THE news of the rāhui placed on a coastal area around Awakino two weeks ago is being met with a call to MPI by an experienced ex fisheries officer to make sure they have those who can at the least enforce the current rules around shellfish gathering. Paul Charman talks to Allan Jones.
MŌKAU identity Allan Jones is pleading for Ministry of Primary Industries fisheries officers patrolling between Awakino Heads and Purapau, to enforce limits on the kaimonana take there. The former honourary fisheries officer supported a two-year rāhui the Mōkau ki Runga Resource Management Committee recently placed on this section of coastline, but said the move needed legal backing. “There needs to be somebody checking up on the rāhui, a compliance officer on the spot. This is why it turned to [custard] in the first place – because nobody was doing that. The MPI and marine scientists have worked out that you could take 10 pāua at 125mm – that’s the law and that will be sustainable. But if you have nobody policing that, it doesn’t work,” Allan said. The rugged beach, accessed from either Awakino Heads in the south or Waikawau Tunnel Beach in the north, was once the pathway to a prolific pāua reef. DWINDLING STOCKS “When I first went there many years ago, you could gather pāua without getting your feet wet. In the old days few people wanted to walk seven miles from the river mouth to the reef – but now with quadbikes it’s just so easy to get there.” Hence in recent years, stocks had dwindled to the extent locals feared unless the reef got a chance to recover there would be nothing left for future generations. A series of hui at Mōkau, Piopio and Te Kūiti drew strong community support for a rāhui lasting at least two years, with the measure announced in the King Country News on August 18. But Allan said if they defied the rāhui, poachers should also expect to be in hot water legally. PLAN TO WIN NEEDED “The rāhui has given us two years grace but in those two years we must come up with a plan to win. I’d like to see half a dozen fisheries officers provide a presence (from time to time), otherwise there will be no change and the rāhui may have to stay following the two years. “It’s the same as any rule, like speeding or spitting in the street; unless people are caught and pulled up, they will just keep doing it.” While a rāhui is not legally enforceable, the taking of too many, or too small stock, is. In serious cases the law allows for thousands of dollars in fines, plus confiscation of equipment and vehicles used to take fish or shellfish illegally. Penalties for just a few fish over the limit had tended to be on the light side during Allan’s 14-year career as an honourary fisheries officer, based at Mōkau, but he believed judges were getting tougher. However, initially charging the culprits was essential. And following his retirement a few years ago, Allan had seen minimal effort by MPI to do this. He admitted poaching was not a pressing problem in winter, since conditions were too rough for it to be an issue at this time of year. “This proves that the west coast can look after itself to a large extent.” SUMMER CONCERNS But he was concerned about what would happen when settled conditions returned during the summer season. The fisheries staff required were based in New Plymouth and Hamilton, so too far removed to patrol on a casual basis. They need to devise a plan and a strategy, one which involved arriving at the right time, and in sufficient numbers to really make a difference. Allan believed the best strategy would be to use bluff. For example, if six officers called in at Awakino Heads, while fishers were floating their quadbikes across the river on polystyrene rafts, it would have a sobering effect. The officers did not need to be there continually. The idea was to put offenders into a position where they were continually looking around, in case they were being watched. “At the moment they know it’s unlikely they’re going to be caught. There needs to be a fear at the back of their minds. So even if they don’t respect the rāhui, they’ll know there are consequences. He had his own views on who was primarily to blame. Common belief was that the poachers were people moving round the country, or from Hamilton but Allan thought this unlikely. “Yes, there are a lot of outsiders at Mōkau we could point at. From Labour Weekend onward Mōkau is crowded with travellers visiting the cafes and toilets – but there aren’t any pāua in the main street. CULPRITS ‘CLOSE TO HOME’ “Most people from outside our area wouldn’t have a clue where to go. You have to go north of the Awakino River to a remote spot only a few people know about. In my experience poachers tend to come from a bit closer to home, including Taumarunui, Te Kūiti and Piopio.” On the postive side, once MPI decided to fix the problem they would find it quite easy to do so. “All the land north of the Awakino River is privately owned, so not everyone can go waltzing through there. So it’s actually quite easy to police, because the only access points are Awakino Heads or the Waikawau Tunnel.” When should the fisheries officers visit? “On a moon tide, the big tide is 2am and the low at 4pm. If you made your presence known at the river mouth at 2pm they will think [wow] the fisheries officers are around.” “At the end of the day if the fines are bad enough for even a small overtake they will think twice about doing it.” Allan said his years of enforcing the regulations as an honourary fisheries officer involved matching wits with some cunning individuals. “You had to be cunning to beat the cunning,” said Allan, who would observe poachers from a property owned by a pro-enforcement farmer. “And I could see what the buggers would do from there. If they knew I was around, they’d drop their sack of pāua in the sandhills and return (to Awakino) without it. They were camping there, so they could easily go and get them the next day.” What will be the long-term effects if nothing changes? “I am a little bit worried we might see the whole coastline closed permanently. If the pāua stocks don’t recover in the next two years iwi might apply to have the rāhui certified and this could extend it indefiniately. My point is that they won’t lose their kaimoana if we police it.” Such work led to tricky situations at times. “There were only two of us honouraries patrolling that area in my day. But I was glad I had a colleague sitting on his quadbike nearby when I was dealing with some of those patch-wearing buggers from up the coast.” Allan said the occasional heated conversation with an indignant fisher or two was, “just the nature of the beast”. Things were not always what they appeared to be, however. “One day I received a tip-off that a man was returning up the beach, ‘with a big sack full of pāua, bro’, but when we located him and got him to upend the sack on the beach it was almost entirely full of kina.” Allan had little objection to this at the time. “I think they should never have taken kina off the list of fish permissable to take. No way am I advocating that kina be eliminated altogether, but we need to keep populations in balance. When kina take over a reef it ends up looking like a desert under the sea.” Allan admitted that he disliked both rāhui and marine reserves. “Okay, we need them. But there is also a risk they can just shift the problem. “What happens is that the fish stocks can get hammered either side of the marine reserve or the rāhui areas. “In a perfect world there would be no need for marine reserves or rāhui. If only people would stick to taking only their share, there would be enough to go round.”
