Shellfish and Fishing
Purpose of Reserve
Fisheries Management
Will It Stop?
Submissions
Other Plans

Shellfish and Fishing
Question:
There is a petition circulating stating that DOC will stop locals gathering kaimoana in the estuary but in the DOC discussion document it says DOC will have an exclusion zone for shellfish and fish speices in the Whangapoua Estuary – which is right?
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
We’re still in the negoitiation stage, we have not and do not intend closing off the estuary to shellfish gathering, what we would like to see however is some form of management for pipi gathering within the estuary. We identified that right from the beginning and that’s why we included that on page 3.

As for fishing, in the same area, we imagine something very similar as well, provided we received that type of information back from principally tangata whenua and the community. If tangata whenua and the community believe that the estuary should be left as it is then there are several options available, methods suach as taiapure and mataitai. It’s a form of mangement for either one or both, the tanagata whenua of the island or mataitai is a combined management system of an estuarine area both by the community and tangata whenua. Those two tools are available.

Purpose of Reserve
Question:
Please explain your idea of the reserve and what the purpose of it is.
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
It’s something where the sea can go about its business unmolested. So we have an area where we know what a piece of unmolested sea looks like and people can enjoy it. Similar along the lines of Little Barrier, we can go to an area and we can say this is what it looked like before it was completely altered. I know it will never get back to the way it was but basically what an unfished and natural piece of sea looks like.

Question:
Do you not see it as to preserve the fish stocks?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
No, not really, that’s a spin off, that’s not why we go about these things. The Ministry of Fisheries, they are empowered, its their job to manage the fish stocks. There’s no secret that if you create a marine reserve fish stocks do improve, but it’s not why we set them up.

Question from the Floor:
What is the real point of the reserve?
Answer: (Dr Roger Grace, DoC)
One of the first things that would happen in a marine reserve here that would become obvious would be within about five years the red crayfish would become quite spectacular. That has happened at other marine reserves around the country and fish stocks tend to take a bit longer than that but certainly crayfish, within 5 years the crayfish are spectacular. If you stop fishing in an area, within a few years you’ll have a heck of a lot more crayfish there, leave it a bit longer and you’ll have a heck of a lot more fish.

Question from the floor:
Graham – the naval zone down the coast, it’s been there for 40 years and it hasn’t been touched. DoC haven’t even been to look at that. Why don’t you start there?
Answer: (Roger Grace, DoC)
There was a man yesterday who said he has had a look in there and it’s no different. Research indicates a marine reserve of that size is very ineffective.

Fisheries Management
Question:
We would be better off to ban certain types of fishing. Don’t close off the area, it looks after itself. There’s quite a lot of fish there.
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
We don’t have the powers to do that. As the Department of Conservation fisheries are not our baby. The Ministry of Fisheries are responsible, we’ll pass that on to the Ministry of Fisheries. This isn’t to preserve fish stocks; this isn’t a fisheries management tool.

Question:
Jim Crawford - I am a local resident and have lived here for 15 years. What has happened so far is lines on maps and people sitting in offices but how is the area going to be policed? There are a lot of Great Barrier Island locals who understand the rules but there are also those who don’t . For example I saw an illegal net on Great Barrier Island and contacted DOC and got bounced over to the mainland then got a message that it is not DOC’s problem. Do I have to police the area myself? How are you going to police an area that size?
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
Under current fishieries regulations and rules we have no jurisdiction whatsoever unlesss we become an Honorary Fisheries Officer. Then we are empowered to do something about people setting illegal nets.
Secondly, if a marine reserve is established that’s when we are empowered to enforce compliance for whatever the rules and regulations are for marine reserves. At the moment we have no poweres for fisheries, that was referred back to the Ministry of Fisheries. I am not too sure or aware of any HFO’s on the island. If there was a combined marine reserve with mataitai or taiapure then we would probably most likely have had an interactive governance approach. At the moment, I agree we should be working a lot closer together but at the moment we just don’t have the jurisdiction. We need more enforcement.

Question from the floor:
What you are talking about is fish and that’s got more to do with the Ministry of Fisheries. It’s more to do with controls on fishing, not a reserve.
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
But its what they live in as well. If that habitat gets trashed, fish don’t live in a marine desert.

Comment from the floor:
It’s about controlling the fishing

Will It Stop?
Question:
John Terry, Tryphena resident. What is a reserve going to do? Clearly most people don’t want this reserve, we’re a democratic country why don’t you go away and find somewhere else?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
It’s true we know very little about the marine environment. One of the ways of finding out more is setting a piece aside, let it do what it does and then see what happens when you stop fishing, or don’t dredge or whatever. Yes it is a democratic country; yes we’ve had a couple of votes down the island, people telling us what they think. We’re also part of a democratic process, this is going to run till June 30th. On June 30th the proof will be in the pudding, we’re not going to bail out till then.

Question:
John – Will you take no though, if people say they don’t want it will it stop?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
Will it stop? If there’s overwhelming opposition to this you will not get this (area of interest in proposal).

Question:
John – Will it stop? Are you going to keep carrying on forever?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
You’ll just have to wait post June 30th. I can’t give you a no on the strength of this meeting but after June 30th we’ll have to weigh it up. If there’s 30 for, 70 against, who knows, lets pare it back. But we keep going back to, is if you don’t like this area, great, but if you like a bit of it in a reserve then we can work with that.

