GUEST POST: Why the MPI job cuts are an attack on the environment AND on commercial fisheries
Writer: sapphi
Last year, we sentenced this guy to over two years in jail for abusing customary permits in an investigation by MPI because he took $300,000 commercial value worth of crayfish (over 4,600 individual crays) from Mahia, near Gisborne.
The article is all about how shocked the man is that his sentence is so high for basically taking some fish, and it's high partly because the judge allowed him no cultural discounts given the audacity of claiming them but ALSO because it’s a very serious crime with significant impacts on the area’s crayfish numbers.
Here's one example of that: his take has contributed to Gisborne’s cray depopulation.
Now Shane Jones has limited catch numbers from East Cape to Wairoa by 20%, but the lobster industry has decided that this isn't enough and has voluntarily reduced it by a further 10% as of May this year.
Gisborne fishing industry this year is voluntarily reducing catch rates by 30% in total.
Here's an article talking about it - with a lobster farmer talking about how hard it's going to be for them this year especially after the cyclones, but how it's necessary because fishers know they have to make this cut for their industry to continue.
What the poacher took is obviously a drop in the bucket compared the greater impact from the cyclone, but his take was still significant and he's one of many black-market poachers that the MPI is responsible for controlling -- one of many who only get caught if there are people to enforce the rules.
It's admirable of the NZ Rock Lobster Industry Council to lower catch rates of their own volition, as dually difficult and necessary as it is, but I can't imagine the massive pressure this extreme drop will put on fishers of all sizes - incentivising further illegal fishing, and how much more significant any unpermitted activity over this period will be on cray populations as a result.
This industry needs MPI workers now more than ever; the cray populations need MPI workers more than ever; and there might have been $300k less cray in Māhia's ocean's in 2021 because of this poacher, but by 2024 the consequences from that in the lack of offspring and potential underestimated numbers could be $500, 600k, more even, in the value of crays that now can't be taken from Gisborne fisheries legitimately because they were never bred into existence. (The guy sold them for like $50,000 all up. So worth it.)
MPI has cut 391 jobs. Can't imagine what the consequences are going to be of that.
Good article. Many thanks