Author: Shaun

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Submissions on kelp forest restoration

Kina barren at Sail Rock. Photo by Shaun Lee.

Fisheries New Zealand are still stuck in a single-species mindset, managing kōura / spiny lobster as if they exist in isolation. The real measure of success should be the recovery of kelp forest coverage – the foundation of our shallow reef ecosystems. To their credit, FNZ are finally discussing area closures, but the framing remains too narrow.

My estimates (based on the best available information) show that restored kelp forests in CRA 2 (Hauraki Gulf Marine Park) could be worth 12–29 times more than the entire fishery. In CRA 1 (Northland), the foregone ecosystem services from lost kelp forests are even starker – between 100 and 228 times greater than the value of the fishery itself.

The packhorse lobster fishery in northeastern New Zealand should be closed immediately to allow predator populations to recover, avoiding millions of dollars in ongoing costs for culling long-spined sea urchins.

Submission on CRA 1 Closure

Submission on Draft CRA 2 Management Target Fisheries Plan

Submission on PHC1 Closure

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The dairy–palm oil death spiral

Dr Mike Joy sent me this paper Flex commodities and intertwining world-ecologies: Indonesian palm waste as an environmental fix in the New Zealand dairy industry to read. It’s pretty technical, so I made a graphic summary to share.


It shows how depressing the dairy–palm oil death spiral really is: New Zealand’s droughts drive more palm kernel imports, which fuel deforestation in Indonesia, worsen climate change, and circle back to make our droughts even worse.

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Understanding soft sediment ecosystems

Proud to share this new graphic made with world-leading soft sediment scientists at the University of Auckland.

Soft sediments cover 50% of Earth’s surface and quietly power ocean health — producing oxygen, filtering water, recycling nutrients, creating habitats, and locking away carbon and pollutants.

Out of sight, but vital for life.

Marine plants stabilise the seafloor, provide habitats, remove contaminants, and produce half the oxygen we breathe. Filter feeders like oysters, mussels, clams, and sponges clean the water and create habitats for other species. Crabs, sea stars, and sea cucumbers recycle decaying debris and balance food webs. Burrowing animals mix and oxygenate sediments, moving nutrients and creating living spaces. Microbes recycle nutrients to fertilise marine plant growth, powering life in the ocean.
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Forage fish are the fix we’re ignoring

A workup in FMA 1. Photo Shaun Lee.

The government’s plan to revitalise the Gulf includes creating new marine protected areas and phasing out bottom trawling in some zones. These are welcome moves, but they will take time—and they don’t go far enough.

The Gulf’s biggest problems—seafloor damage and sediment—are hard and slow to fix. We’ve dredged and trawled the biogenic habitats into collapse, then smothered what’s left with sediment from land. Even if we stopped all bottom-impact fishing and upstream erosion today, it could take decades for the seafloor to recover.

But rebuilding the forage fish layer—the small, plankton-eating species that transfer energy up the food chain—is faster, cheaper, and more within reach. The evidence is clear that this “wasp waist” of the ecosystem is under strain. Bryde’s whales have shifted away from fish toward krill. Kororā / little penguins are starving. Tākapu / Gannets and Tara / White-fronted terns are abandoning inner Gulf colonies. The State of Our Gulf reports point to these changes as signs of a food web in trouble.

Kokowhāwhā  / anchovies sheltering post ‘work-up’ in the Noises Islands November 2024. Photo Shaun Lee.

Yet despite all this, the latest advice from officials fails to move us meaningfully toward ecosystem-based management. The Hauraki Gulf Fisheries Plan includes a commitment to review the management of key forage species to “ensure that removals do not adversely affect the marine food chain.” But the current proposals do not deliver on that intent. Instead of aiming to rebuild abundance or account for the role of forage fish in the food web, the advice retains high catch limits for fish populations we know very little about. No stock assessments have been completed for kokowhāwhā / anchovy, kupae / sprat, takeke / garfish, aua / yellow-eyed mullet, or hautere / jack mackerel. We don’t know how many fish are out there, and we’re not using predator health or ecosystem indicators to guide decisions.

Instead, Fisheries New Zealand has proposed number-shuffling. The most recent proposals claim to reduce pressure by cutting catch limits, but the proposed limits are still higher than what’s actually being caught. That means there’s no real constraint on fishing effort. The door stays open for increases, even as the ecosystem shows stress.

Adding to the contradiction, tawatawa / blue mackerel—currently the single largest fishery by weight in the Hauraki Gulf—is proposed for an increase in catch. This species forms dense schools and plays a central role in mixed-species feeding events with dolphins and seabirds. At a time when ecosystem stress is evident, boosting the take of such an important forage species moves us in the wrong direction.

