Media Releases

Most New Zealanders think it’s illegal

October 31, 2019 Bottom trawling is an indiscriminate fish harvesting process, capturing all in its path and scraping vital marine growth off the seabed. The damage is unseen as it’s underwater and out of sight. The environmental impacts from the agricultural sector is attracting increasing attention and public concern about the damage caused by some commercial fishing methods […]

Kiwis want tarakihi fishing quota cut significantly amid major concern over fisheries management

October 17, 2019 Seventy percent of New Zealanders want the commercial fishing quota for tarakihi cut dramatically to help the country’s fish and chips favourite to recover, a new survey has revealed. The survey conducted by Horizon Research for LegaSea, a not-for-profit organisation raising awareness of issues affecting the marine environment, found 70% want a cut of between […]

Fish n chip favourite in danger

September 27, 2019 A ten per cent cut to commercial catch limits of tarakihi will not be enough to save the species from its depleted state, says LegaSea. On September 27th the Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash announced his management plan to restore the East Coast tarakihi fishery by applying a ten per cent cut to commercial catch limits […]

The madness of trying to manage fisheries with property rights

July 18, 2019 The Quota Management System has short-changed fish, mana whenua and the public since it was established in 1986. The system was set up with the quota owners having to pay resource rentals. This only lasted a few years. For the past 30 years the commercial fishing industry has not paid for the use of these […]

Joint effort to save “kauri forests of our ocean”

May 15, 2019 New Zealand’s leading environmental organisations have today joined with recreational fishers to call on the Government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), ECO, Forest and Bird, Greenpeace, LegaSea and WWF-New Zealand are urging the public to sign a petition to the Minister of Fisheries, Stuart Nash, and the Minister […]

Minister fails New Zealand’s fishery

September 26, 2018 The recreational advocacy group LegaSea is bitterly disappointed the Minister of Fisheries has deferred making decisive cuts to commercial catches of tarakihi on New Zealand’s east coast for at least another year. In October Stuart Nash will apply a 20% cut to the commercial catch, while LegaSea has been campaigning for a 65% reduction. LegaSea […]

Conviction of repeat offenders justifies MPI spending

August 14, 2018 LegaSea and the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council welcome the prosecution of Hawke’s Bay Seafood after the longest running district court case on record. The prosecution was brought against Antonino, Giancarlo and Marcus D’Espositofor falsifying catch records and exporting more fish to Australia than the company had reportedly caught. The Ministry for Primary Industries need […]

Campaign to save a Kiwi favourite

July 19, 2018 The east coast population of one of New Zealand’s favourite fish, tarakihi, has fallen by over 80% in the past 50 years and the stock is now overfished. LegaSea, the recreational fishing lobby group, is urging the Minister of Fisheries to drastically cut catches to rebuild the tarakihi population. Tarakihi is one of New Zealand’s […]

Government must act on Primary Industry inaction

June 28, 2018 After years of Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) inaction over fishing regulation breaches, over-fishing, fish dumping and more, now it appears MPI has been asleep at the wheel on land as well. News this morning of yet another appalling breach of animal rights show the terrible state some of the nation’s animals are kept in, […]

Time runs out for QMS

June 12, 2018 The industry’s unwillingness to take observers on board fishing vessels is just the latest in a long line of examples of commercial fishers operating in bad faith and flouting the laws as if they own New Zealand’s fisheries. Forest and Bird has obtained information under the Official Information Act and say the refusals to take […]