Mining project risking $1.5b fishing industry

The Chatham Rock Phosphate Company has proposed mining phosphate from the Chatham Rise. PHOTO/FILE

"In Just 20 years we have knackered the Clyde fishing industry". This comment came from an old Scottish fisherman. It could be applied to many other fishing grounds. This was one of the UK's greatest environmental disasters, and has recently been chronicled in the Economist.

In the 1960s there was a huge herring fishery, with no regulation. By the 1980s herring were scarce, but the area was so rich that many other species were also present, and fishermen switched to cod, plaice and sole, again with open slather and no relevant laws. Now, there are no significant numbers of any fish species and no large fish worth fishing for. Fishing is confined to bottom trawling for shrimp and scallops, destroying the habitat and any chance of a revival of the industry.

Hopefully, this disaster won't be mirrored in the Southern Hemisphere 20 years later on. The problem, of course, is political. Everybody agrees that with a sensible policy fishing is a sustainable good. In the Clyde there was a large voting population and no regulation. The fishermen of the Clyde are heavily romanticised and are not a good target for environmentalists or Members of Parliament. However, the fishermen now admit they were responsible for this devastation causing Britain's first "ecological desert".

New Zealand has a good record of marine conservation, with one of the world's first marine reserves (Cape Rodney - Okakari Point Marine Reserve) established in 1977. Marine reserves are "no take" areas, protected from the sea surface to the sea floor, where no fishing or removal of any other material is allowed.

The main stumbling block now is that the present government seems disinterested in environmental concerns unless there is political currency to be gained. The Marine Reserves Bill, the proposed legislation that would allow marine reserves in the offshore marine environment, has received substantial public approval and submissions, yet has still not proceeded to become law. The proposed reserve around the Kermadecs has been demoted, and now will depend on a private bill. Land-based environmental protection suggestions have mostly received short shrift.

Now an even more worrying problem has surfaced. The Chatham Rock Phosphate Company has proposed mining phosphate from the Chatham Rise. This area acts as a nursery for many species, but especially hoki, and is acknowledged to be one of the richest fishing grounds in New Zealand's marine control area.

Phosphate mining at this depth is experimental, and involves a massive disruption of the sea floor. No one knows what the effects will be. The plume of sediment could extend for miles, smothering all in its path and destroying a $1.5 billion fishing industry.

As George Clement, chief executive of The Deep Water Group (representing the fishing industry) says in a recent Dominion Post article: "It makes no sense to risk a fishing industry that will still be around for generations, for a 15-year mining project with debatable benefits and very real risks."

Marine ecosystems are still under threat throughout most of New Zealand's waters. Diligence is vital if they are to survive.

Ian Sutherland is a retired pathologist with a lifelong interest in conservation