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The new Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Act is meant to preserve our largest marine park, but 11th-hour changes have critics questioning if it offers high protection or hollow promises
A new law to protect a much-loved but now tarnished jewel in the Pacific crown has come under fire, with critics saying a last-minute change weakens the policy and risks undermining public trust.
Passed into law late last month, the Hauraki Gulf/ Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Act almost triples the protected area in New Zealand's largest marine park, which covers more than 1.2 million hectares, surrounding Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula.
However, a late amendment permits some commercial netting activity inside two of the new protected zones - a move that has drawn opposition from iwi, environmental groups, and local government figures who expected full no-take rules.
The government argues the compromise balances the needs of communities, the environment, and the economy.
But critics disagree.
"You have created a precedent where not only do you have customary fishing in a highly protected area, but also commercial fishing - not a good precedent and not a good look, really, to the world in a field in which New Zealand was once the leader," says Mike Lee, Auckland councillor for Waitematā and Gulf.
"I think it is thoroughly bad."
Auckland University Professor of Marine Science Simon Thrush agrees, saying "from a science perspective, there is really no justification for making these changes".
"On the international front, these changes mean that those two areas cannot be included - they don't meet the IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature] standards that allow them to be included in our meeting, or getting close to meeting, the 30 percent marine space conservation by 2030, that comes from the UN.
"So, that doesn't really help us."
The Hauraki Gulf has faced long-term ecological decline, including collapsing shellfish beds, declining fish stocks, and habitat loss linked to sedimentation and bottom-contact fishing.
Councillor Lee says to rebuild these fish stocks, restore kelp forests, and repair habitats, the Gulf needs genuine no-take zones.
The new Act does offer more protections, including the extension of two existing marine reserves and the addition of 12 high protection areas (HPAs) and five seafloor protection areas. It increases areas under some form of protection from 6 percent to 18 percent.
"I am very critical of the bill, but ironically, there are some very good things in it, and the very good thing, really, for marine conservation is the significant expansion of those two marine reserves," Lee tells The Detail. "So, we have to be grateful for that and appreciate it."
Professor Thrush says to make the new Act work, it's crucial Kiwis "get with the programme".
"The big problem we have had in implementing marine protection has been this 'not in my back yard' mentality ... and I think if we can accept that there are multiple values and multiple uses in these spaces then that will really help people accept that they are there, that they are a good thing, and that's probably the most useful thing we do."
He says the Act was a long time coming - arguably too long.
"It goes back almost to the creation of the Hauraki Gulf marine protected area, which was in 2000. This is too slow. We need to move into a space where we're starting to do things in a much more agile way. We need fast-track conservation in the ocean."
And the chances of that happening?
"Well, we fast-tracked some other things very quickly recently, so why can't we do that as well?"
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