Orange roughy, once seen as a poster child for commercial fishery plunder in New Zealand, is being hailed by a global sustainability network.
The development of new technologies opened up the lucrative deepwater fishery in the 1980s and 90s.
But miscalculations about orange roughy breeding – the fish live much longer and breed later than was realised – saw stocks plunge, with many fisheries closed.
While fishing continued in lower volumes, orange roughy largely disappeared from menus, with the industry acknowledging the fishery had damaged its reputation.
Now orange roughy is being held up as the symbol of New Zealand’s fishing standards, with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) giving its coveted certification to three fisheries which make up 60 per cent of the total catch.
“This is an amazing story of improvement,” MSC Asia Pacific director Patrick Caleo said, during a trip to Wellington on Wednesday.
Vastly lower catch allowances (around 4000 tonnes a year) coupled with detailed research of the fishery prompted industry body Seafood New Zealand to commission scientists from MRAG Americas to put the key fisheries through MSC certification.
Certification was granted in December and the industry is now beginning a new push for recognition.
“[Orange roughy] was the poster child for all things bad in the fishing industry…When they can go from boom to bust to a place of redemption, they need to be recognised,” Caleo said.
Caleo said the process used to gain MSC was highly rigorous and fact based.
Although he said its decision to certify New Zealand’s orange roughy fisheries was “the biggest story in world fishing” he was not concerned the approval would damage the organisation’s reputation.
“Whether its controversial or not has got nothing to do with the way MSC looks at things.”
When the certification was announced, conservation group WWF, one of the MSC’s founders and promoters, raised concerns about the objection’s process of certification.
WWF fisheries director Alfred Schumm said certification of what was an “unsustainable fishery” would have “irreversible, harmful consequences for the environment”.
Given the reputation of the orange roughy fishery, the certification is being used by the industry to promote the wider regulatory framework, based around the quota management system.
Seafood New Zealand’s chief executive Tim Pankhurst, a former editor of The Dominion Post, this week published a new book, Roughy on the rise, which documents the boom and bust.
It covers how fishing boat captains lied about catches to keep fishing spots secret from rivals, and how at least one boat sank because it tried to bring in too much fish.
Pankhurst’s book, a heavy promotion of the industry’s redemption, acknowledges how a lack of understanding of the fish, which live until they are up to 149 years old, saw stocks mismanaged.
“It was akin to managing a kauri forest as if it was a pine plantation.”
Now the man ultimately responsible for overseeing fisheries management, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy, appears to be treating MSC certification as approval of the entire industry.
“It means we can put our hands on heart and say that our products are sustainable,” Guy told an event to promote the launch of Pankhurst’s book, and “celebrate” the MSC certification, attended by leading seafood industry figures.
However MSC’s certification covers little over half of New Zealand’s orange roughy fishery.
Caleo admits more of the fishery began confidential pre-assessment for certification, but did not proceed to certification as stock health meant it was unlikely to be approved.
“We’re not ticking off orange roughy in New Zealand, we’re ticking off certified fisheries orange roughy in New Zealand.”
2017 Fairfax New Zealand Limited