The following article is written for nzfishing.com by David Haynes who has fished around the world before settling in New Zealand in 2003. Drawn here from the UK "where virtually every square inch of fishable water was privately owned and necessitated a hefty payment to fish a nominated beat" David has been at the forefront of bringing to New Zealand angler's attention the threat that the privatisation of our waters holds long term.

At the risk of becoming a one hit wonder, here’s my Young Person’s Guide to Privatisation by Stealth. As if we anglers ain’t got enough fresh water threats to fight against, the financial exclusion of anglers from our waterways is yet another one for the list. So here’s the why, what, how, when, who and where of it all.

Why should we rail at the practice of charging for access for fishing when we have over 800 rivers, lakes and streams supporting trout, when we have unlimited access to 4.7 million hectares of our land administered on our behalf by DoC, when Fish and Game have negotiated hundreds of anglers’ access to lakes and rivers and when farmers and landowners, when asked permission to cross their land to fish usually respond with “Sure, go for your life”?

Quite simply it’s because we have a finite fishing resource (we can’t make any more of it) that is dwindling due to:

• Abstraction by intensive farming practices, take a look at what remains of many streams in Canterbury – they’re now dry ditches.
• Pollution, the Ministry for the Environment’s ‘State of the Environment Report 2007’ concludes that non-point discharges (e.g. dairy cows crapping all over the paddocks) are the prime cause of increasing pollution in our lowland waters. Drive through the Waikato and pop your head over the bridge of the Mangatawhiri, Piako and Waiomou rivers and see for yourself..
• Didymo currently 152 waterways have been positively identified as containing rock snot. If you’ve ever cast a line in the Ohau River or Upper Buller you’ll know this pest can render a once pristine river unfishable and frustrating as all fishing gear ends up coated in the stuff.
• Our incessant desire for more electricity – currently there are 13 hydro proposals out there. Check out wildrivers website for information and read Hamish McClachan’s “What Price Progress” article in Issue 25 of Fish & Game Magazine.

The long and short of it is, that in the last twenty or so years our internationally acclaimed trout fishing is progressively being decimated. So when an increasing number of commercially driven people see fit to metaphorically (and physically in some cases) fence off stretches of our finest rivers and charge money to fish them this further erodes our fishing opportunities and, more importantly , the opportunities of future generations of Kiwis - unless they are wealthy enough to pay for fishing.

Well, this is not quite as simple to define as you’d first imagine. For instance it would be commonly accepted that a large station that charges, say, $1,000 a day per angler and prohibits any one else from fishing it unless they fork out said sum would be a good example. Similarly a fishing guide who pays a landowner to ensure only that guide and his/her clients can gain access would be another open and shut case of privatisation.

On the other hand many anglers I’ve spoken to think it’s perfectly reasonable for a farmer to charge, say, $20 to drive up a track for maintenance of that track and that it is OK to offer a box of beer in thanks for being given permission to cross a landowners title.

So, to define privatised fishing solely in terms of the amount being charged would suggest that it is OK to charge for fishing access providing it’s not too much, but that doesn’t really stand up as a valid argument – one person’s idea of affordability is another’s exorbitance.

Similarly to lay the blame solely at the feet of high rolling overseas anglers would be to deny the fact that some deep pocketed Kiwis also indulge this practice.

I would suggest therefore that privatised fishing is where payment is required solely to access fishing and where no other services are included in that payment. Or, where permission to fish is only provided on condition you purchase those services (e.g. guiding fee, a chopper ride or a night in a private hut).

Well, it’s really easy. Whilst it is illegal to sell or let the rights to fish under Section 23 of the Conservation Act 1987, if you are on private land without permission, the landowner or legal occupier of that land may issue a trespass notice as stipulated in the Trespass Act 1980. Refusal to leave the land will result in a $1,000 fine or 3 months imprisonment. In effect it is purchasing a waiver from being issued a trespass notice.

I, as many other do, have a list of rivers where payment is required in order to access the fishing, it currently includes 30 odd instances and not just the well known ones such as the Taharua on Poronui Station or the upper Whanganui. The trouble is this list keeps growing and the rivers I can access shrink as each year passes as a result of pollution, abstraction, didymo and hydro schemes.

If we are unwilling to accept privatisation then there are a number of individual actions that, when exercised collectively, can have a positive effect on ridding our beautiful country of private fisheries:

• Don’t go to the places where there is a charge to access fishing
• Ask all your friends to adopt the same stance
• Find any political party willing to take a stand on this and vote for them
• Ask all your family and friends to do the same
• Adopt the ‘squeaky wheel’ strategy - write to your MP, Fish & Game, DoC, propose it as an agenda item at your local fishing club, don’t seek services of a guide who has privatised a stretch of a river or lake, write letters to any publication that’ll print them.