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Trevor Howse

Title: “South Island Fisheries Management: Empowering the local community through Tangata Whenau to manage their local fisheries resources”

Office of Te Rünanga o Ngäi Tahu, Kaupapa Taiao, Customary Fisheries Unit,

PO Box 13-046, Christchurch

 

 

Talk

Discussion

 

Trevor Howse, Office of Te Rünanga o Ngäi Tahu, Kaupapa Taiao, Customary Fisheries Unit.

 

Abstract

 

Mo tätou, ä, mo kä uri a muri ake nei

For us and our children after us

 

Traditional resource management practices enabled tangata whenua to sustainably harvest and conserve kaimoana. However, events that have occurred since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi have altered the ability of tangata whenua to manage resources. These events, along with increased pressure from commercial and recreational fishing, coupled with pollution, have resulted in the depletion of the fisheries resources and habitat degradation, to the point where Mäori and non-Mäori can no longer fully enjoy fisheries resources for food or recreational pleasure to the same extent.

 

Traditional resource management practices are of equal importance to tangata whenua today. The health of the people relies on the health of the fishery.  The customary fishing rights they have now are a reflection of the traditions practised by their ancestors.

 

Today these practises are reflected in the Fisheries (South Island Customary Fishing) Regulations 1998.  The regulations empower the local community through tangata whenua to be involved in the decision making process on the management of local fisheries resources. They provide for three types of fisheries management areas: Taiäpure – Local Fishery; Mätaitai Reserves; and Rähui (temporary closure) which will be described in this keynote address and our display during the poster session.

 

 

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Talk                                                              

 

Kia ora tatou e hui nei. Te whanau a kati kiri, tënä ra koe.

 

Background

 

Many people still do not quite understand what it is that we have done with the customary regulations as it pertains to Tangata Whenua.  And I say it that way because we own them, they are ours.  Make no mistake about that.  We lay ownership to them.  We congratulate the Ministry of Fisheries for its ability to cope with Tangata Whenua in promulgating the regulations.

 

Now if I was perfectly honest about the background to this kaupapa I would talk to whaea Sana Murray over here.  I would go back to the Muriwhenua Whenua Fisheries hearing at Ahipara, because the birth of regulations came out of there.  That is where the Crown seeded that there was a commercial component within the customary right under section 88(2). 

 

The next key steps involved:

 

So the Sealord deal was in fact born out of the surrender of section 88(2) which covered the commercial component of customary fisheries.  The Sealord Settlement repealed section 88(2) and provided for non-commercial customary fishing rights to be given effect through regulations.

 

Customary fishing “Means the traditional rights confirmed by the Treaty of Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claim) Settlement Act 1992, which includes in this context, the right to take, the right to manage fisheries resources for the purposes authorised by Tangata Tiaki/Kaitiaki, including koha, to the extent that such purpose is consistent with Tikanga Mäori and is neither commercial in any way for pecuniary gain or trade”.

 

Recapturing Rangatiratanga

 

We must go back to Section 10 of the Sealord Settlement Act to see that the rangatiratanga of the customary right resided in the minister’s ability to make regulations.  I want Mäoridom to listen to me on this issue.  The rangatiratanga of the customary right after the Sealord settlement deal lies with the minister.  We gave birth to the baby but you can’t make me bloody well love it.  But the Sealord Settlement Act is a fact of life.  That’s my view.  So what we had to devise through these particular regulations was a way to get the rangatiratanga back from the minister and return it to the people where rangatiratanga really belongs.  So we took the rangatiratanga from the minister and placed that back out in the regions with your tangata tiaki.

 

It was a difficult exercise to get an understanding by our own people of what we were about.  What you have to understand in this world, is that you do not get far if you upset the perceptions of politicians.  If the politicians get uncomfortable with something that goes in those regulations (whether their reaction is right or wrong), their response will be ‘no’.  When we were drafting the regulations, what the politicians didn’t want and what I would think MFish was uncomfortable with, was the recital of the actual Treaty in the regulations.  So what we had to do was find a way of getting an indirect reference to the Treaty in the customary regulations.  So it was stated that the regulations must be consistent with the Sealord Settlement Act.  If you go back to the Sealord Settlement Act, that is where you will find reference to the Treaty of Waitangi itself.  After that the politicians were nice and cuddly and warm.  The new wording didn’t worry them, but three weeks before that they did not want a bar of any regulations mentioning the Treaty.  In addition, the regulations had to be consistent with tikanga Mäori.  They were the two pieces that we fitted - or bolted-on - to the regulations that gave us the freedom to own the regulations.  Hence, my statement right at the beginning - they are our regulations - we lay claim to them.  The Crown has a part to play and a duty to protect what is in the regulations.  I want to say at this point, that the Ministry has been very good in way it has viewed the world in terms of the South Island Customary Regulations.  But if they falter on this, we will jump right on them.

