A $68 million proposal to install, maintain and monitor footage from 300 cameras on New Zealand’s inshore fishing boats has the potential to cost much more, a Taranaki fisherman says.
Minister of Oceans and Fisheries David Parker last week announced 300 inshore commercial fishing vessels would have cameras fitted on board by 2024.
Buying the cameras, installing them, maintaining them and monitoring the footage has been estimated to cost $68m.
The monitoring proposal follows cameras being fitted on board 20 fishing vessels in late 2019 to monitor any catches, or sightings of protected Māui dolphin on the west coast of the North Island.
The cameras also monitor any illegal or dangerous fishing practices.
On-board cameras will provide independent, accurate information about commercial fishing activity and will provide more certainty and a greater evidence base to inform policy and regulation, scientific research, and fisheries management decisions, Parker said in a media release.
The roll-out will be staged to prioritise the vessels that posed the greatest risk to protected species such as Hector’s and Māui dolphins, black petrels, and Antipodean albatross, he said.
Ian ‘Curly’ Brown, who bottom trawls between the North and South Taranaki Bight, said from his experience the $68m price tag to install, maintain and monitor the footage the cameras provided could be much less than needed.
“They’ve underestimated the cost of the roll-out, and ongoing maintenance and monitoring,” he said.
The cost of the monitoring systems for the first 20 vessels in 2019 was budgeted at $17m.
Three cameras were mounted on board Brown’s vessel at an estimated of $45,000.
He said since then the cameras had been inspected eight times to fix glitches.
“We’ve had issues with them vibrating during fishing, and a pink hue, possibly from infra-red, coming up on the footage.
“Each time we need the camera fixed, a technician has to fly up from Nelson to New Plymouth spend the day here and then fly back.
“If this is repeated to check camera’s on 300 vessels, I’m not sure if they have enough staff to do it.”
The footage is collected once a month and viewed by Fisheries staff.
Brown had on average about 50 hours of footage a month to be viewed from his boat.
“It will cost more than $68m and I don’t think the New Zealand taxpayer would realise the real cost for this level of surveillance to be undertaken to monitor Māui dolphin.”
New Plymouth seafood retailer Keith Mawson said the increasing compliance costs for the sector could force more vessel owners to leave the industry.
“There is already pressure on skipper’s to use onboard electronic reporting,” he said.
“The issue is to me who is going to pay for all of it.”
Fisheries New Zealand will run a consultation process in the coming weeks to discuss proposals and the details of the roll-out.
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