The passing of the Indigenous Freshwater Fish Amendment Act in 2019 was an acknowledgment that our native fish are in trouble. This Act was an important first step towards better management of Aotearoa’s native freshwater fish populations.
While this Act has improved the toolbox to more effectively regulate threats to our native fish and fisheries, we still don’t have all the tools required to halt the decline and restore Aotearoa’s freshwater fish populations, or make decisions about how to better manage introduced fish, some of which are highly valued by certain communities.
Therefore, the Fish Futures team seeks to improve this toolbox by identifying operational and policy changes that can be made both locally and nationally. These findings will be used to create policy and planning tools to guide freshwater fish management through a ecologically holistic and socially just lens.