What I found interesting about assignment one is that although being strongly for placing a 10-year moratorium on commercial eel fishing, I was able to form a mutual argument and create an understanding of why one should not be placed. Commercial eel fishing is not a big industry in New Zealand like the dairy industry for example.
I thought that placing a temporary suspension on commercial eel fishing would not have a large effect on our economy. But the more I researched the more I understood that although commercial eel fishing is the largest contributing factor to the decline of Longfin eels, it is not the only factor. This helped me form another opinion that maybe temporarily banning commercial eel fishing was not the most effective idea.
In the early 20th century, Europeans had considered eels (especially large female longfin) pests as they would eat all the trout that the Europeans had farmed. This is when the Eel destruction campaigns had started. Fishers were encouraged to kill as many eels as they could catch. These eel destruction campaigns went on for approximately 30 years. Although these campaigns are no longer happening I believe that this is a major factor as to why we do not have many eels left with us.
Loss of wetlands is also another reason why eels are disappearing. It is estimated that only 10% of wetlands remain in New Zealand to what was originally here 200 years ago when Europeans arrived. The construction of Hydro dams also have a high eel mortality rate with generally no female eels surviving when entering a hydro dam.
I do agree that placing a 10-year moratorium on commercial eel fishing will be the most effective way to help ensure the survival of longfin eels. But I do believe that this is not the only way about saving the species. Alternatives that I have thought of are:
- placing a 10-year moratorium on only longfin eels might be effective.
- reducing catch limits for longfin eels.
- increasing conservation status of longfin eels
- creating more habitat and wetlands
- Chairman of Te Wai Maori, Ken Mair
Jellyman, D. (January 2012). The status of Longfin eels in New Zealand - an overview of
stocks and harvest. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.
Wright, D. J.
(December 2014). Update Report: On a pathway to extinction? An investigation
into the status and management of the longfin eel. Parliamentary
Commissioner for the Enviroment.
3 comments:
I especially like the title of this blog. I feel it is very fitting to the state of mind of many of us were in when we first started researching our topics. It was interesting to see how your opinion progressed as your research has developed. It is clear in this blog how your research has opened your eyes to the fact that one idea is not going to be the entire solution to your problem. I felt that it was informative to hear how your sources helped you realise other potential answers and that maybe your view on the 10 year eel moratorium was edited and that other strategies could be put in place alongside this idea. I feel like this has helped me review how I think we should fix the environmental issue I am researching.
Thank you for the insightful comment. I am glad to hear that my blog post helped you understand that there is not only one problem contributing to eel decline. I am glad that this has somewhat helped you with your current research.
It was interesting to read about how you were able to create an understanding of both sides of your topic with the more research you did. I also found that the more research I did on my topic, the more my opinion changed about it. I never realized how many different factor affected the eel population numbers and now feel more informed from this post.It was good to read about the alternative solutions you had, that may help save the eels. They all seem like a step in the right direction to help fix the problem of the declining eel numbers.
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