SIC fishing practices need reality-check

The Green Party rejects the frail defence by the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council of it’s fishing-at-any-cost stance.

“Despite the availability of robust peer-reviewed studies which clearly show the urgent reasons for restricting the fishing methods that threaten the dolphins with extinction, the SIC continues to produce the same misinformation that has characterised their self-interested arguments on this issue,” Green Party Conservation Spokesperson Metiria Turia says.

“Contrary to their statement that ‘there is no justification for current proposals to protect Hector's and Maui's dolphins’, for most New Zealanders there is every reason in the world.

“One reason is the indisputable fact that set nets kill dolphins. Another reason is that the remaining 110 Maui's dolphins left in the world are about to enter their summer breeding season - even one death in a net will set them back years. A third reason is that our two biggest export industries - tourism and agriculture - depend almost entirely on being able to justify New Zealand’s clean green image.

“Imagine the blow the 'clean, green and sustainable' image promoted world-wide, and our reputation as leader in biodiversity conservation, would take if these dolphins were to become extinct. “Extinction is forever” is more than a slogan - it is a reality, and the world is watching.

“New Zealand’s record with Maui’s dolphin is being compared to China’s catastrophic failure to save the Yangtze dolphin. Care For The Wild - who are known for their high profile involvement with endangered elephants, tigers and bears - have put New Zealand in the international spotlight on this issue, and there is now a lot more at risk than the $80 million SIC are concerned about.

“New Zealand’s clean and green and sustainable brand, which the Ministry for the Environment has cautiously valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, dwarfs SIC’s figures. However, the value of biodiversity in our oceans is beyond financial value” Mrs Turia says.

A detailed rebuttal, based on real science and data, of the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council arguments is available at:

http://www.careforthewild.com/files/facts_or_fiction_response_to_seafic.pdf