Forest & Bird slates Government

Forest & Bird points out:

The Government’s announcement this morning they’re paying for cameras on 28 fishing boats is yet another major back down to the fishing industry, says Forest & Bird.  
 
“Putting cameras on boats in an area that already has near total observer coverage is a joke. Meanwhile, most commercial fishing boats in New Zealand will continue to operate without human or camera observers,” says Forest & Bird Chief Executive Kevin Hague.
 
“There are only 63 Māui dolphins in the world. If we want to save them, counting bodies on boats is too late. We need to stop dangerous set netting and trawling in their habitat, not put cameras on boats that mostly already have MPI staff on them.”
 
“There are over 1000 commercial fishing boats in our waters, the vast majority of which do not have any observer coverage at all.

So National was introducing cameras in basically all 1,000 fishing boats. This Government which claims to be focused on the environment and conservation is introducing them on just 3% of fishing boats, and ones that have observers on them already so they’ll actually achieve nothing.