Reserve
chance to halt decline in wildlife
By Fergus
Sutherland
This
article was originally published in the Otago Daily Times 19 January
2005
| THE
Nuggets-Tokata Marine Reserve proposal has been put before
the public again in order to implement the Government's
biodiversity strategy and in response to a request by the
Otago Conservation Board. This request was one of the factors
which led to the promotion of the proposed marine reserve
by the Department of Conservation and the department's invitations
for public input on the proposal.
The
Otago Conservation Board is a statutory advisory body representing
the community. |
 |
Members of the board
come from different parts of Otago and have a variety of interests.
They have consistently voted every year for the past 12 years
for the department to make the establishment of a marine reserve
in Otago one of its top priorities.
The board formally asked
the department to prepare a fresh application for the Nugget Point-Tokata
Marine Reserve at a meeting in Palmerston on May 10, 2002. Government
policy decisions and announcements which advocated the establishment
of more marine reserves have been very significant in the allocation
of resources for the current departmental efforts. It is important
to note that the marine reserve is not just a governmentdriven
initiative but has significant community support.
The board urges the people
of Otago to take an interest in this issue as there is a great
deal to gain from having a reserve at the Nuggets. It is something
that if approved, our descendants will applaud, just as we now
applaud the far-sighted farmers, surveyors and prominent people
who made our present environment more attractive and sustainable
in the long term by creating reserves for nature on the land.
In most cases these land reserves were created by people of vision
at a cost to their immediate gains.
Vision is what we need
now. Many of us who have lived in this area for decades have observed
the decline in wildlife on shore and, even more noticeably, in
the sea. Who has not heard people speak of the days when they
could get crayfish, paua, cod and groper easily off the rocks?
This is no longer common. The technology for finding and catching
fish has vastly improved and will continue to do so. At the same
time, more people have boats and wish to fish off our coast, so
there is no doubt that the pressure on fish stocks will continue
to rise.
There are now quota controls
on fish-take that were not in place previously. However, these
controls have not led to a return to the fishing situation that
used to exist. A number of other measures are needed to help protect
fishing for the future, among them traditional tiapure and mataitai,
as well as marine reserves.
The need to protect fishing
is one strong argument for the establishment of a marine reserve;
there are others. We need locations that can be benchmark sites
from which to measure changes in adjacent nonreserved seas; we
need to highlight for our children, visitors and community the
beauty and complexity of the little-known marine environment;
and as well as this, local people can also benefit greatly economically
from the draw-card for visitors to their community that a marine
reserve represents.
A marine reserve at the
Nuggets-Tokata will be a small sacrifice for a huge return.
Fergus Sutherland is
chairman of the Otago Conservation Board and lives at Papatowai,
in the Catlins district.
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