The pursuit of fish has always had a certain romance to it. The possibility of a decent catch holds a timeless appeal, with elements of the hunt, a “free” feed and an escape from the tedium of everyday life into an ocean environment that is often sublime. And fishing is usually restful, or, even better, exciting. Statistics suggest that more than a quarter of the New Zealand population are regular recreational anglers, and most of us feel at least a flicker of empathy when confronted with slogans of the “I’d rather be fishing” variety.

If some fishing is good, wouldn’t more fishing be even better? In the uncomplicated “bad old days” before the quota management system (QMS) was introduced, such reasoning drew many into the more laid-back echelons of the fishing industry. But great changes in the business of fishing over the past decade have shaken off all but the most dedicated.

Commercial fishing today is a tightly regulated, highly competitive business. Employing some 11,000 people, the seafood industry is New Zealand’s fourth-largest export earner, with annual returns of $1.5 billion. Keeping such success afloat is the country’s 200-mile exclusive economic fishing zone (EEZ). At 1.2 million square nautical miles-15 times greater than New Zealand’s land area—it is one of the largest EEZs in the world.

Since 1986, when the country adopted a quota system to conserve the major commercial fisheries within its ex­clusive zone, New Zealand has become a world leader in the sustainable management of fish resources. Each year the Ministry of Fisheries sets a total allowable commercial catch (TACC) for each species, based on annual stock assessments made using information gathered from re­search surveys, catch monitoring, ships’ logbooks and landed catches. Seafood companies and individual fisher­men own shares of this quota, which they can sell, lease or transfer. Sealord has access to the biggest parcel of quota—about 23 per cent, which amounts to more than 150,000 tonnes of fresh fish, before processing.

Phil Lough, Sealord’s CEO, says that New Zealand’s deep-sea fishing industry is the equal of any in the world, and that most of our total catch (apart from squid, which has only a six-week season) is caught and processed by local interests.

“The QMS has given us certainty in terms of a ‘prop­erty right’ to fish, and this has allowed us to take a long­term view,” says Lough. “Elsewhere in the world, quantity is everything, and the result has been substantial declines in catch rates and major shortages of fish. Here, because of the QMS, we know how many fish we can and will catch, so we can promise customers continuity of supply for decades to come, and concentrate on getting maximum value from every fish.”

The decline in stocks of hake, Alaskan pollock and cod elsewhere in the world has helped increase the demand for our hold, says Lough: “We realised that many customers weren’t just buying fish, they were buying reliability of supply, and that’s where we can make promises that no­body else can.

“Sealord operates a fleet of about 25 vessels—a mixture of factory trawlers, fresh-fish trawlers and bottom longliners—with a workforce of 500 fishing staff. Some of the boats are owned by the company; others are chartered on short-or long-term contracts. Last year, Sealord handled 170,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish, 90 per cent of which was exported.

Increasingly, New Zealand’s fishing industry is control­led by large companies such as Sealord. One of the reasons for the rise of these companies is the fact that many indi­vidual fishers chose to sell the quota the government gave them when it introduced the QMS system. Another is that most our fish resources lie offshore, in deep water, accessi­ble only to large, well-equipped and expensive vessels.

Sealord’s Rehua and her sister ship Aorere represent the zenith of the modern New Zealand trawling fleet. Both are Norwegian-built factory trawlers, able to operate in virtually any sea conditions. It is their factory or on-ship processing capabilities that set these trawlers apart from those of even a few years ago.

“Once we used to take whole fish back to shore for processing,” says Lough. “Then we headed and gutted at sea, but brought the carcass ashore. Then we produced skin-on fillets at sea, and later skinned and boned fillets, and now we are doing fish steaks and portions. Some of our products require no further onshore processing at all.”

