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New Zealand has one of the longest stretches of coastline in the world; beaches and boating shape its national identity. Coast Watch follows the men and women who patrol and protect New Zealand's precious waterways - the Ministry of Fisheries and the Maritime Police - produced by Cream TV, the makers of high-rating Border Patrol.
New Zealand is a nation of boaties and fishers with an enviable aquatic lifestyle that is an international icon. Yet its waterways are increasingly fraught with danger and confrontation. From highly-organised international poachers, to gangs stripping paua beds between cannabis growing seasons, illegal poaching of fish and shellfish is a national nightmare; Paua alone is a $36 million annual black-market business. Poaching is so chronic in some parts of the country some fish stocks could be wiped out.
"We'll solve the poaching problem all right," say M-Fish officers: "There'll be nothing left to poach."
The stakes are increasing: Sky-rocketing prices in Asia for black-market shellfish make the trade even more lucrative - but increasing penalties, mandatory prison terms and confiscation of boats have racked up the tension. Large-scale busts like Operation Pacman have increased the profile of the problem, but Coast Watch will give the clearest picture yet of the level of crime being committed in our seas.
Coast Watch joins Ministry of Fisheries (M-Fish) officers on surveillance and busts of organised Paua and white fish poachers in Northland, follows Gisborne officers who find illegally harvested crayfish, travels in an RNZAF Orion on the lookout for rogue trawlers and is on the spot for searches of homes and confiscation of boats.
It's not just large-scale poaching however; plenty of recreational fishermen and women flout the rules - and get caught by Coast Watch. To many boaties, "it's just one extra,” but to M-Fish it's hundreds of thousands of excess and undersize fish taken from the sea each year, by greedy recreational fishers.
"I just want my children, and my grandchildren to be able to come out here and there to be some fish left for them," says Riki Ratapu, Fisheries Officer.
For Auckland's Maritime Police, the Hauraki Gulf is their unique beat. The Maritime team's work is a face of the police the public has seen little of before, and Coast Watch follows their work over the busy summer months.
The team discover stowaways and stolen boats, chase down reckless pleasure boaters and transport prisoners and patients from the Gulf's outer islands. They work with the police dive team as part of security for the Americas Cup and with DOC in dealing with dead whales in the harbor.
