Commercial fishing boats in Pohara. (Photo: Uploader)
Fishing vessel fleet monitoring equipment installation sped up
NEW ZEALAND
Tuesday, May 24, 2016, 23:20 (GMT + 9)
New Zealand's Government intends to speed up the rollout of monitoring equipment on commercial fishing vessels.
The announcement was made by Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy, who explained that work is already underway on installing electronic monitoring and cameras on all commercial fishing vessels.
"This increased monitoring will provide greater transparency of the commercial fleet’s activities and improve public confidence that our fisheries are being well managed," the minister stressed.
Guy also pointed out that the officials will prepare advice for him on how this process can be implemented faster, which will feed into the operational review of the fisheries management system announced last year.
The minister indicated that while the fundamentals of their QMS are sound, the operational review will ensure the fishing system is up to date and working as fairly and efficiently as it can.
In this sense, he stated that possible options include changes to fisheries management processes within the current legislation, regulatory change, and amendments to the Fisheries Act.
The Government will release a public discussion document on any proposed changes to the fisheries management system later this year.
"Earlier in the year I announced that we had achieved 100 per cent camera coverage of the Snapper 1 trawl fleet, and vessel monitoring systems are in place on 55 vessels operating in the SNA1 fishery," Guy said.
According to official statistics, coverage of observers on vessels has doubled over the past decade, and there were over 10,000 observer days recorded at sea last year.
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