Credit where it is due: the Government's decision to require all fishing vessels operating in New Zealand waters to be "reflagged" to this country is an appropriate and welcome initiative.
Over the last several years it has become evident that foreign charter vessels, operating at the behest of local fishing companies, have been taking advantage of a lax regulatory system.
Under no requirements to adhere to New Zealand's labour laws and safety standards, at best some of these foreign vessels have plied their trade as cowboys of the high seas.
Accusations of sexual and physical abuse, as well as evidence of "slave labour", have emerged, damaging the reputation of this country's fishing industry.
While some hard-nosed operators might have once been able to shrug this off, in today's inter-connected world consumers have unprecedented power: increasingly they want to be assured the food they are eating has been harvested sustainably and according to acceptable international labour standards.
Consumer lobbies have highlighted clothing produced in Third-World sweat shops, the environmental conditions under which produce for world markets is grown, and it can only have been a matter of time before inequitable practices at sea pitched up off the rocks of bad publicity.
So the Government, in particular Primary Industries Minister David Carter and Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson, are right to have moved decisively.
The effect of their announcement last week is that in four years' time, foreign-flagged vessels will no longer be able to operate in this country's waters.
They will have to submit to this country's laws and regulations.
In the intervening transition period, foreign crews will be protected with stronger monitoring and enforcement.
There will be tougher independent audits of New Zealand chartering parties, enhanced safety monitoring, and moves to have observers on all such vessels.
The latter will help to address the reported practice of foreign charter vessels over-fishing and dumping catches at sea.
If there is a criticism to be made at all about the initiative, it is that it has been too long in coming.
Rough treatment of workers and the sheer waste of fish due to poorly managed practices are unforgivable.
Most other countries, barring Brazil and Namibia, have already introduced such requirements, so New Zealand is hardly exploring uncharted waters in this respect.
The move will cost companies money, and it may have been this consideration that stayed the hand of government as long as it did, but most must have known such changes would eventually be made.
In the meantime, they ought to have been shoring up the savings gained against the inevitability of the modern world, with its expectations of fairness and equity, intruding, as it has now done.
One for the birds
In a world too often clouded by the gloom of bad news, the arrival of the two takahe, Quammen and Te Hoiere, at the Orokonui Ecosanctuary is a small but uplifting event.
First, it draws attention to the ongoing conservation efforts towards preserving the takahe, one of New Zealand's rarest and most threatened species - including on Maud Island in the northwest reaches of the Marlborough Sounds, from where the two precious flightless birds have come.
It sheds some light on the co-operation between the Department of Conservation, local iwi, the ecosanctuary and Mitre 10 - which sponsors the takahe recovery programme. Just as importantly it underscores the value to the community, the region and the country of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary itself.
Once again, it provides a venue not just for native wildlife, but for residents of Dunedin and Otago, and visitors from further afield, to observe them in their natural habitats, but also to learn more about them, and other indigenous species - through information collated and displayed at the sanctuary.
Many people were doubtful about the concept of an ecosanctuary when the notion was raised, so it must be gratifying for those who first mooted its existence and pursued the dream until it became a reality that it is now beginning to fulfill its potential.
Congratulations are due to all parties involved in these latest and handsome arrivals.
