Editorial: A chance lost for the maui's

New Zealand's threatened hectors and maui's dolphins are the smallest and rarest cetaceans on Earth, but when MPs debated how legislation should save them recently, conservationists and fishermen stayed poles apart.

On one side it is claimed the inshore fishing industry is the biggest threat to the dolphins, and by-catch is not faithfully recorded.

On the other, the fishing industry says the kill-rate data is inaccurate and they have done as much as they can to prevent the mammals being snared.

The southern clan of this dolphin family, the hectors, are reputed to have dropped in numbers from 29,000 to just over 7000 in a little over 30 years.

Maui's dolphins, which live off the coast from Raglan to Manukau, have been estimated at just 111, including only 30 breeding females. They are on a World Wildlife Fund "red list". Beyond that comes extinct in the wild, and extinct.

It would seem logical, then, that fresh legislative efforts to reduce the loss of these mammals as fishing by-catch would win universal support.

In Parliament, however, that has not been the case. Green co-leader Metiria Turei could not even get her Marine Animals Protection Law Reform Bill to select committee stage.

Conservationists say the National Government fell at its first ecological hurdle when it killed the bill, despite presenting their "blue-green" front in the House and expressing empathy with Ms Turei's aims.

Kaikoura MP Colin King, whose electorate benefits from whale-watching eco-dollars, called it a "genuine attempt to address some of the anomalies that continue to occur around" but said the Government preferred consultation over regulation, and it did not believe aims would be achieved solely through legislation.

Conservation Minister Tim Groser was less conciliatory, calling the bill flawed, saying compliance costs would be too high for the fishing industry and "I know activists don't care about business costs, but we do".

The Government's claims though that existing tools are strong enough and the weakness has been in how they have been used appears more an effort to score political points than deal with the issue.

Selwyn MP Amy Adams told the House all cetaceans were already fully protected under the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978, and anyone who breached that act faced six months jail and fines of up to $250,000.

That may be so, but the likelihood of anyone being jailed for that length or time or fined that much, regardless of who is in power, is nil.

New Zealand's fishing techniques have already earned demerit points in Europe, where the Waitrose grocery chain last month refused to take our hoki until bottom trawling is abandoned.

The fishing industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to New Zealand but so is our green image, and the fact we can show off unique flora and fauna.

Allowing Ms Turei's bill through to a select committee stage would have provided a theatre for further debate on the issue. Instead, it was caught and drowned in an apologetic National net.

- © Fairfax NZ News