Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:633;Page:5121] 
11.  
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Fisheries 
: What concerns if any does he have that according to a 2006 NIWA report the industry-proposed Benthic Protection Areas will provide less than a quarter of the protection for all marine species than would otherwise have been provided by an “equivalent area chosen solely for its biodiversity values”? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I am aware of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report to which the member refers. It is one of many factors that will require consideration when the Government makes a final decision on the industry’s benthic protection area proposal. It is hardly reasonable however to claim that the industry proposal phase fails to achieve something it was never designed to realise. The industry’s proposal is about protecting the seafloor and what lives on it; it is not about protecting fish which New Zealand does through the quota management system. 
Metiria Turei 
: Would the Minister like to retract his comment that “It is untrue for anyone to suggest that the proposed areas have no value to the fishing industry.” made in response to a question in this House in February when the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research reports that “The BPA proposal has by far the lowest costs” and “would result in a minimal loss of fishing opportunity”; and does that not just demonstrate the ridiculous inadequacy of the Minister taking a purely industry-driven approach to protecting the marine environment including fish stocks from bottom trawling? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I repeat again that this is an industry proposal that the Government is considering and it has been taken for wide consultation to industry as well as to non-governmental organisation stakeholders. I would have thought that an industry proposal to preclude bottom trawling from over 30 percent of the entire exclusive economic zone which has not yet been touched by bottom trawling and which will be kept in pristine condition in perpetuity would at least have been a glass half empty that the Greens and other non-governmental organisations could have welcomed. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister accept the expert view of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research that the fishing industry proposal is “a poor option for the long-term protection of fish diversity” because the proposal focuses on areas that have “low fishing diversity and very low fishing value” which is clearly indicated on the map I have here that shows the blue areas; if so will he now re-evaluate the industry’s proposal to protect those areas based on credible scientific research from the Government’s own Crown research institute and not from the vested interests of the fishing industry? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I reject the suggestion that the 30 percent of the exclusive economic zone being set aside under the industry’s proposal is of no conservational consequence. Thirty years ago many of the areas currently bottom trawled were un-fished because technology did not allow such deep-sea fishing as technology does today. So we can now fish deeper today than ever before and although the majority of the benthic protection areas proposed by the industry are in areas too deep to trawl now they will be closed to preclude any further bottom trawling that new technology might allow. And because they have not been bottom trawled at all they will be extraordinarily important in the scientific evaluation of areas of bottom trawling versus those not bottom trawled. 
Metiria Turei 
: I seek leave to table a map of the trawling closure areas which shows that the proposals of the industry include areas that have too few target fish are too deep or too rough to bottom trawl are already fished out or are already designated a no-trawl area. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.