CSP achievements
Campbell albatross
The Conservation Services Programme provides a rare example in the global fishing industry of a transparent and accountable process where industry is legally required to contribute to the costs of research relating to its environmental impacts.
Conservation Services levies have funded:
- the development of a number of promising mitigation devices
- provision of advisory officers
- the development of management measures that aim to contribute to reducing the current rates of bycatch of protected species.
In the longline and trawl fisheries, fishing companies have been involved with DOC in exploring several research avenues and some companies have trialled devices in their fishing operations at considerable expense to themselves.
Some fishing companies have also developed and trialled their own ideas for mitigation measures. The most successful of these have involved modifications to fishing practice e.g. hauling methods and offal discharge.
Similar co-operative and innovative approaches have been seen in some fisheries where marine mammals have been caught in significant numbers, for example the use of sea lion exclusion devices (SLEDs) in the Subantarctic squid fishery.
The introduction of levy-funded projects and the independent action of fishing companies has resolved many interactions between commercial fisheries and protected species of marine wildlife. Also, there is no doubt that the New Zealand Government is far better informed of these problems as a result of increased observer coverage funded through the Conservation Services Levies.
Finally, all fishers who currently pay these levies have a strong financial incentive to reduce their interactions with protected species, and thus negate the need for levies to be paid.