Author: Shaun

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Unprofessional editorial

An open letter to Keith Ingram.

In your July / August 2022 issue of Professional Skipper you ran an editorial titled “How important are marine reserves?”. You made a bunch of incorrect statements that I thought someone else would correct but I’m told the latest issue does not include any retractions. I have corrected them here:

“Recent statements by prominent yachties Peter Burling and Blair Tuke on Behalf of Living Ocean calling for 30 percent of the Hauraki Gulf to be under marine protection by 2030 are totally ill-founded”

The organisation is called Live Ocean not Living Ocean.

The statement is well founded by the 30×30 goal and the Hauraki Gulf Forums 30% goal which would leave 70% of the Gulf for fishing.

You go on to criticise the marine reserve proposed for Northwest Waiheke without pointing out a single problem with the application. You also ask “what this group has in mind”. Here is the application.

You claim there was “secrecy” but according to this statement from the Friends of the Gulf the application process was in plain sight and far from secret.

[After submitting the draft application for the Hākaimangō – Matiatia Marine Reserve to the Director-General of DOC and simultaneously to the two Ngāti Paoa Trust Boards a month was allowed for their unlobbied consideration. FOHG then went public with presentations to the Waiheke Local Board, The Local Piritahi Marae, Hauraki Gulf Forum, neighbouring property owners, other community organisations both on and off-island and articles, letters and advertisements in the Waiheke local newspapers The Gulf News and The Weekender and widely published on social media, national news media and radio. Following 10 months of pre-notification consultation, the revised application was lodged, advertised in all the main centre daily newspapers and distributed with two months allowed for public submissions or objections. This drew 1,303 public submissions. 1,183 were in full support.]

“Charterboat catch data is hugely valuable in showing how productive the gulf is at the moment and what it was like over the past 20 years, which I suggest is very different to the negative assessments of the state of the Hauraki Gulf that the environmentalists typically publish”

It’s not logical to decide the state of an ecosystem the size of the Hauraki Gulf Marine park using a single source of data like ‘charterboat catch’. The state of the environment reports are required every three years under the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act. They cover a broad range of indicators and massive data sets.

“Some recent nasty marine invaders that have adapted to our waters include the Asian paddle crab, the Chinese mitten crab, Stela clava. the Mediterranean tube worm. the Asian nesting clam, Caulerpa taxifolia and Undaria (Japanese kelp).”

There are no Chinese mitten crabs or Asian clams in Aotearoa / New Zealand, if you do find either of these species please phone Biosecurity NZ (0800 80 99 66) immediately.

You say: “Locking up marine areas won’t solve these problems” Marine reserves are more resilient to climate change impacts including invasive species because there are no gaps in the ecosystem created by overfishing. They can also help overfished areas recover after a pollution or climate event because they have more old animals that make a disproportionate contribution to recruitment. Here are some graphics I produced to explain the concepts.

Marine heatwaves are creating local extinctions The role of MPA's in climate change
It takes thirty six 30cm snapper to make the same amount of eggs as one 70cm snapper.

Let me know if you need more examples.

“Marine Protected Areas are not a fisheries management tool.”

I agree MPAs are a conservation tool, but MPA’s can also have fisheries benefits. For example this research from the University of Auckland and NIWA estimates that spawn originating in the small Marine Reserve at Leigh contributed “commercial fishery of $NZ 1.49 million catch landing value per annum and $NZ 3.21 million added from recreational fishing activity associated spending per annum” (Qu et al. 2021). The short term loses are offset by future gains. It will be interesting to see if Fisheries New Zealand take a long term view of the proposal in their impact assessment. I suggest you read this great article by Good Fishing which looks at the proposed High Protection Areas.

“The marine reserve legislation administered by DoC prohibits … the movement of vessels carrying flora and fauna through MPAs or reserves.”

This is inncorrect.

