Fishing club supports challenge to Ministry

Press, 7 May 1987, Page 6

Fishing club supports challenge to Ministry

PA Tauranga New Zealanders will lose their heritage if the Government continues to issue foreign fishing Vessel licences, the president of the Tauranga Big Game Fishing Club, Mr Warwick Ross, has said. Mr Ross said he expected the club would support the Bay of Islands Swordfish Club’s $lOO,OOO fund-raising campaign to challenge the Ministry of

Fisheries. The Bay of Islands club wants to stop foreign fishing licences which allow marlin to be taken from New Zealand’s offshore zone. The Tauranga club had not yet been officially asked to help raise money to cover legal costs, but Mr Ross said it was a very real issue that the club would consider seriously. The Government was

not really considering the heritage of the people of New Zealand. “I can’t see how the Government or any one person has the, right to take our heritage away from us.” “By allowing foreign vessels to fish inside the country’s offshore economic zone, our food chain is breaking down,” Mr Ross said. When tuna, marlin and shark resources were exhausted, inedible fish, such as barracouta, would dominate the oceans, Mr Ross said. “We will end up with an ocean full of barracouta and paddle crabs when the natural predators have gone,” he said. •'< “We are also running out of shellfish because the crabs are eating them all. The barracouta eat the snapper, but once the sharks, have gone, the barracouta will multiply rapidly. “Five years of mass slaughter and the change in the food chain could annihilate our fishing grounds,” he said.