Nelson Mail, 23 June 2011
An interim High Court decision will hold up plans to expand marine farming in Tasman and Golden Bays by several years and require a new round of consultation and potential litigation. At stake are tens of millions of dollars in potential income, and possibly hundreds of new jobs.
Parties for and against more marine farming in the two bays, including New Zealand's biggest seafood companies, have been duking it out in the courts for 13 years. The new decision will add two to three years to the process, insiders say. Meanwhile, an aquaculture reform bill is before Parliament and might further change the footing.
At issue is the loss of access to scallops, oysters and wild finfish if more marine farming is allowed in the Tasman District Council's aquaculture management areas.
The council proposed a total of 2109 hectares in the two bays. In 2008, the Ministry of Fisheries approved 850ha, leading to appeals from companies that wanted the approvals withdrawn, and others that said not enough of the 2109 hectares had been included.
Now in a lengthy new interim decision giving the parties a month to respond, Justice Denis Clifford has suggested that the ministry's chief executive is the appropriate person to make the rulings.
"That means that the ministry now has to go back and re-do the entire decision," counsel for the opponents of the expansion, Tony Stallard, said yesterday.
Mr Stallard represents the Challenger Group, which covers scallops, oysters and finfish, and which has argued since the first proposal was announced in 1996 that expanded aquaculture in the designated areas would work against existing fishing practices.
He said the effect of the High Court decision was that the ministry would have to go out to all the parties again, possibly consult more widely, and invite submissions on the proposal. There would then be a fresh right of appeal.
"My view is that we've been set back probably another two or three years, and where the matter is going to end up as the result of these new decisions, I do not know."
Mr Stallard said Challenger's view was that the areas the ministry had tried to make available to aquaculture were "over the top of prime fishing grounds" and it would continue to maintain that approval would have an undue adverse effect on fishing.
Publicly listed Sanford, SMW Consortium – a grouping of Sealord, Maclab and Westhaven Shellfish – and Marlborough Aquaculture are fighting in the opposite corner. Sealord declined to comment on the court's decision.
But in a 2010 study by consulting economist Michael Copeland used to back up the consortium's case, it was estimated that the direct and indirect impacts of the mussel industry in the top of the south were $383 million a year in output, and 1762 fulltime equivalent jobs, with the scallop industry producing $6 million and 28 FTE (fulltime equivalent) jobs.
Mr Copeland said approving an additional 1150ha of mussel farming space would produce an estimated $46m a year, and another 222 FTE jobs, while it would reduce the scallop catch by less than three tonnes of meatweight worth less than $60,000, with a reduction in employment of less than one fulltime job.
Aquaculture New Zealand said that as in industry body, it was inappropriate to comment on individual court cases. Tasman District Council environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King agreed that the decision could set back the council's desire to expand marine farming plan by several years.
Ministry of Fisheries acting chief legal adviser Peter McCarthy said the ministry was still considering the impact of the judgment.
Nelson MP Nick Smith said it was extremely frustrating that the provision of aquaculture had been the subject of "legal scraps" for so long. The Government was attempting to provide a far better process with its Aquaculture Reform Bill, which it hoped would be passed within the next few months. "I'm not satisfied that letting this process run out for another two or three years is in the public interest."
Source: Nelson Mail
