'BLUE ZEALAND'

Forest and Bird, Issue 313, 1 August 2004, Page 12

'BLUE ZEALAND'

is Forest and Bird’s senior

researcher.

is a consultant writer,

and previously communications manager at Birdlife International. Together, they wrote the ‘Best Fish Guide’.

MICHAEL SZABO

BARRY WEEBER

—BARRY WEEBER

MICHAEL SZABO

The World Beneath Our Waves

New Zealand’s huge underwater territory has been dubbed ‘Blue Zealand’ in a campaign to save our marine world from destructive fishing practices. Unsustainable commercial fishing over-exploits too many fish stocks, while often killing other wildlife, particularly birds and seals, and damaging underwater habitats. Forest and Bird’s latest marine campaign focusses on helping consumers select fish products which are taken with least damage to that environment.

and

explain

why Forest and Bird wants to save our seas.

world wildlife and wild places are the nearest thing on Earth to life on another planet. It is little wonder that our southern beech forests and ponga groves were used to such great effect as some of the settings for the BBC television series Walking with Dinosaurs. Our unique wildlife includes I: has been said New Zealand’s ‘out of this

large flightless birds such as the kiwi, takahe and kakapo found nowhere else on Earth, as well as the prehistoric tuatara, giant weta, and the world’s only mountain parrot, the kea. But this is not even half the picture. More than 80 percent of our wild places and wildlife are found in the marine environment. This is "Blue Zealand’, where most of the country’s unique biodiversity is found. At 4.8 million square kilometres, New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is the fourth largest in the world. "Blue Zealand’ itself is 15 times larger than the terrestrial parts of New Zealand. ‘Blue Zealand’ is also a submerged continent — a world beneath the waves — spreading from the subtropical habitats of the Kermadec Islands to the north through Eee eee

an archipelago of subantarctic islands to the south. Even the inshore habitats vary, through mangrove forests, seagrass beds, warm-water corals and temperate rocky reefs, to colourful sponge gardens that bask in the sun. Further out lie submerged volcanic seamounts adorned with ancient coral forests, standing above vast plateau seascapes carved with meandering 160-kilometre channels and deep-sea canyons. Another reason, no doubt, why the BBC filmed parts of its Blue Planet series here as well. The superlatives that distinguish our islands extend to our oceans. Almost half the world’s 84 species of whales and dolphins occur in ‘Blue Zealand’, including the world’s rarest and smallest marine dolphin — the endangered Hector’s dolphin — and the even rarer Maui’s dolphin subspecies. We have the world’s largest dolphin species — the whalesized orca — and the world’s largest toothed predator, the sperm whale, and the world’s largest animal, the blue whale. We also have the world’s rarest sea lion, the globally threatened New Zealand or Hooker’s sea lion. Our islands also rank as the seabird capital of the world, with more seabird species breeding here than in any other country. For example, 14 of the 24 species of albatrosses breed on our islands. Our seabirds range

from the tiny storm and diving petrels around the size of a blackbird, to the majestic wandering and royal albatrosses with their three-metre wingspans which make them the largest flying birds in the world. They are also among the rarest. Then there are the various penguins that

live around ‘Blue Zealand’ Thirteen of the 16 species in the world occur here, including the world’s smallest penguin, the little blue; and the world’s rarest penguin, the endangered yellow-eyed penguin or hoiho, which forage up to 60 kilometres offshore and dive to depths of 160 metres. ‘Blue Zealand’ also has an incredible variety of marine fish and invertebrates. Two of the largest fish in the world occur in our waters — the globally vulnerable whale shark and the basking shark that reach up to 14 metres long. In comparison, the tiny triplefins and blennies are less than five centimetres long. Last year a new invertebrate species, dubbed the colossal squid, was found in the Ross Sea, south of the subantarctic islands. The specimen was a juvenile, but the adults are thought to reach up to 18 metres long. Amongst our most exotic-looking fish are splendid perch, blue and pink maomao, and multicoloured Sandagger's wrasse. As for the weirdest, take your pick from the black sea dragon — festooned with bioluminescent light organs — the eccentric goblin shark, or the aptly named black swallower.

The oldest of our fish is the humble orange roughy, which can live for 150 years. The prize for fastest fish goes to the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna — which grows up to 2.2 metres and 180 kilograms and can reach speeds of up to 90 kilometres per hour. All five of the Pacific’s endangered marine turtle species occur in New Zealand waters. The largest is the leatherback which ventures as far south as Fouveaux Strait; it can reach three metres in length and weigh up to 700 kilograms. Marine biologists have only recently started to unravel the deep secrets of "Blue Zealand’ and what they’re finding is changing the way we view the ocean depths. According to Peter Batson, author of the recently published Deep New Zealand, new species from our deepest waters are being discovered at a rate of about one per fortnight, many around underwater seamounts. (See Forest ¢& Bird, November 2003.) Seamounts are submerged volcanic mountains, ridges and hills that rise from the sea floor but do not break the surface. They can reach several kilometres in height from the sea floor and can have particularly lush fauna because of the nutrient-rich ‘upwellings’ in the water around them. These ‘oases of life’ allow some species to grow to unusual sizes. One species of black coral reaches two storeys high. Hard coral trees of one bright pink Paragorgia species can grow even taller. Some of these coral ‘forests of the deep’ can live for centuries. We have all heard about the diversity of life in tropical rainforests and around tropical coral reefs. Studies now indicate there is even

