Cooperative Management Initiatives in the NZ Deepwater Crab Fishery

In 1986 New Zealand (NZ) first introduced the Quota Management System (QMS), a system used to manage commercial fishing on the basis of individual transferable quotas into a number of well established fisheries. Many of these fisheries had experienced massive overfishing sometime in their history, particularly when foreign fleets were still allowed within the NZ exclusive zone. In 2006, deepwater crabs, including giant spider crab, red crab and king crab were brought into the QMS through open tender. Prior to that date there had been a moratorium, and little commercial fishing had occurred. The introduction of these new species into the QMS created an opportunity for rights holders to develop a virgin fishery from scratch and become actively involved in the development of sustainable fishing practices. The intention was to develop a fishery that would not experience the ‘boom and bust’ that had occurred in other deepwater crab fisheries worldwide.

However within this framework the devolution of management functions and responsibilities remains a central issue for New Zealand fisheries management. The broader devolution of fishery management services, where rights holders have primary input into setting their own regulatory controls, was still to be considered fully. The deepwater crab fishery presented an opportunity to re-open this question in the context of fundamentally new governance institutions. The rights holders developed a governance framework to focus on collective objectives throughout the entire value chain, from harvesting, processing, and marketing to fisheries management. This paper examines how rights holders have prevented overfishing and attempted to maximize value in the fishery from the cooperative management, collective action and self-governance initiatives.