ELI challenges fisheries observer cuts and industry levy cuts in the High Court
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) will challenge the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries and the Minister of Conservation in the Wellington High Court from 15 - 18 June over cuts to the fisheries observer programme and the undersized levy charged to the fishing industry.
ELI’s Director of Research and Legal, Dr Matt Hall, says, “Aotearoa New Zealand is underfunding critical marine science and research because successive governments have undercharged the fishing industry for basic costs.
“Given the fishing industry pays no resource rentals or royalties, the levy is the only cost the industry pays for what is in many cases exclusive use of a public resource.”
In 2024, Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Shane Jones reduced the total levy from $41.2 million to $36.3m for the 2024/25 year.
ELI alleges that the value of levies paid by the industry has steadily declined in real terms, even as seafood export revenue exceeds $2 billion annually. Today, levies are less than two percent of export revenue.
Under the Fisheries Act and the Cost Recovery Rules, Fisheries New Zealand is required to cost recover services from the fishing industry for services like stock assessments, research, and placing observers on vessels.
“These services are the backbone of sustainable fishing. They need to be properly resourced so that the Government can monitor and protect vulnerable marine species like dolphins, seabirds, and turtles from the impacts of fishing.”
Drastic decline of observer coverage
Another key focus of the four-day hearing is the sharp reduction in onboard observer coverage in recent years. Observer days in inshore fisheries have dropped dramatically from 1,953 days in 2020/21 to 277 in the 2024/25 year, alongside a shift toward increased reliance on onboard cameras.
ELI argues that while cameras are useful for verifying fisheries reporting, they cannot perform many of the core functions carried out by onboard observers, particularly in relation to interactions with protected species.
The Department of Conservation expressly warned that cameras would not meet conservation monitoring needs and recommended maintaining observer coverage as a precaution. Those warnings were rejected by Fisheries New Zealand, resulting in historically low observer coverage during the 2023/24 and 2024/25 fishing years.
Seafood industry’s attempt to limit accountability for harm to protected species
After ELI’s judicial review was filed in 2024, Seafood New Zealand and the NZ Rock Lobster Industry Council subsequently filed a separate, more limited proceeding seeking declaratory relief regarding the operation of the cost-recovery rules. The High Court has aligned the proceedings procedurally.
In a previous hearing reviewing emergency measures put in place to protect hoiho, Seafood New Zealand argued that the Fisheries Act was only concerned with population level effects or harm to protected species from fishing.
“Their argument seems to be that individual impacts such as the death of an individual due to commercial fishing, whether it is a hoiho, or a dolphin, are not adverse effects of fishing.
“Naturally, we strongly reject that idea and will defend Aotearoa New Zealand’s protected species against such a claim,” says Dr Hall.
Further information:
ELI’s case focuses on decisions made for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 fishing years under the Fisheries Act 1996.
ELI will argue that cameras provided a different function to observers, and there is no basis to have wound down the observer programme for inshore fisheries. Observers provide crucial functions in identifying and recording protected species; tagging, sampling, and recovery of bycaught animals, and identifying potential cryptic mortality events where injured species are released but unlikely to survive. Cameras are also poorly suited to monitoring seabird warp strikes and cannot provide the same level of independent, real-time verification of mitigation practices.
The case also raises whether costs that should properly have been attributed to the fishing industry were instead borne by the Crown, contrary to the Fisheries Act’s cost recovery rules.
Examples of these are:
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This project was allocated to the Crown at a cost of: $274,541 in 2023/24 (being the whole cost) and $205,961 in 2024/25 (being the whole cost).
In the words of Fisheries NZ: “This project will directly address industry needs by resourcing an industry consortium to develop a collaborative “best team” approach to identify and understand the environmental requirements of productive mussel spat nursery sites.”
ELI says that this is an aquaculture service. The costs of this project should have been allocated in accordance with item 11 of Schedule 2 of the Cost Recovery Rules.
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This project was allocated to the Crown at a cost of $67,682 in 2023/24 (being the whole cost).
In the words of Fisheries NZ: This project is a feasibility trial to determine the operational performance and effectiveness of the underwater baitsetter as a new seabird bycatch mitigation method for use in the surface longline commercial fishery in New Zealand.
ELI says this project is a service provided to avoid, remedy, or mitigate that portion of the risk to, or adverse effect on, the aquatic environment or biological diversity of the aquatic environment caused by commercial fishing and so the costs of this project should have been allocated in accordance with item 4 of Schedule 2 of the Cost Recovery Rules.