Wanted: Defenders of our deep sea
Guest Blogger: Colin Ryder, Wellington Branch
The announcement of Wellington’s marine reserve off the coast of Island Bay earlier this year was met with a sort of exhausted ‘hurrah’ from advocates at Forest & Bird. We were elated, but somewhat battle-weary given that we had fought for this marine reserve for 17 years.
I can’t remember what exactly I was wearing on the day we decided to take this proposal to the council but it was probably something suitably early nineties – stonewash zip-up jeans perhaps?
That’s how long ago we first mooted this proposal.
So why the long hard battle given that marine reserves replenish fish life, increase tourism and give scientists a playground for studying our untouched sea-life?
In short, fishing interests. For recreational fishers it boils down to ‘ I support marine reserves but not in my backyard’. For commercial fishers the arguments are more sophisticated. They stem from the belief that marine reserve don’t have a role in the way we manage our fish and put greater stress on the surrounding areas. In the past, the Ministry of Fisheries has sided with commercial fishers and took to trimming the boundaries of marine reserves considerably.
The history of marine reserves in New Zealand has been dogged by controversy and strong feelings since the first was mooted at Leigh (north of Auckland) more than 30 years ago. Once each was established, however, funny things happened. The fuss died down. The local community became proud of the marine reserve and assumed a sense of ownership. People came just to look at the fish (over 350,000 visit Leigh each year). And, believe it or not, fishing in the wider area actually improved.
After almost 30 years of battling to protect our marine life, we have an impressive number of marine reserves – 33 – but this doesn’t translate into much protection – just 0.3% of our waters and just 0.19% of our mainland coastal waters.
There’s no point in just grumbling about it – after all New Zealand is still a democracy and everybody is entitled to state their views and endeavour to influence political decisions and policy.
To speed things up and to avoid the pubic controversies, the former Labour Government introduced a Marine Protected Areas Policy which involves the “major stakeholders” hopefully reaching an agreement on what areas should be protected in each bio-geographical region and what form that protection should take. There was a role for public consultation in this process; which is already underway in two areas – the Sub-Antarctics and the West Coast of the South Island. Although too early to be definite, there are signs that National government could well continue the same approach.
While there are perils in such an approach, it has worked well overseas; particularly in California where, so far, about 8 percent has been set aside as full protection marine reserves in a remarkably short time.
What’s really, really important about this approach is that this is the one and only opportunity to achieve marine reserves in New Zealand waters. Think of the great State-Owned Enterprises carve-up when hundreds of thousands of hectares were allocated to conservation or for “productive use”; but in our oceans. The decision makers will be listening to public opinion – weight of submissions will be vital.
The sea horses, colourful sea-slugs and fish that fill Wellington’s waters now have a sanctuary to grow & thrive, giving me a somewhat less fitful sleep at night. However, there are plenty of sea-creatures that don’t enjoy this protection. So what’s in the seas surrounding your area? Do you think they deserve their own underwater national park? If so, how can we work together to get more local support for these areas?
