member's bill by Metiria Turei, called the Marine Animals Protection Law Reform Bill, has been drawn in the ballot and will be before Parliament this week. The bill seeks to amend three acts dealing with marine wildlife and place greater emphasis on threatened species protection. It may need some changes to get it right, but it is heading in the right direction and puts more balance and legal certainty into the decision-making process.

This is an opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that it means what it says about world-class environmental standards. It should support referral of the bill to a select committee where all these issues can be considered and we can create a more sustainable, ethical and environmentally responsible legal framework for fishing - which, after all, is in the best long-term interests our fishing industry.

* Gary Taylor is chairman of the Environmental Defence Society, www.eds.org.nz