On Maui patrol today and we popped out to see the 105m factory trawler Meridian 1 about 35 km off Manukau heads. This is one of the foreign crewed vessels that’s been in the media recently. There are seven of these ex Ukrainian trawlers working off our coast and operated by Independent, Sealord and the Japanese seafood giant Mahura (via Sanford). Not all are operating at the moment due to Covid restrictions around foreign crew. Much of the fish they catch this time of year is low value fish like Jack Mackerel that's exported, including to places in Africa who have lost or are struggling to protect their fisheries. This type of business model is plainly broken and hardly “sustainable”. They also produce fish meal for factory farming.