[Chapter-Break]

A stint on a modern factory trawler quickly dispels any lingering notions about the ro­mance of fishing: it is a relentless, high-pressure experience. Factory staff work six hours on, six hours off, 24 hours a day usually for seven weeks. All minds are focused on meet­ing the catch targets for the voyage. Payment for the crew consists of a variable salary. Half is paid as a retainer; the balance is calculated on the value of the catch for each trip. Little wonder deck and factory hands try to sign on with the best skippers—those who know the most productive places to fish, have the best-equipped boats and make the fastest turnarounds.

Seamounts and trenches are favoured fishing spots be­cause they tend to harbour large aggregations of fish, but they can also be treacherous. Skilful skippers are better able to skim the fish off the steep sides of a seamount without damaging their gear. Less experienced men stay at a safer distance, but catch fewer fish.

However, even the best skippers can have a run of bad luck. As the days at sea without a decent catch mount up, tension builds. The longer the pickings remain lean, the lesser the likelihood of making the target tonnage before returning to port. As stress levels rise, tempers may fray and arguments break out. Coexistence in the confines of the ship, with little opportunity for solitude, eventually tries even the most gregarious. Add to that the relentless assault on the senses from the ship’s pitching and rolling, the all-pervasive stench of drying fish meal, the constant noise of round-the-clock human and mechanical activ­ity—thrumming from the engine, whining of winches, clatter and hum from the factory machinery, televisions babbling, ghetto blasters pounding—and it is remarkable that there is any amicability at all.

Rehua’s crew numbers around 40, and includes both men and women. Just over half work in the factory, and the remainder operate the vessel and catch the fish. And not just any fish. From the captain’s decision on where and at what depth to shoot the net to the setting up of the factory processing equipment, a particular species is tar­geted. If fortune smiles, the catch is predominantly of the right kind of fish; inevitably, however, other species get scooped up as well, and sometimes the catch is a thor­oughly mixed bag. When a significant quantity of non-target fish come aboard it makes for an unwelcome in­crease in the processing time.

The net, which has a capacity of 65 tonnes of fish, can fill in a couple of minutes if a dense shoal is snared. Sensors on the net signal to the control room how full it is becoming. At the captain’s signal, huge winches reel in the cables, and the net, like a bulging stocking gushing water, is hauled up the stern ramp and onto the deck.

If the factory hands are still processing the previous catch, this one must be kept fresh in the interim, which means keeping it as close to zero degrees C as possible without actually freezing it. This is achieved by spraying it with liquid ice—water on the brink of freezing—and insu­lating it with a thermal blanket.

When the factory is ready to receive the catch, flaps in the deck are lowered, the back end of the net is opened and its contents poured into a holding bay containing more liquid ice. From here, the fish are carried along conveyors to the factory.

Workers manning the first section of the conveyor re­move odd fish and fillet them by hand. The rest of the catch continues on to the automatic filleting ma­chines, where the flanks of the fish are swiftly sepa­rated and skinned. Any remaining traces of anything but pure flesh—a patch of skin, the stump of a fin or a strand of stomach lining—are trimmed by hand. The fillets then proceed to the packers, who sort and pack them according to weight in flat boxes called shatterpacks. These are placed on trays, snap-frozen and stored at minus 30° C.

The leftovers of this process—discarded bones, heads, scales, fins, guts and tails—are dried and ground to fishmeal, for use in animal feeds. Unlikely as it may seem, this is the modern trawlerman’s gold dust—worth less than fillets, but still very valuable ($US800 per tonne), which is just as well, considering the stench produced during its making. The fishmeal plant is near the engine bay, where exhaust heat helps to warm the boiler. The smell it emits permeates every corner of the vessel. Clothes, bed linen, hair, food, cigarettes, drinking water—all become tainted. Fishmeal can be further processed to yield oil, and Rehm can store up to 20,000 litres in its tanks.

The factory can comfortably process a tonne of fish an hour, but must crank through three times that amount when the fishing is good. Deckhands, other­wise idle while they wait for the factory to clear the back­log, may be pressed into service on the conveyor to speed things along. Such blurring of roles is generally not wel­comed, but in the interests of speed and money—and perhaps returning to port early—it is a case of all hands to the factory.

