Friday, 05 February 2010
REGULATIONS are frustrating attempts to establish a mataitai reserve off the Whakatane coast.
Te Runanga o Ngati Awa’s customary fishing authority wants to establish a mataitai - a Maori-controlled fishery reserve - but also wants it to be used by three Whakatane-based commercial fishers reliant on the zone to continue their businesses.
The two objectives are proving incompatible under fisheries regulations.
Whakatane business Ice Man fishes within the proposed reserve, as do Mike Beeching and Roy McIntyre.
This week Mr McIntyre, who lives at Ohope and has caught crayfish in waters off Whakatane for 33 years, said he supported the mataitai proposal but was concerned about the process Ngati Awa was forced to follow.
He said Ngati Awa’s attempts to put a mataitai in place while retaining the rights of existing commercial fishers had raised his estimation of the iwi “hugely”.
Guardians (kaitiaki) managing a mataitai reserve are able, using bylaws, to restrict or prohibit the taking of fish and shellfish to ensure their sustainability. The minister of fisheries must give his or her approval before the bylaws can take effect.
Ngati Awa fishing authority chairman John Hohapata-Oke said if a reserve was established, all commercial fishing operations were banned. There appeared to be no way to establish a reserve and preserve the activities of specified commercial fishers.
He said the Ministry of Fisheries 1998 regulations governing mataitai reserves were inflexible on that point and might need redrafting. It was likely that he and runanga chief executive Jeremy Gardiner would travel to Wellington to attempt to sort out the matter with ministry officials.
Mr Hohapata-Oke said he was aware of a situation where a cray fisherman who lost his right to fish commercially in a mataitai reserve had waited four years already for that right to be restored through the appropriate ministry channels.
Ministry spatial allocations manager Randall Bess said Ngati Awa had not yet lodged an application but if it did and it was approved, commercial fishing would be banned.
Customary fishing rules provided for reserve guardians to ask the minister to allow commercial access to specific species by quantity or time period, subject to public consultation.
Mr Bess said the rules and criteria the minister had to consider had been agreed to by tangata whenua. Since they formed an important part of the 1992 fisheries deed of settlement, any changes would require widespread consultation and agreement with all North Island iwi, not just Ngati Awa.
Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi and the runanga have secured $53,000 from the ministry to conduct a customary research project within the proposed reserve area focusing on the taonga (treasure) species paua, crayfish, kina and mussels.
Wananga associate science professor Paul Kayes said the project would be guided by a Ngati Awa literature search and interviews with kaumatua and kuia familiar with historic kaimoana gathering locations. Divers would establish base-line population data at the various identified sites to inform future management decisions in the proposed reserve.