23/07/2026
Who is LegaSea?
The LegaSea team are a collective of passionate ocean-loving Kiwis - people who grew up fishing off wharves, rocks, boats and beaches. From the Far North to the deep south. Different upbringings, different politics, different lives, but a shared view that something’s not quite right out there. Fewer fish where there used to be more. More pressure, more waste, and a system that too often puts exports ahead of feeding our own people.
LegaSea started in 2012 as a public-facing arm of the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council Inc, who have been advocating for restored marine abundance for more than 60 years. LegaSea is now giving everyday New Zealanders a voice in how our fisheries are managed, and we have grown into a bit of a movement.
We’ve helped bring hundreds of thousands of people into the conversation, challenged fisheries management decisions that didn’t make sense, backed science, funded research, and pushed for transparency in a system that hasn’t always welcomed or delivered it.
We’ve had a lot of wins, and we’ve had plenty of setbacks. But we’ve stayed in the fight, because this isn’t a short game or a quick win. Success for us is measured in a 100 years time or more, when our future generations can still go out and catch a fish to feed their families.
Where we want to go is pretty simple to explain, although it’s harder to achieve. We want to see New Zealand’s fisheries managed properly, fairly and always erring on the side of caution. We want abundance back in the water, and a system that values feeding New Zealanders first, before exporting large volumes of our shared resource offshore.
We believe there’s a strong future here for community-based commercial fishing too. Small-scale owner-operated businesses catching fresh fish for their community, not chasing low-value volume for distant markets. This community-based model builds resilience, keeps value local, and reconnects people to the source of their food.
We want to see the Quota Management System disassembled and replaced with Rescue Fish, an alternative that we dedicated years of time and millions of dollars into developing. Rescue Fish is a comprehensive fisheries management proposal built from some of the best ideas used around the world. It’s not theory for the sake of it; it’s a practical pathway to restore abundance and rebuild trust in the system built around local fishing and ecosystem-based fisheries management.
We are very aware that pushing for change in this space doesn’t come easy, and it will make some people uncomfortable. It will lead to hard conversations; that’s all part of it. We’ve got decades of combined experience across fisheries management, science, and on-the-water knowledge, and we’re not afraid to stand behind it. If people want to challenge what we’re saying, they’re welcome to. That’s how this should work.
We’re here to make sure our fish, our public resource is managed in a way that actually reflects the interests of all New Zealanders.
More fish in the water, healthier oceans and feeding Kiwis first.
That’s all we’re after.
