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Ref:663/03 |
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NEW ZEALAND
- Apr 2, 2003 |
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Restrictive net closing on
fish farming says New Zealand paper |
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SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Copyright 2003 The New Zealand
Herald. All Rights Reserved.] EDITORIAL COMMENT BY The
New Zealand Herald - April 2, 2003
Marine Farming is a
growing industry with Government regulators hot on its
tail. Not far behind them, naturally, are Maori tribal
interests determined to claim a high proportion of
coastal areas designated for new aquaculture. They
might also be given a share of existing marine farms
if the present lease-holders are given no automatic
right of renewal.
The denial of renewal rights to those who have
pioneered aquaculture in this country is quite the
most reprehensible of the Government's regulatory
proposals. It would mean that those who have invested
money and effort in developing a marine farm would see
their property put up for tender at the end of each
lease period. They would have to bid for the right to
retain the fruit of their own work. As one fishing
industry leader has said, 'If this was farmland there
would be riots'.
Fisheries Minister Pete Hodgson explains that the
Government does not want to privatise marine farming
space with indeterminate leases. Why not? Marine farms
are private enterprises and private enterprise does
not happen unless the law recognises the property
rights created by the investment. Setting up a marine
farm can cost $500,000 and preparing the produce for
market can cost as much again. To confiscate the
property after a term of perhaps 10 or 20 years will
not encourage the utmost maintenance of marine farms
or the constant improvement of their stocks and
output.
New Zealand's marine jurisdiction now awards tradeable
property rights in the form of fishing quotas. What
would be the harm in creating a tradeable licence to
an area designated for fish farming? Existing licences,
awarded under the Marine Act or the Resource
Management Act, have been renewable fairly
automatically so long as the operation continued to
meet various public requirements. That arrangement has
encouraged the industry to grow at such a rate that a
year ago the Government imposed a moratorium on
further licences until it could get a regulatory grip.
Surprisingly, the Government's proposed regime seems
not to have considered the likelihood of Maori claims
to the latest use of coastal fishing grounds. The
Waitangi Tribunal has heard and backed those claims,
finding the Crown has breached four treaty principles
in developing its proposals. Now the Waitangi
Fisheries Commission is talking of claiming as much as
20 per cent of the new aquaculture zones that will be
designated by regional councils. One or two iwi are
contemplating a claim also to 10 per cent of existing
areas which could be bought by the Crown once licences
expire.
The percentage figures are copied from the 1992
fisheries settlement, the 'Sealord deal', which
presaged 10 years of litigation between Maori with
different ideas about a fair distribution of the
wealth. The commission seems on the verge of an
agreement at last, but the long dispute does not augur
well for marine farming.
The commission says there is no co-ordinated Maori
claim to the aquaculture assets yet. Chairman Shane
Jones suggests the Maori interest could be satisfied
either by 20 per cent of the revenue from licence
tenders or reserving for Maori 20 per cent of the
available space.
The Government plans to consult Maori at a series of
hui this month and Mr Hodgson believes the exercise
will delay the regulatory legislation only briefly.
Let us hope so. The two-year moratorium is now half
gone and the growth of a much-needed new industry
remains suspended. Councils have yet to publish the
designated areas and the regulatory regime remains
vague. Let's hope, since it is taking this long, that
the regulators have had time to at least revise their
restrictive leasing plans. We already face the danger
of strangling an infant industry. |
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