Farming The Sea

Press, Volume C, Issue 29624, 21 September 1961, Page 14

Farming The Sea

If it stimulates interest in neglected national resources the presence of Japanese trawlers off the New Zealand coast may benefit the Dominion much more than Japan. During recent months concern has increased about the extent of Japanese operations; and although many New Zealanders may not take very seriously the possibility that ultimately only Japan-ese-processed fish will be available to them, the Dominion will have itself principally to blame if, through apathy and ignorance, some such situation is allowed to develop. Certainly nobody should underrate the business acumen and maritime capabilities of the Japanese. New Zealand interests are far from

unanimous about bow Japanese competition is to be met. New Zealand fishermen complain that, unlike the Japanese, they cannot disregard the Dominion’s fishing laws. Scientific authorities such as Professor L. R. Richardson, of Victoria University, claim that regulations have prevented the expansion of the New Zealand industry. As long as there is no world-wide convention on the limits of territorial waters, New Zealand might with some justification replace its present three-mile limit with, perhaps, a 12-mile limit su'h as Norway adopted a year ago to protect its fishing grounds from British trawlers. The real problem —as the Norwegians have found—is to enforce territorial limits of any kind, especially when they are fixed arbitrarily and without reference to an international treaty. In all the

circumstances the most practical safeguard against loss of fishing is for a nation to exploit its own grounds itself; and that is what New Zealand should do more effectively. Japan’s fishing industry is by far the world's biggest. Its motorised fleet totals 157.000 vessels, with a gross tonnage of 1-2 million tons, in addition to about 250.000 tiny sailing craft Japan’s annual catch is almost 5 million tons, compared w?.h the United States’ 2.7 million tons and Norway’s 1.5 million tons. According to a recent issue of a

export magazine between 70 and 80 Japanese trawlers, based on Samoa or Espiritu Santo, catch an average of 17,000 tons of tuna in the Pacific each year. In 1959 Japan exported 134,000 tons of frozen tuna, mainly to the United States, Italy, France, and Jugoslavia. By contrast New Zealand’s efforts to develop deep-sea fisheries have been pitifully ineffectual. Last year, for example, the Dominion imported 4.7 million lb of fish valued at £1 million, and exported only 129,0001 b. A Gisborne cannery could not experiment with the processing of tuna because of legal barriers to the landing of suitable fish from a Japanese trawler. If Japanese firms were encouraged to establish factories in New Zealand, presumably much of the tuna now caught off the coast might be processed locally; but why should New Zealanders not themselves reap the full benefit from their maritime resources? Professor Richardson has predicted that, properly managed. New Zealand fisheries could yield as big a revenue as the dairy industry. In July the Minister of Customs (Mr Marshall) announced that the Government was investigating a proposal for a tuna industry operated and controlled by New Zealand interests. For a precedent, New Zealand is wise to look to the Australian industry, which began extensive tuna fishing with boats similar to the Dominion's. In terms of landed weight, tuna has become the second most important fish to Australia. Although Professor Richardson estimates that the Dominion is already nine years behindhand, there is still time to emulate the Australian example; and the New Zealand Government is to be commended for initiating its current inquiries.