Beware the snags in Hauraki Gulf protections

Let’s start with the good news. The Minister of Conservation announced that the the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill would go ahead enabling increased protection and restoration of marine habitats and ecosystems.

Finally, after a long and drawn-out process over many years, culminating in unanimous support for the bill by the multi-party Parliamentary Select Committee, we can celebrate one step toward a viable future for the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka also referred to funding to monitor these new protected areas, so assuming the right data is collected we could learn a lot about the value of these protection measures.

But the announcement came with some fishhooks, changes in the rules to allow for ‘ring-net’ fishing in two of the 12 designated High Protection Areas (HPAs).

Ring-net fishing is a very small-scale commercial fishery in the Gulf, involving small boats casting nets in shallow waters, to catch species such as mullet, kahawai and gurnard. It also involved working in specific locations and targeting highly mobile species that traverse areas far greater than the size of the proposed HPAs. The commercial fishers of these species argue they have no impact, but how do we know? These targeted fish species are part of a highly connected ecosystem and there is no independent, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence to support this claim.

Will this commercial fishing be allowed in only two of the 12 HPAs or more? This isn’t yet clear. Without any scientific evidence that this will have ‘no effect’ on parts of the Hauraki Gulf ecosystem we’re left in the dark. How will these fishing activities be licensed in the HPAs? How will we know that this amendment won’t provide a loophole in the legislation that will allow commercial fishers to operate in other protected areas?

It’s important to note that this is the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill. Its focus is on protecting biodiversity and supporting the diverse array of benefits we derive from the Gulf. (Fishing is managed under the Fisheries Act 1996.)

Under local, national and international laws and obligations we have a responsibility to protect and restore our marine biodiversity. Marine protection is internationally recognised as a simple and cost-effective way to manage some of the activities that impact marine systems, to promote restoration of biodiversity, mitigate the risk of unintended consequence of our actions and build resilience in the natural ecosystems facing environmental change.

Not all protected spaces are operated in the same way, but there are international guidelines developed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature on what really counts as protection. Under these guidelines, areas that allow for commercial fishing don’t meet the standards of what can be defined as protected, which compromises our ability to meet our responsibilities locally and internationally. Aotearoa-New Zealand is a long way from demonstrating a genuine commitment to an integrative marine management and conservation of biodiversity.

We have signed up to international targets of 30 percent protection by 2030, which is only six years away. The current proposal for the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park will result in only about 6 percent of the area in HPAs. In short, we should be doing more to protect our local biodiversity, not less.

The call to give the Hauraki Gulf a chance to recover is not anti-fishing. Research on the small reserve at Leigh shows that protection generates significant benefit to snapper stocks in the wider Gulf; this means more fish and a contribution directly to the economy of the commercial fishery and indirectly to the economy of recreational fishing.

We have much to gain from maintaining the Gulf’s biodiversity. It plays important roles in regulating contaminant effects, storing carbon, keeping water clear and swimmable and providing us with a place of wonder and sanctuary. This biodiversity is an important component of the fundamental life-support system of our planet.

The Gulf is one tiny part of our planet’s marine ecosystems – but it’s important to us and it could act as a model of how to restore biodiversity and with it a new blue economy.

The bill is a step towards positive future gain for the Gulf, but we lest we forget, the Gulf is impacted by multiple cumulative stressors. Some of these originate on the land and include runoff of sediments, nutrients and contaminants from urban areas while other significant impacts arise from marine activities including commercial and recreational fisheries. This cocktail of stressors dominate impacts on the Gulf’s ecosystem, the mix varying with place and time.

Directly or indirectly, we are all responsible for the state of the Gulf and successive state of the environment reports assembled from multiple data sources by the Hauraki Gulf Forum demonstrate an ecosystem in decline. This bill is needed to reverse this trend, but we do need to keep alert to the potential impact of the fishhooks.