Re-thinking recreational fishing - how a natural disaster presents insights and opportunities for achieving sustainability and equity objectives

P[a]ua (abalone) are a treasured natural resource that supports a recreational fishery worth $2 million annually to the local economy of the Kaik[o]ura district in New Zealand. From 2016, the fishery was closed for 5 years in response to widespread mortality caused by co-seismic uplift in the 7.8 Mw Kaik[o]ura earthquake. The fishery re-opened in 2021 for an initial 3-month open season with a recreational fishing allocation of 5 tonnes. We constructed scenario models informed by fishing pressure observations and show that this catch target was severely exceeded (by a factor of 9-10). We then evaluated a range of alternative management settings involving daily bag limit adjustments and temporal controls that shift opening times away from high visitation periods and favourable weather conditions as a means to reduce peaks in fishing pressure. Temporal control strategies reduced seasonal catch by up to 45% in comparative analyses using the 2021 fishing effort as a base-case scenario, and can be used in combination with daily bag limit adjustments and longer-term protected areas. When applied to a Total Allowable Catch, these solutions also produce equity effects that increase the proportional allocation accruing to local fishers. We discuss the potential role of these insights in designing temporal controls for managing seasonal influxes of fishing effort driven by tourism, and highlight the role of natural disasters and recovery periods as a trigger for new policy directions. In this case, they were needed to address an unexpected loss that illustrates a more general need for reliable fishery management that is responsive to environmental change in the long term.