Māori hold a third of NZ’s fishing interests, but as the ocean warms and fish migrate, these rights don’t move with them
Research from the Moana Project recently featured on The Conversation.
The article was led by Associate Professor Maui Hudson (University of Waikato, Te Kotahi Research Institute) in conjunction with Tony Craig and Katherine Short (Terra Moana) who carried out the primary research. The article looks into how changing ocean temperatures may affect Māori commercial fisheries:
"Climate change will affect Māori fisheries and aquaculture ownership rights and interests. If fished species move into new areas, this will affect the rights of individual iwi under the fisheries settlement. The allocation of quota under the settlement will be affected over time by the relationship between static iwi land interests and mobile fish stocks.”
Snapper are most common in warmer waters around New Zealand. Getty Images