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Commercial Operators

Seafarers

Recreational boaties

Surveyors and third parties

Who we work with

Maritime NZ works across the commercial fishing sector, inshore and deepwater. We work with senior leaders, skippers and crew, health and safety managers, and fleet managers.

Working on critical risks in commercial fishing is a priority focus area for Maritime NZ’s Domestic Commercial Harm Prevention Programme.

Fishers Health and Safety Leadership Group

In February 2024, senior leaders and representatives from the commercial fishing sector met with Maritime NZ to explore how a strategic leadership group could work.

The Fishers Health and Safety Leadership Group now meets quarterly. Its focus includes:

  • enabling better engagement between Maritime NZ and all parts of the fishing sector
  • using sector expertise and knowledge to support better health and safety outcomes for fishers
  • identifying, understanding, and aligning critical risks for the sector, and building a shared understanding of baseline controls for those risks
  • strengthening the sector’s understanding of Maritime NZ’s regulatory approach and the industry’s role in it
  • improving proactive communication, including providing a forward work programme of regulatory proposals
  • sharing good practice and lessons learned
  • setting, agreeing, and leading the direction for a shared work programme with Maritime NZ around these focus areas.

The group is chaired by the Chief Executive of Maritime NZ. Members include senior leaders and representatives from:

  • deep‑water operators
  • the inshore sector
  • Seafood New Zealand
  • FishFed, the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen
  • the New Zealand Fishing Health and Safety Forum.

A key focus for the group is the development of Fishing Safely, a resource that will provide guidance on managing critical risks in fishing.

New Zealand Fishing Health and Safety Forum

Maritime NZ meets quarterly with the New Zealand Fishing Health and Safety Forum.

Forum members include health and safety managers and fleet managers from across the fishing sector, with a focus on:

  • improving health and safety
  • sharing information
  • supporting collaboration.

Maritime NZ provides updates on our work programme as it relates to fishers, including:

  • development of Fishing Safely
  • relevant regulatory‑reform projects.

We also discuss:

  • issues Forum members are experiencing
  • opportunities to prevent harm.

In 2024, Maritime NZ worked with the Forum and the recreational‑craft sector to develop educational material for recreational tuna fishers on the West Coast, in areas where larger commercial vessels may be fishing for hoki or other species.

The Chair of the Forum is a member of the Fishers Health and Safety Leadership Group.

FishFed

Staff from across Maritime NZ regularly engage with FishFed, also known as the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen. FishFed is a national organisation representing independent owner‑operator fishers and their crew.

Members are typically inshore fishers operating small vessels of 10–30 metres, from the Chatham Islands and Southland through to Northland.

The President of FishFed is a member of the Fishers Health and Safety Leadership Group.

 

Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI)

Fisheries New Zealand, part of the Ministry for Primary Industries, manages the sustainable use of fisheries. Maritime NZ works alongside Fisheries New Zealand where safety and sustainability intersect.