DOMINION FISHERIES

Taranaki Daily News, 1 May 1937, Page 9

DOMINION FISHERIES

INVESTIGATION NEEDED SUPPLY NOT INEXHAUSTIBLE. SMALL EXTENT OF RESOURCES. ADDRESS BY MR. A. E. HEFFORD. The necessity for research and investigation into NeW Zealand's fishery re« sources in an endeavour to conserve the supply, was stressed by Mr. A. E. Hefford, Chief Inspector of Fisheries, in an address to the Wellington PhiloSophiCal Society. One popular fancy whicli Mr. Hefford exploded was that the New Zealand waters contain an inexhaustible supply of flsh. One authority, between 60 and 70 years ago, stated: "I do not only believe, but 1 know, that there is an inexhaustible source of natural wealth swarming unmolested • round these islands, that will yet be a profitable resource to the laborious fishermen, and contribute largely to the aggregate prosperity oi tlie country. In my own humble view, our present mineral wealth is nothing now to what it will become in the time to come, yet I believe that tlie fisheries Of this country will surpass it in wealth, permanence and stability." Other optimistic appraisements of New Zealand's fishery wealth had been made ih more recent years, and a general idea had prevailed that there was ari enormous wealth of fish life in tlie waters round New Zealand. Legislation, however, had been framed at intervals for the purpose of the coiiservation of the fisheries, which showed that some people, at any rate, were alive to the facts and did not indulge altogether in fakicies. Earlieer Supplies. "Experience up to tlie present day," said Mr. Hefford, "has shown us .that the bountiful supplies of fish off our . New Zealand coasts which were presumed to be available by earlier observers— who did not and could not observe very extensively — are not . so bountiful and inexhaustible as they had fancied them to be." Forty years ago, he added, all practiCal men scoffed at the idea of worrying about the conservation of ihe North Sea fisheries. All they had to do when the fish on one area became scarce was to go further afield where they were plentiful. This, however, had proved to be a. mistake, and it was a mistake which New Zealand Was inclined to copy. "The sea fishing resources of New Zealand, far from being of vaSt extent and up to the present hardly touched, are actually of relatively small extent, and such exploitation as has taken place up to the present tinie— though this exploitation has been feeble compared with the much more intensive and extensive fishery Operations of the northerh seas — has had1 a manifestiy depleting effect on our most valuable stocks," said Mr. Hefford. "The possibility of the existence : of untapped refiources is limited by the fact that New Zealand is a grbup of oceanic islands situated in the centre of the water, hemisphere which, anomalous as it may appear, is not the. region of prolific fisheries and superabundant marine life. Source of Nourishment. "Such: life is dependent for its basic source of nourishment upon the mineral matter that is brought by river effluents from the land, and is therefore most concentrated round the margin of these islands. Experience, everywhere has shown that the intensive exploitation that modern inyentidn and engineering have made possible has depleted much vaster fishing resources than New Zealand possesses., Exploitation has forged ahead with' all the momentum that could be given to it by: the , ihventions ,of physical science. . Conservation, dependent for guidance. on biological. science, has definitely , been helped when it has called fpr;biological adviee. listened to it, and acted upon it. "The lesson to us is clear," he continued. "It will pay us better as a nation to investigate our fishery resources scientifically so that the requirements of conservation may be definitely understood and exploitation rationally controlled rather than Wait in a state of inertia till manifest depletion of the "fishing grounds stirs us into activity when it is too late— when the battle Will have been lost and .the measures 'requisite for recuperation ahd recrtiitment to6 expensive. For the past 69 years Governments have been ready enough to legislate, but, not eveh in the most1 recent times, to investigate so as to be able to legislate intelligently." , Depletion by Trawlers. All trawling • grounds around New Zealand were quite Close. to land, Mr. Heiford pointed- otit. "At a short distance from tlie land the sea'is so deep that it is not much gqod trawling," he said. "I Would not go so far as td say that there is an absence qf fish, but such fish as could be caught Would not have the same abundance, nor Would they be of the same commercial Value as those caught in relatively shallow water, and would require more. powerf ul gear, Which Would involve higiier working expenses. There may be banks away out to sea— I definitely know of one such area— that have never yet been fished, over, but tliey cannot be considerable. I caii see no such enormous pblentialities as have been adumbrated by people in the seventies and eighties and by official and tuiofficial opfimists in the first tWO decades of this century. The very obvious depletion of such of our old inshore trawling grounds that have beeil continuously Worked and Which would. certainly have been recruited froni outside stocks if outside stocks had existed to any appreciabie extent, is itself a convincing reminder that our fish populations are not considerable." • Some of the schemes for the development of New Zealand's fisheries had failed, added lYtr. Hefford, because they had tried to reproduce the methods of old countries of the Northem Hemisphere whicli wefe not Suitable for New Zealand conditions. "Not for that matter," said Mr. Hefford, "was our legislation for conservation; it was made — and mostly copied— in ignorance of the objective material concerned, an ignorance that, I fear, has persisted, very largely, to this day."