Juvenile tawatawa / blue mackerel in a marine reserve. Photo Shaun Lee.

Climate change is only making this worse. These species are vulnerable to rising sea temperatures and declining plankton. We can’t control the oceans response to climate change, but we can control fishing. Leaving more fish in the water builds resilience for the species that depend on them.

Fisheries New Zealand is not proposing ecosystem-based management. It’s pretending to act without changing outcomes. If we were serious about managing the Gulf as a living system, we’d listen to the dolphins, whales and seabirds.

The forage base is the fastest thing we can fix. But only if we’re willing to try.

My submission to Fisheries New Zealand on six forage fish populations in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.

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Advice to Shane Jones on Trawl Corridors

On 13 May 2025, my request for the missing Cabinet paper and Regulatory Impact Statement on excluding bottom trawling and Danish seining from the Hauraki Gulf was declined, as the work had not been completed and the Minister was still considering his options. So on the 16th of May I asked for all briefings, advice, and communications provided to the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries about the exclusion of bottom trawling and Danish seining from the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, from 1 November 2023 to the present.

I finally received the advice today (though some information has been withheld).

Some things that I learnt:

Observer bycatch data for the period 2012 to 2022 reported non target captures of benthic species on 34.4 percent of all observed tows, however, this is likely an underestimate as many corals and other vulnerable species fragment during contact with trawl gear and may be lost through the mesh of the net. In addition, not all tows are observed (for example, 5.1 percent of tows in the Gulf were observed in the 2021/22 fishing year).

97.2% of 8,909 submitters want a full ban on bottom impact fishing in the Gulf, plus 1.4% of submitters wanted Option 4 (the option that protects the most seafloor).

A 36,589 signature petition from the Hauraki Gulf Alliance was presented to Parliament in June 2023 in support of a ban on bottom trawling, scallop dredging and Danish seining in the Gulf. This petition rarely features in briefings to the minister on the topic.

Four iwi or iwi organisations submitted through the public submission process, one of which advocated for a complete ban of bottom trawling and Danish seining. The three other iwi or iwi organisations that submitted did not choose any of the proposed options as
they believe it undermines their rights guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi and Māori Fisheries Settlement rights. I should ask which iwi.

These are the companies and staff that are lobbying for the continuation of bottom impact fishing in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park:

  • Mark Ngata – Moana New Zealand
  • Colin Williams – Sanford
  • Steve Tarrant – Moana New Zealand
  • Tiffany Bock – Seafood New Zealand
  • Vaughan Wilkinson – Sanford
  • Laws Lawson – Seafood New Zealand
  • Tom Searle – Lee Fish
  • Phil Clow – Whitianga and Coromandel Peninsula Commercial Fishermen’s Association

Seafood NZ tried to suggest an Option 5 for the trawl corridors which even more destructive than those proposed by FNZ. They tried to kill the SPAs and are also responsible for ring-net fishing debacle: “allow ring-net fishing in inner gulf (Kawau Bay, Motukawao, Rotoroa, Rangitoto and Motutapu) HPAs over winter months” FNZ staff did an okay job of defending the MPAs and telling the minister the proposals from Seafood NZ were bad ideas. (Government did not listen and there was a media storm on the issue).

Form submissions were ignored by staff when presenting % submissions to the minister. E.g. 85% of submitters support Option 4 or a complete ban, when the actual number is 98.6%.

Seafood NZ and Rock Lobster Industry Council lobbied the minister enough that officials considered allowing potting in a marine reserve!

Great to see push  back from staff that allowing these industry bodies to influence the process after consultation decisions had been made was/is not fair.

Interesting analysis of risks if trawl corridors abandoned:

  • 35% remnant biodiversity protected compared to 84-89%.
  • Would be widely criticised by many iwi, most stakeholders and the public
  • Councils may implement alternative protections through the RMA

Great to see FNZ consider that transitional support for affected fishers should be back on the table.

It’s a bit for me to reflect on but overall its just incredibly disappointing to see to see how the industry has been able to sway the Minister to delay a decision and stop a huge public process.

UPDATE 14 July 2025

In May I also asked for “Emails, memos, or meeting notes relevant to the decision-making process”. Apparently MPI could only find this one email.

UPDATE 31 July 2025

Request for mana whenua positions on limiting bottom impact fishing was ‘withheld‘. Good to see they consulted 23 mana whenua groups tho.

