Fisheries officers fear for toheroa beds

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 2

Fisheries officers fear for toheroa beds

PA Dargaville Unless the fishing regulations are tightened soon, the North Island’s main toheroa beds near Darga-

ville may become extinct, say local honorary fisheries officers.

An anomaly in the law was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries by a High Court judge who acquitted a man who took undersized pauas because the man was Maori and had rights under the Treaty of Waitangi.

One of northern Wairoa’s three honorary fishing inspectors was called at the week-end to a beach by a resident who said there was a party of 25 to 30 people digging up undersized toheroas with spades and shovels. He investigated, but because the toheroa diggers were Maoris he did not try to apprehend them.

However, the inspector said he had since been advised by Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries officers in Auckland to keep enforcing the fisheries regulations and to leave the courts to sort out whether people were

exempt under the Treaty of Waitangi. Another inspector said he could no longer be bothered to check the beaches, because it was clearly said in the fishing regulations that Maoris were exempt. He also feared there might be a wholesale plunder of the toheroa beds.

“People are already profiteering,” he said.

Mr Des Subritzky, chairman of the Dargaville Borough Council and Hobson County Council joint fisheries committee, said he had heard of more than one incident of blatant toheroa digging since the High Court decision.

“The toheroas are nearly all gone now. If this keeps up, in six months there will not be any left on our beaches.” People caught taking toheroas would be arrested, even if they said they were Maori, said Auckland’s regional fish-

eries officer, Mr Neville Buckley, yesterday. Mr Buckley’s comment stemmed from the High Court decision last week.

Radio reports yesterday quoted Mr Buckley as saying that because fisheries officers could not determine who was Maori and who had rights, everyone caught taking banned shellfish would be arrested. .

Three persons at Dargaville were charged with taking toheroas. An Opposition member of Parliament, Dr Lockwood Smith, who threatened to bring in a private member’s bill to end the “plunder of toheroa,” said fisheries inspectors were to meet in Dargaville to discuss the problem. Dr Smith, the National member of Parliament for Kaipara, said he feared for the survival of toheroas.

He had received "eyewitness reports” from his constituents of Maori people taking toheroas regardless of size.