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Commercial Seafood Industry’s Health, Safety, and Wellbeing from down under: A New Zealand Context New Zealand’s (NZ) seafood industry plays a key role in the country’s economy, contributing around $2 billion in export earnings and employing more than 16,500 people who provide NZ and the world with high quality, nutritious, and great tasting seafood. Commercial fishing is still one of the most dangerous occupations in NZ with a high average injury and fatality rate. To improve overall Health and Safety, and more recently Wellbeing, the NZ industry have implemented the following programmes and research.

1. Psychosocial Risk Factors Research & Litmus Wellbeing Research
2. FirstMate (The Seafood Sector Support Network Trust)
3. MarineSAFE
4. NZ Fishing Health and Safety Forum (The Forum)

The below sessions will be presented by:

• Darren Guard (Tech IOSH) Managing Director Guard Safety, GM Operations FirstMate Founding member of the Forum
• Dr Fatima Junaid (Ph.D. Organizational Behaviour) Senior Lecturer Massey University COPSOQ National Rep NZ
• Shalaine Jackson (MA. Psychology) Business Manager Guard Safety Operations Manager FirstMate Secretary of the Forum Litmus Wellbeing

Research & Psychosocial Risk Factors Research: Recent seafood industry wellbeing research conducted by Litmus verified significant key stressors putting pressure on our seafood industry. The research found that 42% of fishers were significantly less happy than one year ago, and that one in three wanted to exit the industry. Based on this, it was agreed that current initiatives needed to continue and further initiatives developed to support our seafood people. Psychosocial Risk Factors research conducted by Massey University highlighted that ongoing regulatory change and the compliance burden may be adversely influencing our seafood people’s wellbeing. FirstMate New Zealand: FirstMate supports the health and wellbeing of people across the commercial seafood sector. Our goal is to offer seafood people and businesses the guidance, direction and support they need to better navigate the pressures and complexities that come with the job. Working at sea can be very challenging – mentally, physically, legally, and financially. As things continue to change, it’s vital that people in the industry, and their families, have the support they need to adjust and thrive. FirstMate develops online wellbeing videos and resources covering the seafood sector and provide free wellbeing counselling services to. We consist of sixteen regionally based wellbeing trained Navigators who comprise actual fishers, marine farmers, and fisher’s partners/siblings. Fishers supporting fishers. MarineSAFE: MarineSAFE is a maritime dedicated modern online Learning Management System (LMS) providing free health, safety, and wellbeing training to support seafood people in their mobile work life. MarineSAFE uses technology to develop real life action videos with assessments (video footage shot at sea on fishing vessels) to break down the barriers common in classroom-based learning and address any potential literacy issues identified in our industry. MarineSAFE’s goal is to provide a consistent approach to safe work practices for seafood people which will lead to an improved safety culture across the industry. The MarineSAFE project was funded by the government agency Accident Compensation Corporation in 2020 as part of the Workplace Injury Prevention Grants Programme. It is a collaboration between the NZ Federation of Commercial Fishermen, a non-profit organisation who represent the interests of owner-operator commercial fishers who work within the inshore fishing sector, and Guard Safety). The MarineSAFE LMS currently has 778 users and is actively promoted and supported by the NZ Maritime Health and Safety Regulator, Maritime NZ (MNZ). NZ Fishing Health and Safety Forum: The NZ Fishing Health and Safety Forum (the Forum) was incorporated in 2021. The ten member companies represent up to 90% of the NZ commercial fishing industry and are the key seafood supply chain influencers. The Forum brings together operational and H&S managers to discuss H&S issues, share ideas and learnings from incident/accidents, and work together on projects to improve the health and safety performance within the sector. The Forum also collaborates with NZ’s two main regulators, Maritime NZ, and the Ministry for Primary Industries, to actively work on initiatives. This is the first for industry and is fully funded by members who have put aside their commercial competitiveness to work together on health, safety, and wellbeing initiatives. The Forum was recently formally recognised as a leader in the country by the 2023 annual NZ Health and Safety Safeguard Awards. The Forum’s focus for 2023/24 is to develop standardised health and safety training and guidelines for the industry.