Why we advocate – working in your interests

Under our current legislation, Fish & Game has a legal responsibility to advocate for hunters’ and anglers’ interests.

We work to maintain and enhance public access to rivers, lakes, and wetlands for fishing and game bird hunting, and to protect the habitats of trout and salmon.

This advocacy happens at both local and national levels: regionally, we submit on policy and resource consent processes, while nationally, we respond to government-led policy development, new legislative proposals, and changes to national planning frameworks.

Our licence holders tell us this is important to them.

In 2023, research on licence holder perceptions and attitudes towards Fish & Game identified ‘working to improve public access’ as the most important area for the organisation to focus on.

Licence holders also rated Fish & Game’s environmental activities highly important, including ‘monitoring and researching for improved water quality and species health’, ‘protecting the natural values of lakes, rivers and wetlands’ and ‘establishing water conservation orders to legally preserve the natural values of lakes and rivers’.

Fish & Game operates a contestable pool funding system to support our involvement in legal and planning cases that align with our statutory advocacy role, particularly those aimed at preventing the degradation of freshwater.

Regional Fish & Game Councils can apply for funding, with applications assessed and approved by the New Zealand Fish & Game Council.

We are currently engaged in 20 such cases, many of which are complex and ongoing.

 

Our cases specifically look at environmental issues aimed at: 

• The protection of the habitat of trout and salmon.
• Maintenance and enhancement of public access to and along the coast, lakes, wetlands, and rivers where sports fishing and game bird values exist. 
• Preservation of the natural character of the coastal environment, wetlands, lakes and rivers and their margins where sports fishing and game bird values exist.
• Recognition and provision for freshwater angling and game bird hunting. 

 

The protection of the habitat of trout and salmon has been part of New Zealand’s environmental protection framework for over 55 years.

Parliament’s decision to protect the habitat of trout and salmon through the inclusion of section 7(h) in the Resource Management Act (1991) reflected both: 

• The historic place and value of trout and salmon within New Zealand culture, and
• The benefits of the protection of their habitat for native freshwater species, due to the need for high quality and abundance of cool, clear water for

Last year, 26 per cent of licence fees went towards habitat protection, and a portion of that funding was used on our advocacy work.

Some 13 per cent of your licence fee goes towards our access and participation funding, which overlaps with the access advocacy we do.

New Zealand’s scientific literature provides compelling evidence that both native fish and trout and salmon populations are in significant decline across the country.

The key factors behind this decline are land-use intensification, increasing water pollution, and more water being taken from rivers, streams, and wetlands.

Right now, national policy and legislation governing access and our natural environment are changing at pace.

For example, the proposed standards for wastewater treatment could see an increase in water degradation caused by point-source discharge, and the proposal to go back to the 2017 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management includes a “wadable” rather than a “swimmable” standard for freshwater.

Do you think that this is an acceptable level of protection for our freshwater?

Fish & Game is concerned that the proposed “re-balancing” will not balance the competing interests. Instead, it risks further tilting the scales in favour of the industries that take and discharge to water.

We are already seeing the impact of degraded waterways across many regions. Rather than supporting restoration, the proposal could undermine current efforts and lead to even more unhealthy rivers and streams.

Fish & Game has advocated for the ecological health of the water body to be safeguarded before other uses of the water are considered.

This does not mean we are calling for a pristine or untouched state of freshwater.

It means we want to leave enough water in rivers and streams to sustain a healthy range of habitats and natural flow patterns to allow freshwater species to thrive, support the replenishment of land and wetlands during high flows, and ensure that all New Zealanders can continue to enjoy rivers for recreation, physical, cultural and spiritual wellbeing.

To help us and others understand what our aims are, we developed policy with Forest & Bird and Choose Clean Water on a range of topics that relate to the health of our waterways.

You can check it out here:waigoodpolicy.org.nz. This site provides information on topics ranging from protecting natural form and character, protecting and restoring wetlands, setting instream nutrient outcomes and environmental flow setting. 

To see our national submissions, check out the ’About Us/Corporate Documents’ tab on our website.

For regional work, please visit the specific region’s page on our website or contact our regional staff directly.

The Fish & Game team is passionate about hunting, fishing, and our natural environment.

To fulfil our legal responsibilities and meet our commitment to protecting New Zealand’s freshwater for everyone, we advocate to protect outstanding water bodies and public access to them, to stop further pollution, and to restore degraded rivers, streams and wetlands.

We do this because our licence holders expect us to. We do this within a strong scientific and legal framework. And we do it because we believe New Zealand should be known for its clean and healthy water, exceptional fishing and game bird hunting, and world-class opportunities to experience nature.

By Helen Brosnan & Ami Coughlan