Time for change for Fish and Game

Thursday, 7 May 2020

Fish and game councils were established thirty years ago to replace the former acclimatisation societies which had their beginnings in the 1860s (FILE).

OPINION: For only the third time in more than a century and half the annual gamebird hunting season has not opened on the first Saturday in May.

In 1942 and 1944 the entire season was cancelled to conserve ammunition during World War Two. This year the ‘opening weekend’ has been postponed with no new date set due to Covid-19 restrictions on non-essential travel.

Most gamebird hunters will understand the reason for the unprecedented decision. But how many know the reason for the recently announced independent review of the Fish and Game Council system by Conservation Minister Eugene Sage?

Fish and game councils were established thirty years ago to replace the former acclimatisation societies which had their beginnings in the 1860s.

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In the new integrated system the 12 regional fish and game councils were given the technical management of gamebird and sportsfish populations locally while the New Zealand Fish and Game Council was charged with advocating the interests of licensed anglers and hunters nationally as well as coordinating and auditing the work of regional councils.

The advocacy work of the New Zealand Fish and Game Council brought about water conservation orders on a number of important rivers and, through the ‘dirty dairying’ campaign, laid the foundation for the Government’s current priority focus on farming and freshwater quality.

The system is financed entirely from licence fees with no government funding and is unique in the world.

From at least 1953, it has been illegal to sell gamebirds hunting rights or sportsfish angling rights and the many fierce debates over the years about management policies were fuelled by altruistic motives to look after these resources and protect the rights of ordinary citizens to enjoy them for nothing more than an annual, licence fee.

This latest upheaval however is much more serious than an exchange of strongly held opinions on policy matters.

The principle contributing factor to the problem is the system of appointing one elected member of each regional council to serve on the independent New Zealand Fish Game Council.

It would be totally unacceptable to have our local District Council, under advice from its CEO, appoint the local member of Parliament but that was the system fish and game councils were given and it has helped create the current problem.

Some appointed councillors were forced to act as regional delegates rather than take a national overview as the Conservation Act requires.

Those who did not act as delegates were quickly replaced by those who did. In essence there was, and still is, insufficient separation between the two bodies.

That resulted in the inability of the New Zealand Fish and Game Council to carry out its proper function, particularly the coordination and audit of regional fish and game councils.

That also led to regional parochialism and the failure of regional councils, and particularly some of their managers, to focus on their core business of managing the resource, leaving national politics to the New Zealand Fish and Game Council.

Another issue is the number of fish and game councillors, both regionally and nationally, with undeclared perceived, if not actual, conflicts of interest.

Some have been engaged in water extraction for irrigation schemes which have the potential endanger fish and wildlife habitats.

Others are involved in the commercialisation of gamebird hunting and angling by ‘persuading’ landowners to close their properties to the all gamebird hunters and anglers in favour of the councillor/guide’s fee-paying clients.

While probably only just legal this latter activity is an anathema to the founding ethics of the system which disallows the commercialisation of gamebirds, sportsfish.

The role of these councillors in protecting gamebirds and sportsfish for all New Zealanders was clearly compromised as was the New Zealand Fish and Game Council in attempting to deal with the issue.

Other councillors tried, unsuccessfully, to have the issue properly addressed.

Things took a more sinister turn recently with the election of a number of councillors with allegiances to farming groups rather than to the licence holders they are supposed to represent.

Two of their first actions was to dump a long serving chairman and muzzle the national director from negative comments about farming. Those actions speak for themselves.

The system is still basically sound, one of the best in the world it but needs some simple changes in keeping with the intention of Parliament when it was first established.

The most important of those changes must be to return control of the New Zealand Fish and Game Council to ordinary licence holders where it rightfully belongs.

The New Zealand Fish and game Council must be elected directly by licence holders, with no more than ten candidates who cannot be a member of an opposing group or regional fish and game council or involved in any way with the commercial exploitation of gamebird hunting or angling.

*Tom O’Connor served on acclimatisation societies and several regional fish and game councils for more than forty years. In that time he was a member of the New Zealand Fish and Game Council and represented the Director General of Conservation on one of them