Former regional economic development minister Shane Jones says he shocked by the rejection of a plan to farm salmon in Fouveous Strait.
Mr Jones, who chaired Maori fisheries settlement trust Te Ohu Kaimoana before entering politics, says Southland is an area that needs to diversify its economy, and the proposal by Ngai Tahu Fisheries would have created hundreds of jobs and generated millions of dollars from a part of the moana it had rights to under the Maori Aquaculture Settlement.
The three member independent panel appointed by the Environment Protectiioon Agency ruled the landscape was too pristine to allow the farm to go ahead.
“This elitist body of know-alls has decided that Ngai Tahu, the export sector and New Zealand doesn’t need any more revenue from growing fish in the sea, and if there’s anything that shows me our Maori economy and indeed our regional economics are at risk from these ill-informed, elistist, disconnected academics, that’s it,” Mr Jones says.
He says when New Zealand First gets back to parliament it will ensure there is fish farming and the decision-making is stipped from unaccountablew academics.