“An amendment to the Fisheries Act could provide for… the same result as Marine Reserves”

Unfortunately this won’t help as the agency has been captured by industry. One new tool we can use is the RMA which gives areas a break from fishing 10 years at a time. It’s disappointing that Legasea have not embraced the tool, which can stop bottom impact fishing once it is in discrete areas (for example ‘corridors’).

“We need honest, sound and reasonable leadership in this debate”

Agreed, if you want help fact checking any future editorials about marine biodiversity I would be happy to help.

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Replica Tūturiwhatu  / Northern New Zealand Dotterel

It was a joy to work on these tūturiwhatu which were a gift to Alison Stanes QSM for her work at the Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary Society Incorporated. Alison taught me a lot when I began minding dotterel. Sharon Kast and Sally Richardson did a great job of banding the models and adding a shell base.

Photo by Sally Richardson
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Photo kickstarts stream restoration

I recently had a great experience with Waikato Regional Council (WRC) which showed the value of just letting council know whats happening.

I was driving past  270 Kuaotunu, Wharekaho in the Coromandel and saw cattle defecating in the stream. I was in a hurry but decided to take a quick photo and reported it a few days later. I got a great response from WRC. The land is owned by the crown, managed by Thames-Coromandel District Council (TCDC) and leased to a farmer. The stream is a priority one waterway given it’s proximity to the coastal marine area which cannot have stock access without a resource consent.

Staff discussed the issue and the farmer running cattle on the property will now remove cattle from the land. TCDC envisage releasing the tenure to the Department of Conservation who may review activities at the site and consider restoring it. What a great outcome! I am very impressed with all agencies involved.

August 2024
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Graphics from the State of our Seabirds 2021

Produced by the Northern New Zealand Seabird Trust with support from G.I.F.T and the Hauraki Gulf Forum. Read the report here.

The circular seabird economy
General migration destinations for 14 species that breed in the wider Hauraki Gulf region (WHGR). Blue lines and arrows denote major oceanic surface currents and gyres.
To safeguard our island treasures all boat operators need to make sure their boats are pest-free, and so lessen the risk of incursions requiring costly eradications.
Sample types and information we can currently obtain from a single sample of blood (0.4 mL) or feathers with relevant conservation implications for Hauraki Gulf seabirds (an abridged list).
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Absence data

Yesterday I checked about 10km of beach for kekeno / New Zealand fur seals in Mercury Bay , Coromandel including Wharekaho, Kuaotunu, Otama, Opito, Matapaua. I did not find any alive or dead. The beaches were largely empty but I did ask five locals to keep an eye out and report them as part of a study I am helping DOC with in the area. One person was aware of the study.

I noticed a few bits of fishing line washed up on the high tide line left by dirty fishers at Wharekaho / Simpsons Beach. I picked up all the bits I could find for 1km East of Stormont Lane. I counted 57 bits of rubbish, many were tangled knots of nylon which pose a danger to shorebirds who can get their toes caught in it (see photo above).

Dotterel counts for the above beaches logged on iNaturalist.nz

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Strobe vs video light

With video lights increasing in power some underwater photographers are wondering if they should skip the strobes and go for more expensive videos lights that deliver a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) photographic experience. Here I test a Sea & Sea YS-D3 II Strobe and a BigBlue 36000-Lumen Pro Video light. See testing setup photo above with lamp on which was turned off for the test. Settings: 1/250, F14, ISO 100 on an exposed and fogged up Laowa Probe Lens with no focusing light.

YS-D3 II Strobe only on left hand side. Full power manual no focus light, default diffuser on.
BigBlue 36000-Lumen Pro Video only on right hand side. Full power.
Strobe on left video light on right.

They seem to be about equal power which is interesting as I would have thought I would get more power from the strobe which has a guide number of 33. The difference in colour temperature is negligible with white balance set to auto (YS-D3 II Strobe = 5,800k, BigBlue 36000 = 6,500k).

I think its safe to call the YS-D3 II Strobe a 36,000 lumen light.

