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Andrew Dickens: Dolphin sanctuary highlights Govt's fishy hypocrisy

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Tue, 18 Jun 2019, 12:15PM
The Government will put a sanctuary in our coastal waters but not in our oceans, writes Andrew. (Photo / Getty)

Andrew Dickens: Dolphin sanctuary highlights Govt's fishy hypocrisy

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Tue, 18 Jun 2019, 12:15PM

The moves yesterday to enlarge the marine sanctuary for Maui and Hector’s dolphins comes with a side order of irony.

The Government announced plans to extend the area where set netting and trawl nets are banned to most of the lower west coast of the North Island and the areas around Banks Peninsula.

The move is to protect the two native species of dolphins.  Apparently, there are only 63 Maui dolphins left in the world.  The Hector’s dolphin has better numbers with their population estimated at 15,000.  Currently, it’s thought that commercial fishing kills 40 odd Hector’s dolphins a year as part of the bycatch.

It’s harder to know what’s killing the Maui dolphin because there’s so little of them.  One fisher who phoned my programme yesterday, Curly from New Plymouth, contended that biological factors are a greater factor in the slow demise of the Maui dolphin. 

They like the murky water at the mouth of rivers and it’s estimated that two Maui dolphins die every year from toxoplasmosis that comes from sheep and cats on the mainland which is washed into the sea. He’s not wrong on that, surprising as it seems.  He also said that in all his years at sea he has never seen a Maui dolphin in a net. 

Of course, commercial fishers are up in arms at the move because of the impact on their trade. The environmentalists are unhappy as well because the measures don’t go far enough.  They want the anti-netting zone extended and to include gill nets as well as set nets and trawling.

The side order of irony in all of this is the defunct Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.  Back in 2015, the National Prime Minister John Key announced the 620,000 square kilometre sanctuary to the UN and the world applauded.

It was all go until Labour and New Zealand First formed their coalition and the price Winston and Shane wanted was dropping the sanctuary, which Labour agreed to much to the Greens disgust. New Zealand First argued it adversely affected commercial iwi fishing which was granted as part of Treaty claims. This despite the fact that Ngati Kuri, the tangata whenua of the Kermadecs, strongly supports the reserve.

So we have a crazy scenario where the Government want to place a sanctuary in our coastal waters but not one in our oceans.

Myself, I believe in the Kermadec Sanctuary.  It will make our fishing sustainable. It will give a zone where numbers can recover. Our commercial fishers have depleted too many species through greed or shoddy management through the years and this would be an insurance policy. So man up Labour and make it happen

Meanwhile, the dolphin policy seems heavy handed.  The current scenario does not fundamentally threaten the Hectors dolphin population. Unfortunately for the Maui dolphin population everything fundamentally threatens it due to their extreme low numbers.   

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