LegaSea wine offer 13-16 June

I can vouch for the quality having received two bottles from 36 degrees brokers ….their small token of appreciation for blowing my kids inheritance with them

I’m neutral on LegaSea.

I’m aware of passionate feelings both for and against them but I haven’t done enough digging to develop a confident opinion of my own, to be honest.

Hence I was simply passing on their wine offer in case of interest to anyone.

Given the strength of the Commercial sector, and the extent of their political donations, I think having a recreational sector lobbyist is a very good and healthy thing. The commercial sector have a very sophisticated PR team, and the usual Dirty Politics guys working distraction. You've most likely been captured by some of this.
And I wouldn't complain about getting banned from a FB page. I've lost count of the number of politicians pages, whom I've voted for, 'disappearing' me for questioning something. It is the nature of social media. Get over it.

Your alternative is to have a love fest with the commercial sector. That has been going on for the last 50 plus years, and now here we are. If you don't like Legasea, that is your choice, go make a donation to Sanford of Tally's, or better still straight to Shane Jones / NZ First so they can block every marine conservation initiative they can on behalf of Tally's. By going after Legasea all you are doing is strengthening the like of Shane Jones and these backroom dealings.

I have to agree with HT that the key here (like in everything in life) is to seek to work with not against.

It sounds like Big Fish (as in commercial operators not our own forum poster 😊) is in favour of some kind of joint solution.

Whereas Legasea seem to holding a line that Big Fish is all bad and Small Fish (recreational) are not part of the problem and should enjoy free rein.

In which case I do not agree with the Legasea approach.

Just because they aren't advocating what you think should happen doesn't mean they aren't adding value in advocating for 'Small Fish'.
On a related tangent, we are bitching about YNZ not advocating for boaties at all. At least Legasea are advocating for rec fisho's. That in itself is a big achievement. Clearly the next step is to get them to advocate for exactly what you want.
And I'd disagree that Legasea are anti commercial. They have clearly stated and articulated they are anti certain commercial fishing practices. Bottom trawling and perse-seining. What they collectively refer to as destructive practices. Yes they have stated support for longline fishing, and recommend to consumers to 'know where your fish is from'.

So they don't support reporting of recreational catch. So what? I've never thought about it, but the first thing that comes to mine is that it would be an administrative nightmare. It would cost a shit-tonne to set up a half-pie effective reporting platfrom and data management portal. Then, the major issue would be knowing the extent of reporting. You still have to guess the proportion that don't report their catch, but you would have blown millions on an IT project for the platform, and then several more millions to PR and advertising agencies to tell people about it. Who is going to pay for that? And will it improve the environment at all?

At the end of the day recreational fishing does not damage the environment. I'm not aware of any damaging recreational fishing practices. Well, maybe set-netting, I think that should be banned, but it is not very widespread. All rec fishos do is take biomass. The snapper fishery is in excellent shape, there is no issues there. What is of concern is the wider ecosystem and biodiversity. I'm talking kina barrens, seaweed die-off and the like. What we have touched on previously and agreed on (I believe) is things like commercial bait fish harvesting and the impact that has on the environment.

My main point is just because you don't agree with what Legasea are advocating for doesn't mean they aren't really important. The commercial sector is incredibly well funded and very well connected politically and with PR people. They have extensive history with political donations and overtly buying political influence. Rarefactional fishos and environmentalists need something to balance that. And, to balance that effectively, you are going to need a bit of mongrel and a few dirty tricks of your own. I say good on Legasea.

Stepping back for a minute, I think this issue is affected by a far bigger issue / problem / unanswered question…. namely, should the oceans remain a (largely) unregulated and free resource for everyone and anyone to tap into for their convenience?

This is a much wider question; I’m talking about the rights of people (or private organisations or governments) to use the oceans for things like mining undersea resources, seaweed harvesting, installation of wind-farms, setup of hydro/wave-power (which is growing globally) etc? And fishing is just one part of that.

So until we can tackle the bigger question of how the oceans should be governed (and where the boundaries are drawn), then fishing controls will only remain tactical and half-baked. Which is what we are seeing today, of course. Because the debate is happening at the wrong level.