 

So these regulations recognise and provide for the customary food gathering rights of Tangata Whenua and provide for input into fisheries management by Tangata Whenua.

 

Ki Uta ki Tai - from the mountains to the sea

 

We have a philosophy within the customary fisheries groups - it is ki uta ki tai - that means management from the mountains to the sea.  You will find soon floating up behind these regulations, some new fresh water regulations that will start to give effect to our policy and philosophy of ki uta ki tai.  Then we can also have a good look at how this Section 4 of the Conservation Act might need redressing or might need interpretation.  Because we have the customary management rights under our regulations and we need to look at how those sections of the Conservation Act might need some inspection.  The absolute, what I call “conservation by shutting things up” may learn something from our approach.  The management tools in our regulations suggest that there are other ways of achieving not only sustainability, but also conservation at the same time as looking after the community.  I heard all this körero this morning about having the community over here, conservation over there and something else over there.  We wrapped them all up together here in our regulations.  We hope people will start to understand the value of the integration that is behind the management in these regulations - that they will start to see that use and conservation and community can fit together.

 

Taiapure - Local Fishery

 

It is my belief that all sorts of groups are getting precious about the Mäori Regulations because they believe they are somehow separating people.  It is my view that the Mäori area management tools are the very examples we need that are inclusive rather than exclusive.

 

The Taiapure are defined by:

 

These regulations allow a say for stakeholders from all the fisheries in the area, including the commercial interests.  Can you get anything more inclusive than that?  These are the tools that are available now.  But Taiapure is similar to imposing the national government over the local government.  Frankly I do not agree with it.  I have found that taiapure is a reason to do nothing.  For me it is like flogging a dead horse.  But rahui and mataitai are better.

 

Rahui 186 B

 

A rahui is another potential management tool.  The thinking behind it includes:

 

We see some of its advantages and disadvantages to include:

 

Pros

Cons
  • 2-3 months emergency measure
  • run by minister
  • less likely to be open to abuse
  • Short term measure
  • Flexible, can become either area management tool
  • Could be based on one species only
  • Based on stock needs

 

 

Two of my colleagues from the Ministry are sitting over here clapping.  Yes, they have done a good job setting this up.  The rahui is a valuable management tool.

 

Mataitai

 

To me the mataitai is the mechanism that probably gives the most inclusiveness and provides best for the expectation of Tangata Whenua to practice the tikanga that my colleague Kelly was talking about this morning.  They give us all the mechanics to be inclusive and accommodate all sorts of issues and needs.

 

Bylaws in the mataitai can cover

 

It takes eight months to process Mataitai applications.  The Management Committee members may be local community members.  Tangata tiaki manage the area and the Management Committee monitors the stock taken.  It is a very flexible system.  The Mataitai can incorporate considerations of

 

We are already putting in some mataitai, though of a modest scale at this point.  They embody a more local approach than Taiapure.  Everybody is starting to get comfortable with the mataitai concepts.  If things go right, by 1 October there will be no reason why we shouldn’t have mataitai in fresh water.  Now don’t all go away and have a heart attack because of that.  That’s the reality.

 

Monitoring take and stocks

 

These regulations require us to report back our catch to MFish.  That monitoring tells us something and it also tells the Ministry something about harvest pressure and stock health.  That means both customary and commercial fisheries are reporting their take whereas one unmanaged section of the Quota Management System, the recreational fisheries are not monitoring or reporting their take.  We have built our credibility by reporting our catch.  Why should the rest of New Zealand not have the same requirement put on them that is put on us, the customary users?  I suggest there are going to be some quite big discussions coming up shortly about how that unmanaged portion of the fishery fits in.

 

We use tee shirts and pamphlets to push one message very hard:  “Resist Greed, just take a feed”.

 

Te Wai Pounamu stands separately

 

These regulations only cover Tangata Whenua of the South Island.  That includes Ngäi Tahu the eight iwi at the top end of the South Island.  We were at first part of the national scenario paepae taumata trying to formulate national customary fisheries regulations.  We attended the first few meetings but they become totally political and were not achieving what they set out to do.  So South Island Mäori decided that we would walk away from that national organisation and stay home to do our own thing.  Hence, we now just have the South Island Customary Fisheries Regulations.  We were not happy with what we call the ‘brown politics’ up north.  The South Island iwi then approached MFish about the need for separate South Island regulations on that basis - and they said yes.

