Orange roughy certification mocks sustainability
12 December 2016

One of New Zealand’s worst fisheries has been given a sustainability accreditation by the Marine Stewardship Council, Forest & Bird has warned.

“Any certification scheme that calls the orange roughy fishery sustainable has lost all credibility,” says Katrina Goddard, lead researcher for the Best Fish Guide. “Orange roughy are a long lived (120-130 years), late breeding fish vulnerable to overfishing.”

“Bottom trawling for orange roughy destroys seafloor and seamount habitats and the fishery kills seabirds, including Salvin’s, Chatham Islands and white-capped albatross.”

It also destroys sensitive habitats like endangered, threatened or protected corals and sponges. In the 2014-15 fishing year, observers on the deepwater vessels that bottom trawl orange roughy (across all stocks) reported the landing of over 4.3 tonnes of corals and over 12.6 tonnes of sponges. Observer coverage is only 22.5% of the entire deepwater fishery, so most corals and sponges in nets were likely to have been unreported.

Some of these corals destroyed by the orange roughy fishery have been aged at over 500 years old. “It’s like dragging a huge net through native forest smashing 500 year old kauri to catch kiwi. If the orange roughy fishery occurred on land it would have been banned by now,” says Ms Goddard.

“The certification decision by the Marine Stewardship Council is telling retailers and consumers that buying orange roughy with the MSC tick may contribute to habitat destruction including 500 year old corals.”

“Forest & Bird recently assessed orange roughy for its Best Fish Guide and it came out as one of the worst species. This was based on the most recent information from the Ministry for Primary Industries.”

Forest & Bird is a partner in the Global Seafood Rating Alliance, and will be working with Alliance partners to advise overseas retailers of the reasons why orange roughy should remain on the ‘avoid’ list.

Forest & Bird’s full assessment of the sustainability of orange roughy can be accessed here: www.bestfishguide.org.nz/orange-roughy

Additional points on the orange roughy fishery:
All orange roughy stocks have been overfished, and most stocks are below 20% of their unfished population size. There is some indication that Challenger and Chatham Rise (the stocks certified by the Marine Stewardship Council) have undergone some rebuilding, while other areas (e.g. East Coast of North Island) have declined and others are unknown.
Bottom trawling destroys sea floor species assemblages and fragile seamount habitats. It decimates black coral, lace corals, colourful sponge fields, long-lived bryozoans and many other invertebrate species. Bottom trawl impacts include habitat modification, loss of biodiversity, loss of benthic productivity, and modification of important breeding and juvenile fish habitat.
Protected coral species were reported caught in orange roughy tows in all orange roughy quota areas. The corals caught include gorgonian, hydrocorals, black corals (Antipatharia) and stony corals (Scleractinia) – which includes reef-like, tree-like, small corals and whip-like corals.
Orange roughy is the dominant demersal species between 750-1100m on the Challenger Plateau, East Coast North Island and North and East Chatham Rise. It is a prey species of sperm whale and giant squid, so the commercial catch can reduce the amount of available food for these species. Fishing for orange roughy also removes a large proportion of deep sea benthic biomass, significantly altering these unique communities.
The National Deepwater Plan for 2010-15 is out of date, and has yet to be reviewed and replaced. Orange roughy is a target species in the plan. There is no operational plan.

Forest & Bird is a partner in the Global Seafood Rating Alliance, which includes the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Josh Coates, Fisheries and Sustainable Seafood Campaigner with the AMCS, has said:

"A proportion of NZ orange roughly is exported to Australia and The Australian Marine Conservation Society has followed the certification process including the objections lodged with interest. We continue to rate orange roughy as a red (avoid) fish in our Australian Sustainable Seafood Guide. We have significant concerns about the fishery including impacts on sensitive seamount ecosystems, corals and sponges. Given the historical over-fishing, the vulnerable life history of the species and the ongoing habitat damage, a more precautionary approach to management and the fishery assessment is needed.”

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