Forest & Bird is condemning the Seafood Industry Council's latest report on the environmental standards of fishing in New Zealand.
The report says commercial fishing has a lower environmental impact than industries such as dairy and meat and it should be the preferred choice for consumers.
But Forest & Bird’s Conservation Advocate Katrina Subedar disagrees.
“This report has failed to use key New Zealand references which are available, so we think that has severely impacted the credibility and the results of the findings in this report,” she says.
Mrs Subedar says the report failed to reference a recent Statistics New Zealand report assessing fisheries, farming and meat, or the Ministry of Fisheries’ latest data.
She says the Stats NZ report found that fishing used eight times more energy than agriculture, through the use of factories and people on shore.
“They haven’t looked at the sustainability of the stocks, they haven’t looked at the by-catch, they haven’t looked at the environmental impact of the fishing,” she says.
Mrs Subedar says fishing by-catch is a huge issue in New Zealand, as commercial fishing ventures often catch other animals in their nets.
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