Submissions on the Marine Protected Areas Act consultation document close today and it is clear the Government needs to rethink.
All groups agree on the need for marine protection, not least the seafood industry.
The health of the aquatic environment is the cornerstone of our business.
And just about all interested parties agree the Government is not going about extending marine protection in the right way.
Environmental groups – Forest & Bird, Environmental Defence Society, World Wildlife Fund, Pew – are particularly critical of the government’s decision to ignore marine protection in the Exclusive Economic Zone.
How can you protect marine biodiversity if the vast area from the 12-mile territorial sea boundary to the 200-mile extent of New Zealand waters is excluded?, they ask.
Many in the seafood sector are asking a similar question, and why the Benthic Protection Areas, initiated by the fishing industry and recognised by statute, that protect 29 percent of the EEZ were not given due weight.
New Zealand is not failing to meet biodiversity protection goals.
But if greater protection is the aim, the substantial areas that the fishing industry agreed not to trawl in, and is now banned from doing so, could simply be designated seabed reserves.
There are varying degrees of marine protection. BPAs are a form of MPA.
These 17 protected areas covering 1.24 million square kilometres encompass sub-tropical and sub-Antarctic waters and varied habitats to the east and west of the country across a range of depths.
The risk in the current unsatisfactory approach is that if MPAs are not implemented in a planned and integrated way in the EEZ, they may be politically driven under an ad hoc approach, with separate legislation for each.
This has occurred already with the proposed introduction of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, with the legislation being introduced to Parliament this week.
The creation of a vast fully protected zone around the sub-tropical Kermadecs is fine in principle and has drawn international praise and garnered kudos with the US in particular.
But the process was flawed, overriding Treaty rights and property rights without consultation or compensation.
The limited fishing activity around the Kermadecs, which did not include trawling, largely restricted to pelagic species like tuna, will now be banned.
Maori were granted access to fisheries resources as provided in Article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi. The currency of that settlement was fishing quota.
The Government is playing with fire if it elects to arbitrarily override those rights.
Marine biodiversity protection needs to be complementary to sustainable fisheries management, recognising the critical role of the Quota Management System.
The seafood industry also supports enhancing recreational fishing, provided that is not at the expense of the commercial sector.
However, that is quite a different objective from marine protection – it is obviously not a sustainability measure.
As such, the proposals to create recreational fishing parks in the Hauraki Gulf and the Marlborough Sounds do not belong in marine protection legislation.
They were election bribes wheeled out in the 2014 campaign without consultation or scientific basis and need to be considered in the context of the Fisheries Act.
That is the mechanism for sound management intervention, after due consideration of the outcomes sought, the supporting science and the range of management tools available. The current approach to fisheries management, as illustrated in the proposed recreational fishing parks, pits the recreational and commercial sectors against each other. This is unnecessary as we both want healthy abundant fisheries. Such “management” is simplistic, uneducated and divisive and is no way to nurture a valuable public resource.
Monitoring the recreational catch, starting with charter operators, which are fishing businesses, is essential to completing the QMS mosaic.
Recreational groups huff about their right to catch fish - and no one disputes that.
But instead of opposing reporting of their catch, they should be supporting it. That is the only way to properly manage the fishery. It is not logical to argue that this is the first step on the road to hell, in the form of licensing.
The fishing parks are but one aspect, albeit a distracting one, of a disjointed approach to marine protection that is not fit for purpose.
The seafood industry, supported by other sectors, is asking for a further round of engagement following the submissions cut-off prior to the drafting of a Bill.
What we have been presented with is not an adequate basis for drafting effective new law.
A clear articulation of the marine protection outcomes being sought and the principles that will apply would be a good starting point.