 

Whilst the regulations were promulgated under 186 of the Fisheries Act, they weren’t carried by the Ngäi Tahu’s settlement as such.  The Crown in its wisdom, had a good look at the political scenarios for the Ngäi Tahu Land Claim at that point.  There was a fear that there may not be a settlement for a good long time.  I must pay tribute to MFish for the way they took up the challenge and carried these regulations forward on section 186 of the Fisheries Act.  I didn’t think that the Ministry would have the ‘testicular fortitude’ to do it [laughter], but that’s just what they did.

 

So that is the background to where we have come from with our Customary Fisheries tool kit.

 

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Discussion                       

 

Question/Comment (Hori Parata, Ngati Wai)

Kia ora. Kia ora to your körero Trevor.  One of the issues that I am dealing with up home at the moment is with the recreational fishers wanting to hold fishing competitions for raising money.  We have a very big issue with that because at some of those fishing competitions they are even paying a prize for the smallest fish.  So where is Ngäi Tahu with regards to issues about recreational fishers or even organisations like schools wanting to hold a fishing competition as a fundraiser?

 

TH - This is a tricky one.  Whilst at this point I have my Ngäi Tahu hat on, I have concerns about where that take comes from.  If I take that hat off, and put my Fishing Council hat on, as their Deputy Chairman, I encourage such events.  The basic issue with them is that they constitute an unmanaged portion of the QMS.  A similar issue that arises concerns charter boats.  So there are some pretty hoary chestnuts in there.

 

 

Question/Comment (Eveline Cook, Te Runanga o Awarua)

Kia ora mai tatou.  I work for human resource management issues and conservation issues.  Because I travel the road a lot of the time with Kelly, I became an honorary Fisheries Officer.  I think that the solution to your concern Hori is to not just use the customary regulations but to apply a combination of things.  What we are trying really hard to do is to educate people.  We tell them that taking the smallest fish is not necessarily appropriate because the Fishing Regulations say that a fish must be of a certain size and we must insist that they stick to that.  So what we do, with all due respect to the Southern Regional Compliance Team, is that we turn up to inspect at the fishing competition - be it the Oamaru Fishing Club, the Yachting Club or whatever it is that runs the competition. We actually inspect their catches.  Having the Regulations is only one part of it.  The compliance side of it is the other part. I see that iwi have an obligation to make sure that compliance is compliance by all people, not just brown people.  We have been putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to comply and on our cousins and our uncles and our aunts.  But we are going and make sure that compliance is extended across the board.  So go to the fishing clubs and say “The law says that this species must be this size.  If you do not respect that, we will make sure that we have honorary fisheries officers there as well and you will be policed.”  I do not know how your compliance people feel about having iwi involved as honorary fisheries officers, but I think that’s one of the answers myself.

 

 

Question/Comment (Kelly Davis)

Kia ora Trevor.  In terms of the recreational fish competitions, one of the things that we’ve done, is to get alongside the organisers of those competitions.  At the end of the day when they clean up there are all these big sharks lying around and they do not know what the hell to do with them.  So we have advised them that the easiest way to do that is to take them off the fishing list.  The question I particularly would like to ask goes back to the recreational use problem.  Where do you see the Ministry of Fisheries obligation in the recreational sector?

 

TH - I see their obligation very clearly and I advocate this to whoever wants to sit and listen to me.  The relationship between recreational fishers and the Crown is one thing.  The Treaty obligation by the Crown and the Ministry to Tangata Whenua is a totally different relationship.  They are two different things.  There was a suggestion during discussions of recreational fishing regulations that Tangata Whenua would be asked along to all the public meetings.  My reply to the Recreational Fishers Council was ‘no’.  The Ministry and the Crown have a different obligation to Tangata Whenua as it relates to their Treaty obligations.  Until the Crown has talked to Tangata Whenua, there will be no Tangata Whenua input in there.  We made that very clear.

 

 

Question/Comment (Rick Stephenson,  Te Whare Wänanga o Awanui a Rangi)

Kia ora tatou.  Could I just extend the question from Hori Parata if I may, by moving from the unregulated fisheries to consider a regulated sector in fresh water.  Have you thought about what you will do about the Fish & Game Councils and the powers they have to introduce new fish into fresh waters that will compete with our own native species?

 

TH - It is a good question.  Thinking and discussion have already started.  We understand of course that Fish and Game have their own legislation and so have a legitimate right to do what they do best.  But the argument about the introduction of species that impact on native species is going to need a huge discussion.

 

RS - I’m glad that we are in tune on this issue.  It’s a major issue.  It may be some time before both the science process and those desiring to introduce new species really come together sufficiently to understand that what Fish & Game consider to be a species that does not cause a problem for native species, may turn out many years later to be a real problem.  Evidence for competition between kokopu and trout species is only just emerging but we have been told for many years that it was not a problem.

