Fishery data system launched

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 5

Fishery data system launched

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington A new MAFFish quota management computer system was launched yesterday, to improve its handling of fisheries information. It' would enable more efficient management of the fisheries effort and catch data base, said the director of operations for MAFFish, Mr Bruce Shallard. That would mean fewer forms that commercial fishermen had to fill out, reduced costs for administering the data base, and quicker and easier retrieval of information.

the new system provided for decentralised data gathering and handling in regional offices, with data processing, analysis and monitoring being centralised, he said.

MAFFish received about 20,000 forms every month from. 3500 commercial fishing operators. The new computer system would reduce the time taken to process this and make it available, from six months to 20 days.

Mr Shallard said the new system would also provide more and more detailed information on more species. The Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, said the computer would be valuable in fisheries intelligence and compliance work. Its tasks were certainly wide-ranging. For example, the quota registration system and the task of balancing each fisherman’s reported catch against quota holdings would be impossible without a computer. “Some would suggest it was still impossible with a computer, knowing some of the fishermen,” he said. The use of catch statistics and survey data to model fish population trends was made possible by computer techniques." ■i