The requirements of the factory are often at odds with the vagaries of catching the fish. Skipper Mike Connolly explains: “The ideal, from the point of view of processing efficiency and quality of product, would be to land 10 to 15 tonnes every three hours, but often the flow of fish will be uneven, with more or less being caught at a time.”

With the factory running at full speed, processing 70 tonnes a day (and freezing 25 tonnes of fillets), the ship’s regimented routine, with its round-the-clock six-hour shifts, comes into its own. The canteen, presided over by a single chef, serves food three-quarters of an hour before each shift change, and always offers a choice of breakfast, lunch or dinner. Room-mates—each cabin sleeps two—are assigned different shifts, so see little of each other.

Given the demands placed upon the crew, alcohol is banned. The captain may conduct spot checks for booze any time, anywhere, and to be found in possession is grounds for dismissal. But there is plenty of water: 40 tonnes a day is produced by the ship’s desalination units.

Those who live and work on a factory trawler form a close-knit community with a strong culture of loyalty—to one another, to the captain and to the job—that can appear impenetrable to the newcomer. Only as they accrue a shared history of voyages, weathering the bad times along with the good and demonstrating their ability to adapt to the give-and-take of enforced coexistence, do those new to the game forge the bonds that bring them into the fold.

Fishing in the 21st century: new owners bigger boats, higher quality

In the 12 years since New Zealand Geographic first reported on deep-sea fishing, there have been many changes in the industry. Although TACCs have not altered much for most species, suggesting they are being fished sustainably, the allowable orange roughy catch has been reduced (from 62,500 tonnes in 1989 to 20,300 tonnes in 2000), and a few new species have been brought into the quota management system, including spiny rock lobster.

Probably the greatest changes in the past decade have been in the ownership of quota and the way it is fished. Quota is increasingly owned by larger companies, and less efficient (generally small) fishers are being squeezed out of the industry. The number of regis­tered commercial domestic fishing boats has declined from 2800 in 1992 to 1860 in 1999. A whole new class of fisher has sprung up: those who do not own quota, but catch someone else’s. In fact, fewer quota owners are catching their own fish. It is a little like an aquatic version of dairy farming, in which older farmers own the land and younger sharemilkers do most of the work, but both derive a living from the operation.

The largest ownership change has been the result of the increased involvement of Maori. When the Crown was starting to establish the QMS in the mid 1980s, it took no account of Maori fishing rights—until Ngai Tahu, Muriwhenua, Tainui and the New Zealand Maori Council won a High Court injunction preventing implementation of the system as it was then conceived.

The negotiations that followed between Maori and the Crown resulted in an interim agreement in 1989 which transferred significant commercial fishing assets to Maori under the aegis of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commis­sion or Te Ohu Kai Moana (TOKM). These assets, known as the pre-settlement assets, were 10 per cent of quota in the QMS (60,158 tonnes), a 68 per cent shareholding in Moana Pacific Fisheries Limited, an 18.6 per cent shareholding in Te Kupenga Limited (which owns 32 per cent of Moana Pacific), and $50 million cash.

In 1992, the “Sealord Deal” completed the settlement of Maori commercial fishing rights. The assets given under this act were 50 per cent of Sealord (including half of its quota), 20 per cent of all new species brought into the QMS, interests in Pacific Marine Farms, Prepared Foods Processing and Chatham Processing Group and $18 million cash. This second group of assets are known as the post-settlement assets. Neither of these settlements has any bearing on Maori non-commercial fishing claims.

TOKM has the task of fairly allocating all these assets to Maori. So far, the schemes it has devised have related only to pre-settlement assets, and none has been universally accepted. TOKM also has the task of encouraging and assisting Maori participation in fisheries, and, since 1993, 63 iwi-operated fishing businesses have been set up, many based on discounted leases of some pre-settlement assets.

