While speaking at a conference in Auckland today, Shane Jones confirmed the Government will not be progressing additional closures of Tīkapa Moana / the Hauraki Gulf to bottom-trawling.
That follows public consultation in 2023 on government proposals to confine bottom-trawling to defined ‘trawl corridors’ in the Hauraki Gulf. WWF-New Zealand and other eNGOS argued this should only be the first step, and that in light of the dramatic and ongoing decline in the health and mauri of the Gulf, a total ban on bottom-trawling in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park was needed. Jones has confirmed he will take no steps to address the issue this term.
Bottom trawling is an indiscriminate, destructive fishing method where commercial fishing vessels drag a weighted fishing net along seamounts and the seafloor.
WWF-New Zealand CEO Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb says the practice of bottom-trawling is rapidly losing its social licence on the basis of the destruction it wreaks on marine habitats and species, and its outsized emissions profile.
“Sir David Attenborough’s new Ocean film has just laid bare the horrifying destruction bottom trawling does to marine life. It’s astonishing that the Minister’s response to this stark footage is to squash plans to restrict this practice in the Hauraki Gulf, which is on the brink of ecological collapse.
“More than 70% of Aotearoa’s commercial catch is bottom trawled – and most is exported overseas. Shockingly, we’re the only country still bottom trawling in the South Pacific.
“Yet again, the Minister is pandering to industry lobbyists and placing short-term commercial gain ahead of the health of our ocean.”
The Hauraki Gulf is a biodiversity hotspot home to a huge array of marine life but over the past decades has seen a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.
It is now rife with kina barrens and mushy-fleshed snapper, and some species – like crayfish and scallops – are functionally extinct in certain areas. Overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, sedimentation, and urban development have contributed to a 57% decline in fish stocks, a 67% decline in seabirds, and a 97% decline in whales and dolphins.
Alongside creating more Marine Protected Areas through the Hauraki Gulf Marine Protection Bill, further restrictions on bottom-trawling throughout the Marine Park were a key plank of the Government’s plans to address the dramatic decline of biodiversity in the Gulf - forged over more than a decade by the local community and tangata whenua as part of the Sea Change process.
“Not only has the Government carved out an egregious loophole in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Protection Bill to allow commercial fishing in new protected areas, it’s now refusing to do anything more about the damage caused by indiscriminate, bottom-impacting fishing methods,” says Kingdon-Bebb.
“Tīkapa Moana is on the brink of ecological collapse and we need to take urgent action to enable its recovery rather than trawl it to death.”
“It’s clear that our ocean, and the species that rely on it, are in trouble - and nowhere more so than Tīkapa Moana / the Hauraki Gulf. Less than 1% of New Zealand’s ocean territory is protected and now we’re going to raid ‘protected areas’ and let destructive bottom-trawling run rampant.
“This Government simply doesn’t care about the legacy of environmental destruction it leaves in its wake. The Minister should be ashamed. He is letting New Zealanders down along with future generations of Kiwis. Casting aside the plans to restrict bottom-trawling in the Hauraki Gulf is a slap in the face for Aucklanders and all those who devoted years of their time and expertise to the Sea Change process.”