Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Annual Review 2013 (original) (raw)

This document contains a summary of information and research on aquatic environment issues relevant to the management of New Zealand fisheries. It is designed to complement the Ministry’s annual Reports from Fisheries Assessment Plenaries (e.g., the November Plenary, MPI 2012, and the May plenary, MPI 2013) and emulate those documents’ dual role in providing an authoritative summary of current understanding and an assessment of status relative to any overall targets and limits. However, whereas the Reports from Fisheries Assessment Plenaries have a focus on individual fishstocks, this report has a focus on aquatic environment fisheries management issues and biodiversity responsibilities that often cut across many fishstocks, fisheries, or activities, and sometimes across the responsibilities of multiple agencies. This update has been developed by the Science Team within the Fisheries Management Directorate of the Resource Management and Programmes branch, Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). It does not cover all issues but, as anticipated, includes more chapters than in 2011 and 2012. As with the Reports from Fisheries Assessment Plenaries, it is expected to change and grow as new information becomes available, more issues are considered, and as feedback and ideas are received. This synopsis has a broad, national focus on each issue and the general approach has been to avoid too much detail at a fishery or fishstock level. For instance, the benthic (seabed) effects of mobile bottom-fishing methods are dealt with at the level of all bottom trawl and dredge fisheries combined rather than at the level of a target fishery that might contribute only a small proportion of the total impact. The details of benthic impacts by individual fisheries will be documented in the respective chapters in the May or November Report from the Fisheries Assessment Plenary, and linked there to the fine detail and analysis in Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Reports (AEBRs), Fisheries Assessment Reports (FARs), and Final Research Reports (FRRs). Such sections have already been developed for several species in the 2012 and 2013 Fishery Assessment Plenary Reports, and others will follow. The first part of this document describes the legislative and broad policy context for aquatic environment and biodiversity research commissioned by MPI, and the science processes used to generate and review that research. The second, and main, part of the document contains chapters focused on various aquatic environment issues for fisheries management. Those chapters are divided into five broad themes: protected species; non-QMS fish bycatch; benthic effects; ecosystem issues (including New Zealand’s oceanic setting); and marine biodiversity. A third part of the review includes a number of appendices for reference. This review is not comprehensive in its coverage of all issues or of all research within each issue, but attempts to summarise the best available information on the issues covered. Each chapter has been considered by the appropriate working group at least once.