Part 3: Application of the cost recovery rules

• Estimating risk to protected species
• Population management plan for the New Zealand sea lion
• Resolving disputes about risk estimation and cost recovery assessments

Estimating risk to protected species

3.1
In our 2002 report, we explained that DOC used a method of risk estimation based on “event history”⁶ of mortality when assessing the risk posed by commercial fishing to the New Zealand sea lion.

3.2
The issue of risk, including risk estimation, is important because it influences how the Fisheries (Cost Recovery) Rules 2001 are applied. These rules prescribe the proportion of costs of conservation services and fisheries services to be recovered as levies, and how the costs are to be divided between those who must pay – for instance commercial fishers.

3.3
We considered DOC’s approach to be appropriate in the case of the New Zealand sea lion, but recommended that DOC consider improving its guidance on estimating risk to protected species populations from human activities.

What progress has been made in implementing our recommendation?

3.4
DOC has attempted to improve its guidance on the methods for estimating risk. DOC commissioned a consultancy firm to provide advice on this matter in the form of a short report. The consultant’s report found DOC’s preliminary risk assessment for the New Zealand sea lion to be robust (subject to 2 conditions).⁷

3.5
DOC intends to commission work that will apply this risk assessment approach to albatross populations and further test the methodology.

3.6
SeaFIC considers the consultant’s report to be more a theoretical overview of the difficulties in risk assessment methodologies. It believes that:

• the report fails to appropriately review the adequacy of risk assessment for the New Zealand sea lion;
• the consultant appears to be unaware of work already undertaken to develop a model specific to the New Zealand sea lion population; and
• the report has not been circulated as part of DOC’s consultation process.

Our conclusion

3.7
In our view, more work is required by DOC, in consultation with interested parties, before there can be a real improvement in the methodology for estimating risk to seas lions, and other protected species populations, from human activities.

Population management plan for the New Zealand sea lion

3.8
In 2002, we found disagreement about the sources of risk to the New Zealand sea lion population. We recommended that DOC consider preparing a population management plan for sea lions. We also recommended that DOC consider introducing formal incentives to reduce the by-catch (accidentally catching sea lions in fishing lines or nets).

What progress has been made in implementing our recommendation?

3.9
The summary to the Conservation Services Programme’s draft Strategic Plan 2005-10 states that:

A population management plan for New Zealand sea lion will be developed to be approved in time to inform the 2005/06 fishing season.

3.10
The Minister of Conservation has agreed that a population management plan should be prepared for the 2005-06 fishing season. DOC has advised us that the population management plan will be prepared, alongside a species management plan that will examine non-fishing threats to the New Zealand sea lion (such as public interaction with the animals on the mainland, and natural diseases).

3.11
Four meetings and workshops, regarding the population and species management plans, were held between September and November 2004.

3.12
DOC has advised that the population management plan for the New Zealand sea lion may include recommendations regarding formal incentives to reduce the by-catch.

Our conclusion

3.13
In our view, DOC is now taking effective steps to implement a population management plan for the New Zealand sea lion.

Resolving disputes about risk estimation and cost recovery assessments

3.14
In 2002, we noted that there was an assumption in the cost recovery rules that risks to populations posed by commercial fishing can be estimated without undue uncertainty and therefore without dispute. In our view, this was not the case, as the application of the cost recovery rules required some considerable technical discussion.

3.15
There was no mechanism for resolving disputes over population modelling. Population models are important, because they form the basis for the assumptions about how vulnerable a species is to commercial fishing.

3.16
We recommended that DOC consider improving the procedures to resolve disputes about risk estimation and assessment of cost recovery.

What progress has been made in implementing our recommendation?

3.17
DOC has, for the first time, drafted a strategic plan for the Conservation Services Programme, for the 5-year period 2005-10. The draft strategic plan includes:

• criteria and a framework to assist in determining priority projects for the Conservation Services Programme’s annual plan; and
• guidance for cost recovery and the administration of levied projects (including risk assessment).

3.18
Policies have been established to inform decision-making on species prioritisation, cost recovery, and the administration of policies (including risk assessment).

3.19
DOC hopes that the open process used to develop the draft strategic plan will allow the concerns of interested parties to be addressed early, thereby avoiding disagreement about the development of each annual plan and recovery of associated costs.

3.20
DOC also intends to address the ambiguity of some of the cost recovery rules through policies in the Conservation Services Programme’s draft strategic plan.

3.21
The draft strategic plan does not refer to a discrete process for the resolution of disputes about risk estimation and assessment of cost recovery. We also note that the risk assessment information in the draft strategic plan refers to the consultant’s report that SeaFIC has expressed concerns about.

Our conclusions

3.22
DOC has attempted to improve the procedures to resolve disputes about risk estimation and assessment of cost recovery.

3.23
In our view, the information in the draft strategic plan relating to estimating risk needs refinement, given SeaFIC’s concerns with the consultant’s report commissioned by DOC. The consultation process being used to develop the Conservation Services Programme’s draft strategic plan should provide the means for this.

6: Event history uses evidence of mortality caused by humans as the basis for estimating risk.

7: The 2 conditions were: (1) Deaths resulting from commercial fishing are of a similar demographic nature to deaths from total human interventions; and (2) most deaths from human interventions result from commercial fishing.