Abstract
Recreational fisheries governance in Aotearoa New Zealand represents a persistent and contested policy challenge shaped by ecological uncertainty, competing sectoral interests, and institutional asymmetry. While the Quota Management System (QMS) has provided a stable framework for commercial fisheries management since 1986, it has also entrenched a rights-based governance logic that privileges commercial allocation and limits the formal integration of recreational fishing within decision-making structures. Despite the cultural, social, and economic significance of recreational fishing, the sector remains largely reliant on consultation, advocacy, and regulatory access rather than institutionalised rights or governance authority. This thesis examines why recreational fisheries governance has remained structurally marginal within the QMS regime, and how adaptive governance principles may inform more legitimate, inclusive, and resilient governance pathways.
Guided by a critical adaptive governance framework, the research adopts a qualitative case study approach to examine governance tensions and emerging reform possibilities within New Zealand’s marine fisheries management system. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with key fisheries stakeholders, including recreational advocates, government actors, commercial representatives, Māori stakeholders, and civil society organisations, supported by a broad contextual review of publicly available materials, including government reports, policy submissions, national surveys, news articles, and advocacy materials related to recreational fisheries management. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns of institutional constraint, stakeholder perceptions of legitimacy, and pathways for governance innovation.
Findings reveal that recreational governance challenges are sustained by structural factors including weak institutional mandate, fragmented representation, limited data infrastructure, and entrenched commercial property-rights protections that shape political feasibility. Stakeholders consistently identified information gaps, uneven access to decision-making, and centralised management practices as key barriers to adaptive capacity. At the same time, the analysis highlights emerging initiatives aimed at strengthening governance responsiveness, including new regional representation efforts, collaborative monitoring and data-sharing proposals, and reform narratives that seek to align recreational priorities with dominant management logics. These initiatives are interpreted as adaptive responses to institutional misfit, reflecting attempts to improve legitimacy and feedback mechanisms within a path-dependent system.
The thesis contributes a governance-focused account of recreational fisheries marginalisation under quota-based regimes and identifies adaptive pathways that may strengthen cross-sector collaboration, improve knowledge systems, and support more equitable participation. It argues that meaningful reform requires not only technical improvements to management tools, but institutional conditions that enable shared authority, sustained representation, and learning-based governance across scales.