Figure 11.3: Location of commercial trawling effort (total area swept in square kilometres within 25-square-kilometre cells) by Trawl Catch Effort Processing Returns (TCEPR) vessels, 1990–2005

Text description of figure

Figure 11.3 reports on where trawling effort occurred in New Zealand by showing the total area swept (in square kilometres) in each 25-square-kilometre ‘cell’ fished.

11 classes ranging from less than one to over 2000 square kilometres represent different levels of trawling effort. The trawl classes are: < 1, 1 – 5, 5 – 10, 10 – 20, 20 – 50, 50 – 100, 100 – 200, 200 – 500, 500 – 1000, 1000 – 2000, > 2000. The figure also shows the 1000 and 2000 metre depth contour lines inside New Zealand’s marine area.

Figure 11.3 shows that many areas in New Zealand’s marine area are not targeted by trawling. The figure shows that several areas within New Zealand’s EEZ have received much greater trawl effort during the 15 year period than others. The areas that have received the greatest trawl effort are: the area off the east coast of the Southern North Island, the area east of Kaikoura out to the Chatham Islands, the area off the West coast of the Northern South Island, several areas off the Southern coast of the South Island down to the South of the Auckland Islands with less trawl effort out to and around the Campbell Islands.