sxz: My view (along with many of yours) is that Commercal takes way more fish than Recreational.

I'm interested - has anyone comissioned a report to see what it would cost to:
a) Ban all commercial fishing
b) Pay all commercial fishermen/woman their usual wages for a period while helping them retrain.
c) retain all recreational fishing, including charter boats where you have your own individual limit (no nets allowed).

Benefits to this:
1) We no longer have to pay the MASSIVE subsidies on diesel for fisherman
2) THere will be fish left in NZ in 50 years time (can't say much about the rest of the world)
3) Benefits for tourism would be huge as stocks recover we could be a RECREATIONAL fishing capital of the world (like an African safari park - look at how much they charge)

My understanding is that the way things are going now many stocks will be depleted in 20 years anyway so the commercial fishermen/women might as well retrain now.

NZ is unique in that our territorial watters are MASSIVE, and our neighbours are far away.  We are uniquely positioned to be able to ban all commercial fishing, thus preserving stock for the future.  If you want fish, you would then have to go get it yourself recreationally, or pay to go on a charter where you can still get your recreational limit.  We can not continue treating fish as a "right" - there simply isnt enough to go around.

That is all.