Antarctic toothfish stock assessment wins CCAMLR approval
Modelling the effects of fishing on the Ross Sea ecosystem
First steps towards a seaweed farming industry
Another busy season for fisheries surveys
TerraMarine files for first patent
TerraMarine Pharmaceuticals – a joint initiative between NIWA, Crop & Food Research, and the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research – filed for its first patent in September 2005.
TerraMarine was set up in 2002 to discover and commercialise new non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs derived from plants and marine organisms.
NIWA scientists have begun modelling the Ross Sea shelf and slope ecosystems, with a view to understanding and managing the impacts of fishing on this unique environment.
A team led by marine scientists Drs Stuart Hanchet and Matt Pinkerton has constructed a preliminary food web that shows the feeding relationships among all the Ross Sea organisms, ranging from phytoplankton and bacteria to penguins and whales.
They are now working on assigning carbon flow through each part of the food web to get a better idea of inter-relationships and abundances.
A strong concentration of echoes from a school of fish above a seamount at 920 m depth. The white band is the seafloor.
NIWA’s deepwater research vessel Tangaroa is conducting back-to-back fisheries surveys for the Ministry of Fisheries this summer. These surveys provide critical information on the stocks to assist with sustainable management.
Tangaroa and the Sanford vessel San Waitaki covered an area of more than 10 000 km2 on the South Chatham Rise in November, surveying smooth oreo. Tangaroa did the acoustic sampling while San Waitaki conducted bottom-trawls to verify the species.
Spores of Gigartina atropurpurea growing on string.
NIWA and Industrial Research Ltd. (IRL) have collaborated to achieve the successful pilot scale production of seaweed from spores in New Zealand for the first time.
IRL research scientist Ruth Falshaw says they have identified several new and exciting polymers, such as agars, carrageenans and fucans from New Zealand seaweeds, but the issue is always obtaining commercial quantities of raw material.
Photo Jack Fenaughty, Sanford Ltd.
NIWA scientists have provided the first fisheries assessment for an exploratory Antarctic fishery – and the first for Antarctic toothfish – in double-quick time.
The Commission for the Conservation of Marine Antarctic Living Resources (CCAMLR), which manages fisheries south of the Antarctic Convergence, has accepted NIWA’s assessment of the Ross Sea Antarctic toothfish fishery and endorsed NIWA’s CASAL modelling approach for use in other toothfish assessments.