UPDATE 12 August 2025

Seafood New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf options and protection bill amendment papers. Note:

  • Export values have been redacted.
  • Seafood NZ lobbied government to allow commercial fishing in 8 of the 12 HPAs. Ring net fishing also asked for in the Otata / Noises HPA, Motukawao HPA, Rotoroa and HPA. So far they have been successful in getting ring net fishing allowed in the Kawau HPA and Rangitoto / Motutapu HPA for the draft Protection Bill. They also pushed for Lobster potting in Te Hauturu-o-Toi / Little Barrier High Protection Area, Cape Colville High Protection Area and Mokohinau High Protection Area.
  • A note on the SPA prohibitions suggests the amendments were part of a longer discussion.

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3D printing a matuku hūrepo

This was the biggest thing I’ve ever 3D printed.

Even with my large-format printer, I had to split the matuku hūrepo / Australasian bittern into several parts and carefully assemble it. Painting took just as long – their plumage is incredibly detailed, with streaked patterns designed for camouflage in raupō wetlands.

I posed the bird predating a tuna / eel, not just to tell a story of predator and prey, but to help balance the sculpture. At this size and weight, I needed three contact points with the base to keep it stable – the legs and the eel.

Auckland Council is using the model for advocacy, helping people connect with these rare and cryptic wetland birds. Unlike a fragile taxidermied specimen, this 3D-printed bittern can be touched – perfect for tamariki and public events.

Thanks to the Auckland Museum for letting me scan one of their bitterns to get the scale right.

Matuku hūrepo are in serious trouble – they’re Threatened – Nationally Critical, with fewer than 1,000 adults left in Aotearoa. Despite being one of our largest wetland birds, they’re rarely seen. Over 90% of New Zealand’s wetlands have been drained or destroyed, leaving bittern with fewer places to breed, feed and hide. Hopefully, this model helps change that by bringing people face to face with a bird they may never see in the wild.

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Kōkiri / leatherjacket: thriving or teetering on extinction in the gulf?

Kōkiri in the Alderman Islands 2025. Photo Shaun Lee.

Commercial landings of kōkiri / leatherjacket in the Gulf have crashed by more than 80 percent in the past decade, yet Fisheries NZ says the population must be growing because new trawl gear lets more fish escape!

If you are not seeing more kōkiri then the catch decline is more likely indicating a population crash, and our friendly sea-squirt chompers are getting rarer while the catch limit stays sky-high. I’ve lodged a submission asking for a five-year closure of the LEA 1 fishery so these fish, and the reefs and mussel lines they keep clean, can recover.

Unless you’ve witnessed a sudden kōkiri boom yourself, please add your voice.

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Pukunui egg decoys

A DOC ranger carefully candles a real Pukunui egg to check for signs of fertility. Photo Guy McDonald.

For the past few years, I’ve been supporting the campaign to raise awareness of the critically endangered Pukunui / Southern New Zealand Dotterel, and to see it recognised as New Zealand’s Bird of the Year. Unfortunately, the species is in a dire state and is on track for extinction within the next decade without urgent action.

Wanting to contribute in a meaningful way, I offered to produce decoy Pukunui eggs that the Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers could use to distract predators (primarily feral cats). However, DOC staff explained that decoy eggs would be most valuable during fertility checks, providing a substitute to keep adult birds settled on the nest while real eggs were removed for assessment. With only 12 nests found during the 2023/24 breeding season, it’s essential that each actively managed nest is as productive as possible. Ensuring birds aren’t incubating infertile eggs reduces wasted effort and limits their exposure to predators. Candling is only carried out when a bird has been sitting longer than the expected incubation period, suggesting the egg may not be viable.

Pukunui / Southern New Zealand dotterel nest. Photo Guy McDonald.

Using publicly available data on NZBirdsOnline, I 3D printed a set of six replica eggs, carefully matching the size, shape, and weight of real Pukunui eggs. Each egg was then airbrushed and speckled with acrylic paint to resemble the real thing as closely as possible. I also created custom protective cases for each egg to ensure they could be transported safely to Rakiura and carried in rangers’ backpacks during fieldwork.

Decoy pukunui eggs in protective cases. Photo Shaun Lee.

According to the rangers, the decoy eggs have been effective in keeping the birds settled during fertility checks, giving staff the time they need to carry out this crucial work without disrupting the breeding process.

A DOC ranger carefully candles a real Pukunui egg to check for signs of fertility. Photo Guy McDonald.

I’m proud to have volunteered my time to support the recovery of this remarkable species. You can help too by donating to the New Zealand Nature Fund.