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GUEST EDITORIAL A BILLION DOLLAR industry? I BY CHARLES MITCHELL n television reality shows Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries cops hammer the dogma: that catching undersized fi sh is bad, while people who catch big fi sh are seen as heroes. Unfortunately, they are actually doing much more damage to fi sh stocks. Large fi sh produce many, many more eggs than fi rst- spawning fi sh of the same species. Large fi sh form a genetic elite of rare, long-term survivors. First-spawning fi sh may not produce enough viable eggs to replace themselves. The collapse of the cod fi shery is a prime example of how the harvesting of adult fi sh drives down subsequent catches. My knowledge of fi sheries is infl uenced by 30 years of research into management and restoration of our whitebait fi shery, which concentrates exclusively on juvenile fi sh only fi ve months from hatching. This fi shery, lightly managed by DoC, has no minimum size and no catch limits at all! Yet after over 150 years of abuse, whitebait are still with us because the harvest only targets juvenile fi sh. In contrast, the Tasmanian whitebait fi shery was for a small adult fi sh entering freshwater to breed. Desperate enthusiasm and construction of a cannery rapidly collapsed this fi shery over 60 years ago. If you really want to kill a fi shery fast, go catch all the adults, ideally pre-spawning adults. Whitebait are an indicator of the health of our waterways. We could harvest very large numbers of young stock for aquaculture, leaving the relatively few but biologically much more valuable adult broodstock naturally sustained by reduced mortality and better growth of remaining juveniles. Each year, whitebait, glass eels and mullet fry are attracted to the outlet sluices from our ponds where we can quickly collect many hundreds, or even thousands of juvenile fi sh from a few square metres of water by simply using the attraction fl ows of fertile, productive water. By manipulating plankton quality, fi sh swim into attractive scents of water fl owing from aquaculture ponds. In nature, almost all of these tiny fi sh inevitably perish. But in cleaned, protected, fed and managed ponds, survival is high, often 100 percent, with rapid growth. Impact on wild stocks is undetectable and if a few ripe spawners are released, the impact becomes positive. One major ocean benefi t is the free fi sh hatchery, with self- replenishing, high quality stocks of uneconomic-to-breed and even impossible-to-breed fi sh such as eels. Harvesting juveniles (most of which die anyway), for aquaculture, while leaving the brood stock alive to breed again, is one way to sustainably farm the sea. In fact these are the only signifi cant new fi sheries we could still develop from quota species. But this is all currently illegal in one way or another, with water-tight legislation and a ministry fi xation on 'save the baby fi sh'. In a multitude of experiments over 15 years, our self-funded fi sh farm has studied low cost, low-impact, sustainable methods to farm the ocean, proving new ways to extract more from New Zealand's fi sheries resources. In building new, highly productive polyculture systems using sustainable principles, and native fi sh and plants, aquaculture can treat dairy effl uent and recover lost nutrients from degraded waterways. Wastewater and nitrate-rich groundwater are resources aquaculture might actually clean up in the future, no one else wants this fertile water! Most kiwis are disinterested in ideas unless they promise profi t – a hard call for proof-of-concept, pioneering research. We grow excellent quality eels, whitebait and grey mullet using cultured plankton and salmon aquaculture feeds. But how do we recover costs? Fisheries legislation invariably blocks aquaculture initiatives: We cannot sell fi sh I have paid to grow from fractions of a gram to kilos. Eels are on my fi sh farm licence, but I cannot legally farm eels unless I buy eels between 220 grams (legal minimum size) and four kilos (legal maximum size) from existing quota holders. I cannot sell any eels I grow but I understand I may give them back to a quota holder. He can only sell them to a licenced fi sh receiver for whatever the receiver wishes to pay. Despite increasing international demand for eels and diminishing wild catches, aquaculture opportunities are being stifl ed. Meanwhile, an inexhaustible supply of glass eels fl oods into our ponds every year, almost all of which normally die in natures wild. Growing fi sh costs money, and until making money from new aquaculture becomes legal one way or another, a sustainable export fi shery is being lost. DoC want $5000 to consider any application to stock plant eating fi shes while demanding an operational plan that meets their satisfaction to farm fi sh. MAF wants $800 plus gst to add additional species to the licence. MAF staff advise the quota rules could never be changed to allow for on-growing aquaculture start ups… If you want to grow a billion dollar aquaculture industry I respectfully suggest that if the government really wishes to fl y the aquaculture kite, loosen a few control ropes and allow pioneers to get off the ground and open future doors. Charlie Mitchell is a fi sh farmer from Raglan SUBSCRIBE NOW TO Name ________________________________________________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Postal code ______________ Email _______________________________________________________________________________ ■ Enclose a cheque for ________________ ■ Visa/Mastercard (only) _______________________ Card Number _________________________________________________________________________ Card Name __________________________________________________________________________ Signature __________________________________________________________Expiry date ——/—— ■ $30.00 for 6 issues GST No: 68-684-757 Post to: VIP Publications Ltd, 4 Prince Regent Drive, Half Moon Bay, Manukau, 2012 MAY/JUNE 2012 ■ NZ AQUACULTURE ■ 3 ISSUE 46 ■ MARCH/APRIL 2012 $5.00 pest or profit? 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