Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Annual Review 2012

AEBAR 2012: Ecosystem effects: Habitats of particular significance to fisheries management
In addition to legislated closures, a number of non-regulatory management measures exist. For
example:
• Spatial closures
o Trawlers greater than 28 m in length are excluded from targeting hoki in four Hoki
Management Areas – Cook Strait, Canterbury Banks, Mernoo Bank, and Puysegur
Bank (DeepWater Group 2008). These areas were chosen because of the larger
number of juveniles caught, relative to adults in these areas.
o Trawling and pair trawling are both closed around Kapiti Island
• Seasonal closures
o A closure to trawling exists from November the first until the 30 th of April each year
in Tasman Bay.
o A closure to commercial potting exists for all of CRA3 for the whole of the month of
December each year.
The high-level objectives and actions in Fisheries 2030 have been interpreted in the highly migratory,
deepwater and middle-depths (deepwater) inshore national fish plans. The highly migratory fish plan
addresses HPSFM in environment outcome 8.1 “Identify and where appropriate protect habitats of
particular significance to highly migratory species, especially within New Zealand waters”. In the
deepwater fish plan the Ministry proposes in management objective 2.3 “to develop policy guidelines
to determine what constitutes HPSFM then apply these policy guidelines to fisheries where
necessary”. Inshore fisheries management plans (freshwater, shellfish and finfish) all contain
references to identifying and managing HPSFM. These plans recognise that not all impacts stem from
fisheries activities, therefore managing them may include trying to influence others to better manage
their impacts on HPSFM. Work is underway on a policy definition of HPSFM that will assist
implementing these outcomes and objectives.
9.2. Global understanding
This section focuses upon those habitats protected overseas for their value to fisheries and discusses
important concepts that may help gauge the importance of any particular habitat to fisheries
management. This information may guide future research into HPSFM in New Zealand and any
subsequent management action.
9.2.1. Habitats protected elsewhere for fisheries management
Certain habitats have been identified as important for marine species: shallow sea grass meadows,
wetlands, seaweed beds, rivers, estuaries, rhodolith beds, rocky reefs, crevices, boulders, bryozoans,
submarine canyons, seamounts, coral reefs, shell beds and shallow bays or inlets (Kamenos et al.
2004; Caddy 2008, Clark 1999, Morato et al. 2010). Discrete habitats (or parts of these) may have
extremely important ecological functions, and/or be especially vulnerable to degradation. For
example, seabeds with high roughness are important for many fisheries and can be easily damaged by
interaction with fishing gear (Caddy 2008). Examples of these include:
1. The Oculina coral banks off Florida were protected in 1994 as an experimental reserve in
response to their perceived importance for reef fish populations (Rosenberg et al. 2000). Later
studies confirmed that this area is the only spawning aggregation site for gag (Mycteroperca
microlepis) and scamp (M. phenax) (both groper species), and other economically important
reef fish in that region (Koenig et al. 2000). The size of the area within which bottom-tending
gears were restricted was subsequently increased based on these findings (Rosenberg et al.
2000).
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