July 23, 2008

Crown says foreign vessel dumped unwanted fish at sea

By David Clarkson

?Three crew members of the trawler Atria: accused of fish dumping, and the master is accused of failing to record catch correctly

Crew members videoed hoki being illegally dumped at sea by a foreign trawler in a ?classic over-fishing scenario?, the crown is alleging in a six-week trial that began in the Christchurch District Court today.

The crown case against three Polish crew members on the Maltese-registered trawler Atria is that more fish was caught than the factory ship could handle and spoiled fish was disposed of at sea.

The master of the vessel, Josef Eugeniusz Popowicz, is also charged with three counts of failing to correctly record the fish caught under quota on the Chatham Rise in the east coast hoki grounds on a voyage from May to July last year.

The three crew have returned to New Zealand to face the charges in the Ministry of Fisheries prosecution before Judge Michael Crosbie in a courtroom at the Maori Land Court, a few blocks from the Christchurch Court House.

Popowicz faces a total of five charges, while the ship?s factory manager Wlodzimierz Pierzchlinski faces two of fishing dumping, and foreman Janusz Miroslaw Josefiak faces one dumping charge.

They have denied all the accusations in court, and in interviews after the ship was boarded by fisheries officers and documents were seized on September 3.

Mike Sullivan of Ocean Law in Nelson appears for the accused.

The crown prosecutors are Chris Lange and Tim Mackenzie. The crown plans to call 34 witnesses.

Mr Mackenzie delivered the hour-long crown opening, telling Judge Crosbie that the Atria was a 95m stern trawler, registered in Malta but using Lyttelton as its base while it worked in New Zealand waters. It had a crew of 60.

It was operated in New Zealand by Raudal Fishing Ltd of Hamilton.

He said that to maximise returns, it was necessary to keep the factory ship supplied with fish to process while at sea. The factory operation involved sorting the fish for processing into fillets or mince, sorting it for fish meal, and the crown said the Atria had a third option of returning it to the ocean unused.

Several crew members witnessed the discarding of the fish and one crew member filmed it.

Hoki needed to be processed quickly because it deteriorated rapidly and turned to mush.

Mr Mackenzie said on the Atria?s next voyage, a ministry fisheries observer was aboard, and a crewman asked to speak to her privately. He then told her of the dumping that had been going on.

A copy of the video ? taken on a crewman?s cellphone camera ? was provided to the investigating officer. A second crew member also filmed the alleged dumping.

Mr Mackenzie said a crewman estimated that he saw about two bunkers of fish being dumped. Each bunker can contain six to eight tonnes of fish.

The boat would simply rid itself of the fish that had spoiled so that it could begin filleting the fresher, firmer fish that had just been caught.

?The informant?s case is that this is a classic overfishing scenario,? he said.