How the Law Lets Down the 'Down-Under Dolphin': Fishing-Related Mortality of Marine Animals and the Law in New Zealand

Abstract

Regulatory control of fishing in response to fishing-related mortality of endemic marine animals in New Zealand waters has been weak and slow. The handful of populations and species that have been ‘protected’ from fishing activities are still probably declining or are un-likely to recover without further protection. The government itself recognizes the inadequacies of its measures for protecting seabirds. Some species directly affected by fishing receive no protection at all from this threat. I argue that a legal framework that is almost wholly discretionary, allows fisheries interests to dominate decision-making and obscures and nullifies the intended effect of the precautionary approach is to blame. It follows that when in 2009 Members of the New Zealand Parliament rejected off-hand simple legislative changes capable of addressing these problems, they belied their own expressions of concern for marine animals threatened by fishing.