The Green Party is urgently calling on the Government to prioritise long-term prosperity of our oceans in its consultation on the Fisheries Act.
“Our oceans are in a state of decline, continuing to put short-term profit before long-term sustainability will see the health of our ocean life wash away," says Green Party’s Oceans and Fisheries spokesperson Teanau Tuiono.
“Minister Jones has stated ‘sustainability will always be the bottom line for fisheries management,’ but we have seen decisions from the Government completely contradict and undermine this. Today’s proposed changes seem to reward industry for overfishing, posing a significant threat to the sustainability and longevity of our oceans.
“If the Minister truly cared about sustainability he would ban bottom trawling and champion sustainable, adaptive fishing practices, which will increasingly be required in the context of climate change.
“If we want our oceans to thrive for generations to come we must commit to protecting more of our waters. We campaigned on doing exactly this by establishing a Healthy Oceans Act that would create a legally binding framework to protect at least 30 per cent of Aotearoa’s ocean by 2030.
“The crisis facing our ocean is growing more urgent by the day – and it is communities who depend on the moana for their livelihoods, including Māori and Pasifika communities, who will be impacted most of all. This Government needs to prioritise the sustainability of our oceans, which in turn prioritises long-term wellbeing of tangata whenua and tagata moana.
“It is high time the Government turned the tide on the exploitative and extractive fishing practices that have seen our ocean environment’s health decline and our fisheries be depleted.
“Our oceans are the lifeblood of Aotearoa. It is incumbent upon us to protect them, not only for their beauty, but for their essential role in sustaining life on our planet,” says Teanau Tuiono.
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