Mana moana, mana tangata Testimonies on depletion and ...

I think the biggest problem is ... the poachers or these people who just don’t listen to the rules. I mean
we’ve got all the Ministry signs up saying what the sizes are, what the catch is and people still don’t
listen and that’s where I sympathise with the, you know, with the compliance people. They just don’t,
Ministry just doesn’t have enough people on the ground. I think they do a good, the Ministry does a
good job in the coastal watch you know, because you see it on TV and I think they’re doing a marvellous
job, but I think there needs to be more budget for, to have more compliance people because I think, I’m
not too sure what the numbers are from within our area – Interviewee #26
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Interviewee #25b – Well to use a good example, we used to have lots of kina eaters, we don’t anymore.
They used to come down every weekend from wherever, from inland to the beach, carloads, 8, 9, 10
carloads of a whanau would turn up and all it would do was get kina. That’s all they were interested in
was kina, by the sackload, take them back to wherever. When the works fell over and they lost their
economic transport ability, they don’t come down any more. The consequence, kina populations are
(burging?) and they have been negative in terms of decimating the seaweed and the other ecology
surrounding it, so we all lose out because the people from inland don't come and get kina like they used
to. Pākehā they recognise it, they’ll go out there and they just won’t eat them but they’ll smash them
open and reduce their impact ... it’s all over the bay. We have a big problem with kina. Kina are
creating barrens.
Interviewee #5b – They’re not a good kina either are they? Because they’re all competing for what little
foods there are
Interviewee #25b – They’re skinny. They’re underformed. They’re in starvation mode
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Interviewee #15b – the council is going to re-divert the river back through the estuary. So the dynamics
will change and like you said, like a lot of the Pākehā people are onto it and doing their best, but our
own people from inland come over as if they’ve got a God-given right to just plunder, basically.
Interviewee 33b – And have they lived within the rules of the taiāpure?
Interviewee #15b – No, because they don’t, they’ve got kaumatua inland that write out their permits
and it’s allowed by law. You know, every marae inland writes out a permit. They’ve got no idea what
the stocks are like or if there’s been a tangi or a drowning or a rāhui or anything, just plunder and
sometimes you see like those people that have got swept out to sea on their boat, you know, the boat
ran out of petrol or something
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