May 15, 2013
Iwi count benefits of fish settlement
It’s time for the annual stock take of what the Māori fisheries settlement is delivering to iwi Māori.
The annual Māori fisheries conference is being held in Auckland today, with presentations on topics such as Māori fish farming in Australia, what can be done to protect seabirds, and how iwi can manage the money they make from the industry.
Te Ohu Kaimoana Chief Executive Peter Douglas says that accounts to about $30 million a year in returns from the quota assets held by iwi.
"Most of that is caught during the fishing season and it comes back to the asset holding companies that are attached to the mandated iwi organisations and how they use that money from year to year is up to them. Some of them will be reinvesting it to increase the returns they get in years to come and some of them distribute it around to the good deeds that they think are important," he says.
Mr Douglas says many of the conservation measures the Māori fisheries settlement trust has advocated in its 20 year existence have resulted in stocks coming back, which confirms that New Zealand’s quota system is still one of the world’s leading fisheries management regimes.
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