Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says a ban on taking crayfish from Northland’s east coast is on the cards as warnings grow about the species’ “perilous” decline.
Jones said consultation on the proposal would start soon and would be controversial.
The details were still being worked out, but it would likely entail a closure from a point south of Mangawhai to the Muriwhenua area at the top of the Far North.
The ban would apply to both recreational and commercial fishers.
“I know that closing down crayfish over the Christmas holiday period will be quite a controversial decision, so the engagement is going to be very, very tricky,” Jones said.
“The challenge will be, if recreational users are denied crayfish as it recovers, then should similar rules apply to tangata whenua through the kaimoana permit system that was agreed to in the Sealord settlement in 1992? I’ve already attracted quite a lot of adverse commentary from Northlanders about this, but it’s a trade-off … The resource genuinely is under extreme stress.”
The minister said measures to protect the species were necessary both because of “legally adverse” decisions against the Crown, and the dire state of the crayfish population.
“The scientists have advised me that it’s in a perilous state, and despite my status as an industrial champion of the fishing industry, it does get perilous if we’re not following the best scientific advice. But I accept that for a lot of holiday makers and a lot of stakeholders in Northland, it will be a significant change,” he said.
“These decisions are not for the faint hearted, but sometimes you’ve got to act and make very harsh calls, and I fear this may be one of them.”
The inner Hauraki Gulf, just south of the proposed new ban, had already been closed to crayfish harvesting for a period of three years starting from April 1 this year.
Jones said local concerns about declining crayfish numbers in the Hauraki Gulf had been backed up by independent research.
“A number of recreational stakeholders are fearful that closure will never, ever be removed, but the scientists continually tell me that things are perilous.”
Jones said the ban would apply to red crayfish, also known as spiny rock lobsters, the species best known to Northlanders.
It would not apply to the packhorse cray because its population was not as threatened.
It would also not include Northland’s west coast, where most commercial crayfish harvesting took place.
The “legally adverse decisions” Jones referred to include a High Court ruling in February this year on the government’s revised quota management plan for crayfish in Northland.
The court found the plan did not do enough to address “an urgent marine crisis” unfolding off the region’s east coast.
Encouraging kina harvesting
Jones has also embarked on law changes to encourage increased harvesting of kina, or sea urchins.
Kina are an important food source for crayfish and large snapper, but the predators’ decline has led to an explosion in kina populations.
That has caused the proliferation of “kina barrens,” effectively underwater deserts where large numbers of kina have stripped away anything edible and reduced the seabed to bare rock.
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