The Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company is a business owned by all the scallop quota owners operating in the Marlborough and Tasman area.
The company’s operations manager, Mitch Campbell, says an important focus for the business is ensuring strict management of harvesting activities.
“We run our own compliance programme, managing the harvest, and determining where people can go, what times of the year, and what size they can catch,” he says. “If we don’t police it, the government will.”
That’s not a desirable scenario for the fishers. The self-management system relies on the diligence and up-to-the-minute local knowledge of the day-to-day workings of the fisheries.
Government legislation would simply make life more complicated.
One of the company’s jobs is to ensure quotas are kept, and boats stay away from off-limits areas.
Until recently, it did this through random checks performed by compliance officers. But compliance officers can’t be everywhere, all the time, and in the 2005 season a group of boats broke the rules, fishing in a marine reserve in Queen Charlotte Sound.
“It looked bad for the company, and for the industry in general,” says Campbell. “It took us a while to redeem ourselves.”
So the company searched for a fleet tracking solution that would enable it to know where all fishing boats were, all the time. It chose Telecom Locate + tracking solution from Orb Communications.
“We trialled a unit on the company barge whilst it was doing the annual survey (of the fishery) rounds,” Orb’s Patrick Grant says.
“It worked very well and was subsequently approved for the fishing fleet.”
The system lets Campbell see where all the fishing boats are, as well as conducting other programmes such as maintaining water quality and detecting biotoxins.
“Sometimes we have to close areas because of a contamination risk,” says Campbell. “Locate + helps us monitor closed areas.”
For the 2006 season the company made it part of the harvest agreement that every operator needed to install the Navman black box unit. And in the last season, says Campbell, “we had no breaches of compliance rules.”
The units measure ignition time, location, whether the dredge is in the water, what time a boat gets into port, and what time it shuts down. Access is limited to Campbell and one other employee. While fishers can access information about their own boats, other information is kept confidential so the most successful fishers can keep their best locations a well-kept secret. As well as measuring the location of boats, the system also has geofences set up to mark “no fishing” areas such as marine reserves. When a geofence is crossed, Campbell is automatically notified by email, so he can take immediate action.
Although the company initially faced resistance from boat owners, the owners now see the long-term advantages. “We used to have a compliance officer going out every season,” says Campbell. “The cost of doing that will now be minimal. It ultimately saves them money.”
Another advantage is the visible effort the company is expending in ensuring compliance. “Looking after our own fleet is a way to prove to the government and the public that we’re managing the process well,” he says.
There are other benefits, too. Families of boat crew are also able to access real-time location information if boats go missing. Even if a boat goes out of cellphone range, the location information is stored on the black box unit, which sends the location data back to base as soon as it is back in cellphone coverage.
While Locate + has been a great technical help to Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company, it has also been an effective public relations tool. “When you mention the words ‘commercial fishing industry’ in New Zealand you often don’t get a good reaction,” says Campbell. “There’s a lot of misconception about the industry - that we’re environmentally unsustainable, or unethical.
“The truth is we have a long-term investment. Why would we want to undermine it?” he asks. “If people hear about what we’ve done it would silence a lot of the critics. We just need to educate people that we can do things better - and we are.” By using the latest technology and working with Orb Communications, Challenger Scallop have been able to thrive in an increasingly regulatory industry.
