methodology - Forest and Bird

criteria for the Best Fish Guide as the basis of assessing the status of New Zealand’s commercial marine
fisheries :
Status and sustainability of fish species catches;
Impacts of fishing method (including level of bycatch and impact on habitat);
Biology and risk of over-fishing;
Effectiveness of management and research (including input and output controls, management
plans, and stock assessment information);
Bycatch of protected species or threatened species (such as seabirds, marine mammals and other
species covered by schedule 5A of the Wildlife Act and threatened species ranked by IUCN or
Department of Conservation);
Effectiveness of management unit (including whether more than one species or stock are managed
together).
The last two criteria are additions to Bathgate’s criteria. These were added by Forest & Bird to better
reflect the impacts of fishing on protected species such as marine mammals, seabirds, turtles and other
marine life protected under New Zealand legislation 3 . It also assesses impacts on globally threatened
species, and the risks associated with multi-species or multi-stock management that can occur under both
quota and non-quota management systems in New Zealand.
The assessment of fisheries performance is limited by the absence of adequate fisheries information – a
common problem worldwide. In New Zealand, of the 633 stocks managed by the Ministry of Fisheries, they
estimate that only just over 119 stocks have adequate information to inform management decisions.
The Best Fish Guide assessment criteria were selected because enough information is available to assess
each fishery against each one. They also provide a sound ‘whole of ecosystem’ basis on which to rank the
overall ecological sustainability of each fish stock.
Other ‘ecosystem approach’ criteria could have been added, such as the presence of marine reserves in
New Zealand. However, they were not used because marine reserve coverage is currently very small (as of
January 2012, approximately 0.3% of New Zealand’s marine waters - EEZ or just 0.19% of mainland New
Zealand’s coastal waters). They have also been established as biodiversity protection tools, rather than
fisheries management tools and as such are of limited significance to the fish species assessed by the Best
Fish Guide.
4.2 Weighting of criteria
Each criterion was not considered equal in its contribution to the overall ecological sustainability of a
fishery. Overall, status and sustainable yield were considered to be a better indicator of ecological
sustainability, followed by fishing method, biology, management unit, and overall management and
research (see Table 1). Protected species or globally threatened species bycatch was given a similar rating
to status and sustainable yield because it gives a strong indicator of ecosystem health and the impact of a
fishery on key species.
3 Seabirds, turtles, sea snakes and marine mammals are protected under the Wildlife Act 1953 and the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978.
Also protected under the Wildlife Act (Schedule 7A) are spotted black grouper (Epinephelus daemelii), black coral (all species in the Order
Antipatharia), and red coral (all species).
Forest & Bird Best Fish Guide 2012 – 2013: Criteria for Ecological Rankings 5