Hundreds of jobs for Maori have been created through these fishing ventures. Moana Pacific is now the country’s largest inshore fishing com­pany, with $100 million in annual sales of 15,000 tonnes of fish, much of it high-value snapper and rock lobster.

The Sealord deal gave TOKM ownership of half of Sealord’s 150,000 tonnes of quota. Brierley Investments, which owned the other half of Sealord, recently sold out to the large Japanese food company Nissui and TOKM. The deal was structured in such a way that TOKM became the owner of all the Sealord quota-23 per cent of the national total. In fact, through Moana Pacific and its earlier allocation, TOKM now owns 41 per cent of quota. Other Maori interests, such as Ngai Tahu, own a further 5 or 6 per cent of TACC.

Falling numbers of New Zealand-owned boats are a more visible part of the changing face of the fishing industry. Numbers of foreign-licensed vessels and boats chartered from overseas owners have also fallen—foreign licensed from 44 in 1992 to 10 in 1999 and charter boats from 79 in 1992 to 46 today. Such vessels are mainly used in very seasonal fisheries, especially the squid fishery, which runs for only a couple of months each year. While all three classes of fishing boat are declining in

, catches are not falling. Much of the explanation is that New Zealand companies, such as Sealord, now own large vessels (Rehua, for example) with the capacity to catch and process considerable quantities of fish, and these are displacing foreign craft.

Fishing methods have undergone some adjustment in the past decade. Species such as hoki and orange roughy used to be caught seasonally when they formed large spawning aggregations. With the push to maximise the value of each and every fish caught has come a change in the catching pattern. A spawning fish has only one thing on its mind, and it isn’t food, so such fish are often in poor condition. More than half the hoki catch is now made up of non-spawning fish taken at other times of the year and in different locations from the spawning fish.

A problem with hoki fillets in the early days of that fishery was that they were prone to splitting open, so spoiling the appearance of the fish. Grant McDonald, a researcher at Crop and Food Research, discovered that rapid chilling of the fish was the key to preventing the problem. Hence, as happens on Rehua, the catch is now sprayed with chilled water as soon as it lands on deck, insulated with a thermal blanket and filleted and frozen within an hour or two of harvest. This procedure results in a much higher-quality product than could be obtained by freezing whole fish at sea—usually slowly—thawing them ashore for processing weeks later, and then re-freezing the fillets.

As a result of improved quality in the hoki catch, very little is now being used to make surimi and whitefish block—both low-value products which were significant a decade ago. Hoki fillets are increasingly being regarded as a restaurant-quality product, too good even for fish and chips or crumbed fish fingers. Increased export receipts for hoki ($88 million in 1990, $324 million in 1999) rather than increases in production reflect its changing status (see diagram).

Bolstering the push for quality have been background changes in the industry’s infrastructure. A good range of training programmes is now in place, not just for factory workers and deckhands but for people such as fleet and quota managers. Fishing companies are also pursuing an increasing role in research and management of fisheries.

Unilever—a major fish processor—and the World Wildlife Fund jointly established the Marine Stewardship Council in 1997, an international body (now independent) to examine and certify the sustainability of fisheries. Companies such as Unilever want to assure customers assailed by news of plundered fisheries that the fish they are getting comes from sustainable sources. So far the list of certified fisheries is rather short. New Zealand hoki has recently become the first whitefish or groundfish anywhere to be MSC-approved. Other local fisheries will be submit­ted for evaluation later.

In some senses, the helm has turned full circle for the New Zealand fishing industry. When, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it became obvious that most of our fish resources lay in deep water offshore, we were forced to get overseas vessels in to harvest them for us, because we had neither suitable equipment nor expertise. In the past 20 years we have acquired a good measure of both, and many local companies are now fishing out beyond the 200-mile limit and catching fish in deep water elsewhere in the world. In only two decades we have become one of the most proficient of fishing nations.

Warren Judd

+ Read sidebar