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Fishing activity

About 30 per cent of our marine environment is thought to be affected by human activities. Our growing population and changes in technology, increase the pressures we put on our marine environment. These pressures include commercial fishing and trawling, which are thought to have the greatest overall impact on our oceans.

Large-scale commercial fishing can have a range of ecological effects, such as destroying habitats and removing large numbers of organisms from the area. Both of these effects have long-term impacts on marine ecosystems, including on the marine food chain. Bycatch (the unintended catch of species other than the target fish) also puts pressure on marine species in some fisheries.

The fishing activity indicator reports two main aspects:

Did you know?

  • Fishing, including recreational, customary and commercial fishing, is the most widespread human activity in the marine environment.
  • More than 1,300 commercial fishing vessels operate in New Zealand’s marine environment.
  • Of 130 species commercially fished in New Zealand, 96 are managed under New Zealand’s Quota Management System (QMS). About 40 species have QMS allowances for customary Māori fishers, and a similar number have allowances for recreational fishers.

It is common practice internationally to report fishing activity as a measure of the scale of human impact on the marine environment.

 

Information on the limitations of the fishing activity indicator.

 

This information has come from the latest national state of the environment report, Environment New Zealand 2007.

Last updated: December 2007