Peter Knight, who has spent several years investigating management systems for his PhD thesis, believes too much emphasis has been placed on 40 years of scientific studies about the oyster beds and not enough on the long-term knowledge of the fishermen and Bluff residents intimately connected with the resource.
Most of the oyster fishermen are Maori, and Mr Knight says his research showed fishery elders had a "practical knowledge and conservation-mindedness" which was not recognised in the commercial quota management system introduced in 1996 to try and save the oyster beds from further decline.
"Scientific studies, which should only make up a small part of the overall management structure picture, are taking up the largest part . . . and there is virtually no recognition at all of other management factors.
"The main factor which is overlooked is people. All that knowledge and commitment and love should be acknowledged and encouraged."
Among recommendations he has forwarded to the Ministry of Fisheries and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment are that a community group such as the Bluff Oyster Fishing Forum be made a recognised stakeholder in the fishery under the quota management system, that formal property rights in the fishery be accorded to the wider community, and that the community be empowered to approve, or not to approve, of management measures.
Mr Knight - who will become Dr Knight when his PhD is conferred at a graduation ceremony at the Dunedin Town Hall today - says his decision to study the oyster beds came about because of his wide-ranging interests in surveying, nautical charts, ownership and management of marine resources, and the concept of indigenous people considering themselves the guardians of natural resources.
He was born in the seaside town of Hastings, England, moving to Canada as a boy, gaining a surveying degree and spending many years plotting nautical charts for the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
He emigrated to Dunedin 11 years ago to become a lecturer at Otago's surveying school.
Mr Knight said his thesis was a "last chance to allow one's inner self to explore a little bit of academic freedom".
"As academics, we should be pushing on the boundaries of our disciplines to see what we can change. Academics should be able to suggest new ways of doing things."
And that is just what Mr Knight would like to see happen with the oyster beds - a return to a collaborative and community-led sustainable management approach, rather than a system based on quotas, commercial licences, statistical theories and economics.