more biodiversity amongst deep cold-water coral forests. The top predator here is the sperm whale, which dives down over a kilometre to feed on giant squid and fish species including orange roughy. It is here the environmental cost of seafood begins its impact. Most of us assume that if a fish is commercially caught it must come from a well-managed, healthy and abundant fishery. But sadly this is not necessarily the case. The fishing methods used and the intensity of exploitation have hidden costs for the marine environment which are affecting the abundance and diversity of all marine life. Sadly, some species could be wiped out before they are even described by scientists. he seas around New Zealand are being industrialised. Every year more than 2000 local and foreign commercial vessels catch over 600,000 tonnes of fish in our waters. They do this by setting 50 million hooks and 10,000 kilometres of nets, making over 100,000 trawls and 90,000 dredge tows. This adds up to industrial-scale pressures on marine fish and the wider marine environment. As a result, destructive fishing methods such as bottom trawling and the sheer intensity of exploitation have taken their toll on "Blue Zealand’s’ marine environment, reducing the abundance and diversity of life, particularly in deeper waters. It is the orange roughy fishery that has helped New Zealand become the deep water fishing capital of the world. Despite the use of ‘high-tech’ fishing gear and the complex quota management system, almost all orange roughy fisheries are down to below 20

percent of their original unfished population — in the worst case below three percent. Two fisheries, Challenger and Puysegur, are now closed. After orange roughy was commercially ‘discovered’ in the late 1970s, quotas and catches shot up from a few thousand tonnes in the 1979-80 fishing season to a peak of 56,000 tonnes in 1988-89. By 1995-96, orange roughy had been so badly overfished that the catch had to be reduced to below 17,000 tonnes, with about 70 percent coming from bottom trawls of seamounts. Bottom-trawling nets are often weighted across the bottom with large steel rollers that crash, crush and drag corals, swallowing all in their path. Industrial-scale clear-felling of indigenous forest habitats on Crown land ended nearly 10 years ago, but the marine equivalent continues in our deep water fisheries. eamounts may also play a role in where seabirds such as albatrosses feed on the high seas. The same nutrient-rich upwellings and waters that seabirds feed in are sometimes targeted by fishing vessels. It’s not surprising then that trawling and long-lining over some seamounts kills seabirds. Some seabirds collide with and are killed by the heavy trawlnet cables or ‘warp lines’; others are caught and drowned on baited long-line hooks as they are set. Sadly, the orange roughy fishery is not an isolated ‘bad apple. Many of our commercially fished species are being exploited to their lowest population levels ever, especially deep water species. As with orange roughy, Forest and Bird research shows hoki and oreos stocks have been poorly managed and overfished — and there are problems with the high level of nontarget fish also being caught. Hoki is one of our most destructive fisheries. It is also a fishery which relies heavily on the bottom-trawling methods that bulldoze fragile deep-water habitats and kill a range of by-catch species including New Zealand fur seals, albatrosses and petrels. Hoki fishers also catch a variety of deepwater, non-target fish species including longlived sharks. Hoki are heavily overfished and the western fish stock is nearing collapse. In 2001, when the hoki fishery was awarded a form of environmental certification by the UK-based Marine Stewardship Council, the annual allowable catch was 250,000 tonnes. Last year the allowable catch had to be cut to 180,000 tonnes, but the stocks are in such bad shape that the industry was unable to catch this much. The 2004 assessment of hoki stocks by the Ministry of Fisheries shows the quota needs to be cut to around 100,000

tonnes. {Forest and Bird research has contested the environmental certification from the Marine Stewardship Council from the beginning. | Ling is a deep-water trawl fishery as well as a long-line fishery. It has a very high level of seabird and New Zealand fur seal by-catch. Up to an estimated 5000 seabirds are drowned on the long-lines used in the fishery every year, including critically endangered Chatham albatross, white-chinned and grey petrel, and flesh-footed and sooty shearwater. A single fishing vessel killed over 300 seabirds in one trip in 2002. More than 10,000 seabirds, 1000 New Zealand fur seals, and many rare New Zealand sea lions, marine turtles and dolphins are killed in commercial fisheries as by-catch every year. There is even a ‘quota’ for how many New Zealand sea lions may be legally caught and drowned in the squid fishery, where 2000 have been killed since 1980. Faced with the enormity of this issue and the sad plight of so many species — including 41 globally threatened species of seabird in our oceans — what can each of us do to help turn the tide? The answer could be Forest and Bird’s ‘Best Fish Guide’ enclosed with this magazine. It is the first independent ecological assessment of our commercial marine fisheries. In it, Forest and Bird has ranked 62 wild-caught species based on the ecological impacts of each fishery. The idea is to guide consumers towards buying species which come from better-managed fisheries with more-adequate stocks, and away from the worst. Pilchards came out at the top of the ‘good’ ranking list, along with species such as blue moki, trevally and kahawai. Orange roughy is at the bottom of the ‘worst choice’ list, with oreos, hoki and ling.

Unfortunately, none of the 62 fisheries ranked as a green ‘best choice". Many ranked poorly because of the lack of knowledge about the species, the size of stocks, and/or the overall state of the fishery. About 60 percent of our fish stocks are being managed with no information on sustainable yields. In the absence of such data we applied the precautionary approach and assigned a lower ranking because, without it, we cannot know how ecologically sustainable the fishery really is. We describe 45 percent of fish species as species to approach with caution because there are a number of concerns with each of them, but they are better choices than those in the red. A number of the fish are on this list because of the lack of data about their sustainability. The remaining 55 percent are ranked red. These are the worst choices. In addition to the guide, which is available on the Forest and Bird website, we have produced the easy to use fold-out ‘wallet card’ enclosed with this magazine. If enough

people use the guide, we can tip the scales in favour of ecologically sustainable fisheries management. By using the guide you will also be part of a global movement of people using similar guides in other countries.