 

TH - I think that Bryce Johnson [CEO, Fish & Game New Zealand] and I would get down in a corner for 10 hours.  I would argue that his trout eat my small eels and he would say ‘your big eels eat my small trout.’  That’s about where we are at on that issue.

 

RS - But where does the Treaty of Waitangi stand on that issue then?

 

TH - That issue is more the concern of the Resource Management Act.

 

 

Question/Comment (Jo Harawira, Kaupapa Atawhai Manager, Tainui)

I want you to put both of your hats on, the recreation hat and your fisheries hat.  The solution to the issue was provided by the Treaty of Waitangi.  Your response was “Well, when some fella over there says that his trout is eating your eels and your eels are eating his trout, that you have a bit of conflict.”  I’d just like to remind you that under the Treaty of Waitangi, if there’s any ambiguity in the text, it is that the indigenous text that takes preference.  That’s the same with our fisheries.  The tuna takes preference.

 

TH - I understand that.  But there are some proprietary rights that get in the way and they are called something like property rights.

 

 

Question/Comment (Maurice Rodway, Fish and Game)

Kia ora Trevor. I just thought I’d clarify a couple of points about the restocking business.  Fish and Game now have a policy of not stocking exotic fish species, or sports fish species into places where they do not already exist.  There is still the issue that Kelly had on one of his slides about restocking in places where they are existing at present but where if you stopped restocking them, they might die out and a native species could then take over.  That’s a slightly different one.  But can I just reassure you that Fish and Game do not stock fish into places where they do not already exist.

 

TH - Thank you.  I think there’s a great relationship growing between Fish & Game and Mäori and I suggest that some of that improvement has already started.  I think that policy to not spread trout is a good place to start from.

 

 

Question/Comment (Ken McAnergney)

Trevor thank you for a very interesting discourse on this matter which is very close to my heart.  It sounds to me as though you people have had great tenacity in working your way through a problem to actually make some legislation work on the ground in a practical way.  Would that be a fair assessment?

 

TH - That’s a fair assessment.

 

K McA - Have you actually documented how that occurred.  That would be valuable because it seems to me that we are finding this problem too often - where legislation is passed in Wellington, regulations are put in place and then the local people have a terrible difficulty in trying to make it work.  It all comes back to consultation at the outset.  What I am talking about is the actual process that you have had to go through to make the legislation work.  It seems to me as though you’ve solved the issues: would there have been another way of doing it which would have saved all this process?

 

TH - Have you got five years?  That’s how long it took us.

 

K McA - I realise that, but it seems to me that one of the difficulties that we face comes from people who have access to huge resources, who make laws and regulations without the due consultation taking place with the stake holders at an early stage.  The Government comes to us with a solution and says “There we are, you make it work.”

 

TH - Probably I’d ask you one question.  Is there anything in the customary fishing regulations that you can’t make work for what you require? 

 

K McA - No, none.  I think its an admirable system.  I think its wonderful.  All I’m saying is that you have solved the problem in phase 2.  The only difficulty you have is with the Ngati Redneckers.

 

TH - But they will always be there and they are not a reason to do nothing.  They only make you stronger.  People say “Oh you’re passionate about this.”  I say, “No I just haven’t got time to listen to fools because there’s a job to do.” 

 

 

Question/Comment (Guy Salmon)

Kia ora Trevor.  I would just like to ask you a little bit about marine reserves.  In this pamphlet that was handed round during your talk, it mentions taiapure and mataitai which you covered but it also mentions marine reserves.  Around the South Island at present a lot of marine reserves seem to have stalled because of concerns from Tangata Whenua.  I wonder if you could tell us what your perspective on that is.  Can marine reserves be accommodated along with taiapure and mataitai?

 

TH - Kia ora.  That is a good question.  I think the issue at hand about what we would see as the first priority - that is Tangata Whenua’s priority.  What we are finding is that we have entered into agreements to in fact allow marine reserves but the conservation movement has welshed on its end of the deal.  So we have some apprehension that maybe we do not want to make another deal for awhile.  At this point I’m not saying that “No, you shouldn’t have marine reserves.”  What I’m saying is “Tangata Whenua sees another priority first.”  It is just that we have a clash of legislation right at this point.  We people will need to not be so precious as to think that marine reserves are the sole answer to conservation and preservation.  I believe there are a set of rules in the customary fisheries regulations that do exactly the same thing.  So my point comes from Tangata Whenua.  Use these other approaches and we can all be involved in conservation.

 

GS - What was the deal that was welshed on?

 

TH - Go and find out about Akaroa harbour.  Talk to the Minister.  He might enlighten you.

 

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