Seafood New Zealand has just published its first Year in Review. Writing it was a revelation.
Most fishers, it would be fair to say, enjoy a good yarn. Meet one in the pub or sit in the wheelhouse out on the water between tows or sets and it's highly likely you’ll get some great conversation. And most of it will be deeply thoughtful stuff. Seafood people tend to be across current events and they reflect on things.
Seafood New Zealand itself has been reflecting lately. We’ve just published our first Year in Review, a sort of mini annual report. We hope it will do two things. Firstly we want to be accountable to our members. To that end, the Year in Review involves some thinking back in order to provide a summary of key events and achievements in 2024.
Secondly we want to provide a resource to the seafood sector. The Year in Review is full of numbers to know, such as the number of kiwis employed directly and indirectly in the seafood sector (16,500), the overall value of the sector to the New Zealand economy ($5 billion) or which African country has just made it into our top ten export destinations (no more spoilers, you’ll have to look at the Year in Review for yourself – please do).
It's really worth reflecting on those numbers, as we go into the consultation period for the proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act. Writing about what we contribute and seeing it all pulled together in one place is something of a revelation – a timely reminder to us and to New Zealand of what we bring to our communities and wider economy.
Our sector operates across all New Zealand’s major ports and has processing centres in 19 regional locations. We provide incredible, healthy protein to Kiwis and consumers all over the world. We fish sustainably. We work tirelessly to get our impacts on the environment down. We innovate, using new technologies like the deepwater InfoPortal to help manage environmental performance and kiwi-driven hook inventions that reduce the risks to seabirds. The list of positives is long.
Knowing our strengths and what we offer is the foundation for looking forward to better things for our sector.
We are at a critical juncture in 2025. We have in front of us, the opportunity to make some serious and meaningful improvements in the way we operate. Some of these improvements are contained in the proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act that is being consulted on by the Ministry for Primary Industries right now. We wrote about this in last week’s Update and you can see below the many ways you can get involved. We urge you to do so.
The proposed changes are intended to make the fisheries system more responsive, certain and efficient. We believe the changes are sensible, sustainable and much-needed. If you are part of the wider seafood whānau, no matter your role, please get involved. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to have your say and make a real difference.
