Transcript
KELVIN PASSFIELD: The government did try on a couple of occasions to get the case by the traditional leaders and Te Ipukarea struck out but the judge ruled there is a case to answer, so there is something in the case that he can see that needs to be answered and has ruled that the case will be heard in March, despite that, the government's now gone ahead and signed the deal.
DON WISEMAN: Going back, what have been the chief concerns of environmentalist groups and various others who have been opposed to this scheme?
KP: There are two sides to the objection, one side is the traditional leaders, the Aronga Mana and from Ipukarea Society's view it's an environmental issue and a scientific issue that the use of fish aggregation devices by purse seiners and, in particular the Spanish fleet because they use them almost exclusively, has a detrimental effect on other species, apart from the skipjack that they aim to catch. They catch big eye tuna and they're relatively high numbers when fish aggregation devices are used. We've got data from the Ministry of Marine Resources which shows for example in 2012 there was more than 100 times higher bycatch of big eye tuna in the Cook Islands when fish aggregation devices were used compared to when they just set their nets on free schools without the use of FADS. So it's a significant impact on big eye tuna stocks, and without mitigating the methods and not using FADs it shouldn't be allowed.
DW: Well, the government's argument of course is that this is something that is going to generate significant income for the country and perhaps be a boost for the northern islands. It's a hard thing to combat isn't it? The country could do with the income.
KP: Well if you look at fisheries income, they're boasting about how much the fishery income has already increased in the last few years. There was a press release in the paper today, there's a huge increase in fisheries income already, because they've sold fishing licences to the Koreans, they've done a bi-lateral deal with the US under a multi-lateral tuna treaty with the US and they've already got a large increase in income from purse seining and we didn't worry too much about tha. But they're not happy with that, they're carrying on and want to get even more money from selling licences to the Spanish, which have the worst reputation for the use of FADs, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back, in our opinion. The increase in income has been exponential already, so I think it's just greedy to want to try and extract more, at the risk of the resource and at the risk of the livelihoods of local fishermen.
DW: The people opposed, like Te Ipukarea Society, what will you do now?
KP: Well, we'll just carry on with our court case. It doesn't change anything for the traditional leaders who are going ahead, getting more backing from traditional leaders all around the country. They're going ahead and we're going ahead. We've got the one court case and it's going to be heard in March. So we just continue working with our legal team to get the deal declared illegal.
DW: So you'll be hoping a decision will come your way in March and the Spanish boats which will have been in the country a few weeks will be sent off?
KP: Well, we would suggest the government don't spend any of the money they're getting from the EU now because come March you may very well have to give it back.
