Study seeks lessons in Maori fishing success

By SIMON COLLINS

Innovative Maori fishing companies are a model for the rest of the country, say two Auckland researchers.

Dr Manuka Henare of Auckland University and Dr Andrew Jeffs of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) have won a $1.4 million grant for a four-year study of seafood industry innovation.

Native American researchers from the University of Arizona will join the study to look for lessons from Maori businesses, which own between 55 per cent and 60 per cent of the country's fishing assets.

The industry has almost tripled exports from $500 million to $1.4 billion a year in 20 years, despite no growth in fish quotas.

"There has been very strong growth, largely towards innovative aquaculture developments and product development," Dr Jeffs said.

"The overall aim of the project is to look at what is driving that, and to work out how to get those drivers elsewhere in the economy."

Last year's Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report found that Maori were among the most entrepreneurial people in the world. But Dr Henare and Dr Jeffs said no one had looked in detail at Maori innovation before.

"The seafood sector, because of its large and varied Maori participation, provides an ideal opportunity to conduct this research," they said.

Maori acquired Sealord under a $170 million settlement of Treaty of Waitangi claims in 1992. They already had Moana Pacific.

In 1998, Maori owned 29 fishing companies and 12 iwi seafood businesses.

Moana Pacific said in March that it had abandoned fish farming plans because of planning delays and the moratorium on new aquaculture ventures while regional councils draw up boundaries for marine farming areas.

But Dr Henare, the director of Auckland University's Mira Szaszy Research Centre for Maori and Pacific Economic Development, said the research project might help find ways to foster aquaculture development.

"Notwithstanding bureaucratic hiccups here and there, there is all this potential here," he said.

The study will include a survey of seafood companies and case studies of successful innovators such as Nelson's Wakatu Incorporation, which has grown from a small business 25 years ago to a major mussel farming, crayfish and fishing company with net assets of more than $100 million.



Research by economists Chris Batstone from Auckland University of Technology and Basil Sharp from Auckland University has found that the rock lobster industry increased its "catch per unit effort" after lobsters were brought into the quota system in 1990.

The total allowable catch of rock lobsters was reduced by 21 per cent in the first 10 years of the quota, but the catch increased from 85 per cent to 98 per cent of the quota.

The industry cut its labour force slightly but invested more capital to achieve a higher rate of return.

The new research project will be financed by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

Maori fishing:


* Maori businesses own 55 to 60 per cent of New Zealand's fishing assets.
* Maori owned 29 fishing companies and 12 iwi seafood businesses in 1998.