Agreement made with the Soviet Union

Press, 13 April 1978, Page 16

Agreement made with the Soviet Union

By

STUART McMillan

of “The Press”

For a country with a Government which has seen threats from a Soviet presence in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific, New Zealand has made some interesting arrangements with the Soviet Union over the last few days.

It has encouraged the Soviet Union to fish in the New Zealand economic zone, granted repair facilities for the ships, and allowed for exchanges of crews. The fishing agreement with the Soviet Union, signed last week, licenses the vessels now fishing. Letters of agreement cover the points about repair facilities and the exchanges of crews. New Zealand had a large number of suitors for fishing rights in its zone. The two distant-water fleets so far licensed, from South Korea and the Soviet Union, undoubtedly were chosen because of the possibilities for growth in the trade between these countries and New Zealand. Japan was excluded because it would not give way over importing more farm produce from New Zealand. The Soviet Union has been taking wool, mutton, and beef, the last two in growing quantities. When the Soviet Union showed more than a little interest in fishing in these waters, the Government apparently made the assessment that the Soviet Union’s prime interest was in protein and agreed to give it access. The fishing agreement allows New Zealand to stipulate the size of nets to be used and the size of the catch. Setting the size of the catch will have advantages

as well as disadvantages. It will prevent any argument about what the maximum sustainable yield is likely to be. but it will, on the other

hand, mean that New Zealand will have to know better than it does now what the stocks of fish in these waters

are. To some extent, however, the ability of New Zealand to impose its will on foreign fishermen will depend on the outcome of the Law of the Sea conference now in session. New Zealand is hoping that the conference will settle such matters as the status of laws made by the coastal State. When talks over fishing rights with the Soviet Union broke off last year two major issues had to be settled. One was what to do about the enclaves. These are areas of sea which are totally surrounded by the seas of the 200-mile circles around various islands belonging to New Zealand, but which are not really within New Zealand’s fishing zone. At the resumption of the talks the Soviet Union was arguing, with some justification. that these areas were technically high seas and that it could not recognise them as being under the sovereignty of New Zealand. For’its part, New Zealand was arguing that while this might be so, thev were an integral part of the whole fishing zone and that it could not allow unlimited fishing in them lest this upset the rest of the zone. At last the Soviet Union said that it would not fish in the enclaves at all — a solution that apparently satisfied both parties.

The other outstanding issue was the status of the Cook Islands, the Tokelaus, and Niue. The Soviet Union had an ideological problem. To recognise tnat New Zealand had special rights over these islands might be to acknowledge a colonial situation. New Zealand protested that what it did, it did with the approval of the United Nations, and that these countries had a special, not colonial, relationship with New Zealand. Here the solution proved to lie in getting an acceptable form of words which did not rule out any change in the status of the islands but which suited New Zealand. The issue is not one of considerable moment to the actual fishing. The Russians are interested in squid and in trawling, but not in the tuna which may be taken around these islands. The countries which are interested in the tuna are the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Not the least accomplishment of the talks as far as New Zealand is concerned, is that to accommodate New Zealand’s need for information about fish and the movements of the ships, the Soviet vessels will carry at least one crew member 'who speaks English. This way of solving the communication problem seems to be highly satisfactory. It is understood that speakers of Russian in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries are rare. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has some speakers of Russian, but there are no plans at present to send any of them fishing.