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Careless statements from NZUA

The New Zealand Underwater Association’s (NZUA’s) Annual report is out with lots of stunning photos from Experiencing Marine Reserves. I do a lot of diving but I’m not a member of NZUA. One of the reasons for this is the associations close relationship with the blood sport organisations (New Zealand Sports Fishing Council / Legasea and The NZ Spearfishing Association).

Environmental campaigns are one of its three pillars but the organisations moral compass is compromised by support for activities that kill our native wildlife. They have been more political recently (lobbying government on fishing policy) but they aren’t developing their own views, just kowtowing to Legasea.

On page 26 of the Annual Report they have said they will be consulting on new Marine Protection Areas (MPAs) and that they support them, but they give some uninformed caveats.

We don’t support MPAs where:

1)  An area is not of ecologically significant (This is the exact wording, not a typo from me)

This is an illogical statement because we need to protect a network of representative habitats from fishing. In Aotearoa / New Zealand less than a one percent of our marine environment is protected from fishing, so nearly any protected areas will become ecologically significant.

2) Where removing an area concentrates fishing effort elsewhere

All place based fishing protection displaces fishing effort, including those that limit commercial fishing. It’s a short term loss that is offset by the long term benefits of having an area with larger breeding animals which produce exponentially more offspring. For example it takes thirty six 30cm Tāmure / Snapper to make the same amount of eggs as one 70cm fish (Willis et. al., 2003). And of course the spillover effect which I should not have to explain.

Most divers and the New Zealand public understand this, which is why marine reserves are so popular. There is 77% support for 30% marine protection in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park and 93% of the submissions for a recent marine reserve proposal for Waiheke Island were supportive, despite opposition from the blood sport lobby groups.

Despite our Marine Reserves being the best places to dive, NZUA say that ‘instead’ they will now support Special Marine Areas (SMAs). They then confuse the term as used in Revitalising the Gulf: Government action on the Sea Change Plan and tell readers that SMA’s include the mussel beds that I have been helping to make (which are not protected from human harvest), seaweed reestablishment and crayfish re-introduction. However these are all examples of active restoration – which I am a big fan of – but it’s really hard, small scale and expensive. Active restoration has its own work stream in the plan and is completely different to SMAs. In the Sea Change – Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial plan SMAs are Special Management Areas, they are described as “limiting all commercial fishing, and in addition the restrictions would extend to most recreational fishing (with the exception allowing for ‘low volume/high value’ catch)” They were proposed for the Mokohinau and Alderman Islands. Without strong limits on recreational fishing I expect the SMAs would have failed to create conservation outcomes in a similar fashion to Mimiwhangata. The experts have redesigned them as High Protection Areas (HPAs). The experts decided the SMAs (like Rāhui expressed as section 186 closures) are fisheries management tools rather than conservation tools. It will be interesting to see if DOC can get them to meet the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) high protections standards. Assuming these are the SMAs NZUA refer to, the SMAs would not have meet their own criteria (as an MPA that they are willing to support) because they would have displaced fishing effort.

By using the wrong terminology and examples, we can see NZUA have not paid much attention to the statements. The uninformed caveats for MPAs they would support show a general lack of awareness of ocean conservation. I hope they clarify their position. It sounds like NZUA and the blood sport groups will oppose the HPAs proposed in Revitalising the Gulf. This is disappointing, without more support NZ will stay in the 1% protection level along with Russia and China. See how marine protection in Aotearoa / New Zealand stands on the international stage in this awesome graphic by NZ Geographic.

NZUA are falling out of step with the New Zealand public and drifting away from their international counterparts who are strong ocean advocates. Divers have a unique view of the underwater world, I believe it comes with a responsibility to take care of it. I wish NZUA were more like PADI who are working to protect 30% of our oceans. SSI are also active in Aotearoa / New Zealand with a no harm Marine Conservation programme.

I hope NZUA one day learn to take the same precautionary care for the health of our oceans that they advocate for in diver safety.