Question:
John – We want to know if we stop it now will it be stopped forever?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
I’ll let you know on June 30th.

Comment
Bill Cooke – there’s been two occasions now including at the Fitzroy club a week ago where we were given an assurance that if the people of the north Barrier didn’t want this reserve that it would not proceed. So that’s an answer, an assurance has been given it has got a legal opinion that supports the fact that it wont go ahead.
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
That’s largely what I just said Bill.

Question:
John Graham – I was part of the steering committee that put the proposal to DoC on the 1989 proposal. That proposal was largely supported by the majority of people that we consulted. That included recreational and commercial fishermen and the people who are interested in conservation. Will DoC revisit that proposal of 1989? Would DoC entertain starting again and looking at what the people agreed to in 1989?
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
We would consider anything that’s put in or submitted through our submissions. What we have found out since then is a whole lot of other areas that we weren’t aware of at the initial stage that the steering committee was put together. Since then Roger has gone out there and found a whole lot of other things that are out there. So what we’ve done is said this is our area of interest, this is what we would like to see included in a marine reserve currently.
Comment
John – the logic of that is you could extend that right over to the coast of Chile.
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
No we can’t. We only have authority to go to the 12-mile limit.

Question:
Phil - Tryphena resident. What process do we have to go through to stop this happening?
Answer: (Emma Rush, DoC)
There’s a pre-statutory process which we’re going through now, which is just an exercise where we put up our idea and you guys tell us what you think, which we’re all pretty familiar with. Following that if we still decide we want to go ahead we can notify an application under the Marine Reserves Act 1971 and we have to advertise in the paper that we're doing that and we’ll advise all the people that we have information about that it’s happening. Then if we do that you have an opportunity under that Act to make a formal objection to the application or a full submission in support. There’s a two-month period for you to do that.

All of those objections and submissions of support go with our application to the Minister of Conservation and he, before he decides if the marine reserve is a good idea he looks at all of those objections and decides whether or not any of them shall be upheld under the criteria of the Marine Reserves Act which talks about unduly affecting commercial fishing, customary rights and other recreational existing use of the area. If he decides that all the objections should be upheld then he can approve the reserve, but then he has to pass on all that information to the Ministers of Fisheries and Transport and they do that same exercise.

So in answer to your question, how can you stop it? Obviously providing your input now, which you are, so we know what you think. But then if we do go ahead with an application and I have no idea whether we are going to or not, we don’t have enough information to decide right now. Your other option is to put an objection up to the marine reserve application and the Minister decides whether you are unduly affected or not.

Submissions
Question:
Phil – How much weight is DoC going to place to the large majority of the resident population of Great Barrier Island objecting to a marine reserve going into the next process? Are you going to listen?
Answer: (Emma Rush, DoC)
Of course it’s going to carry weight, but you are saying what you are saying and someone over here is saying what they’re saying so we have to look at all of those opinions and then make some decisions. Your opinion does carry weight, as Jim said before, we’d love to hear from everyone and at the 30th of June we’ll be looking at all of those submissions and probably coming back and talking again.

Question:
Phil – is there a patronising process going on here and are you just going to go away and do what you like? What is the point? Unless what we are doing carries some weight.
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
We would take he islander’s submissions as being more useful than we would somebody 200 miles away. We would probably take the people from the northern area that are directly affected, or more affected than some other people on the island, as more weighted than somebody possibly from way down on the bottom of the island that may not possibly go up there. So that's how we would be doing it.
What we intend to do is form a working group that will consist of a number of people, both from those that oppose, and obviously support and tangata whenua. We'll put them in a room; here are all the submissions, the criteria is, off island, on island.

Question:
Nick Clarke – I am a local resident, was there any input on the area before this was proposed from local people?
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
No, none at all

Question from the floor:
If you alter that proposal will you start from square one again or will you just say you took it to the public and now we’re going to do this?
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
What we do is we consider all submissions that come back and from that we take out what we believe is both a compromise and a workable solution.

Question from the floor:
But that’s when we no longer have a say
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
You do, as Emma has just explained
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
To make it work people have brought up this problem of credibility with DoC. We will be judged on our actions this time. If we want something to work we can’t just roll out our idea.

Other Plans
Question:
Nick – Have you any other proposals or ideas for another reserve in another area say at the top, the Needles would be good. That’s a huge area and I that as far as I am concerned and most of the people I have talked to are totally against this proposal. I wonder if we can have a show of hands for and against just to see where we stand.
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
Can we do that at the end? We will use this proposal as a starting point for all of our discussions. This is what we think, what do you guys think?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
This is not a ‘fait accompli’. This is not a warm fuzzy process, if we didn’t have to be doing this, I wouldn’t be doing this. It is real. It there is overwhelming opposition to that (proposal) it will not happen. I give you that guarantee. But we are optimistic and we are conservationists and yes we may come back with something else. I can’t say we are going to go away forever. I can’t give you that guarantee.

Question:
Peter Riddley – do you have any plans to build facilities so people can enjoy this reserve or is it going to be a closed off area?
Answer: (Dale Tawa, DoC)
It’s dependent on what feedback we get. Some people have already made enquiries about concession options, ‘if a reserve is established will I get first preference in running a sea kayak operation?’. As a Great Barrier resident, yes you will have preference over somebody coming in from a different area. We wont really know till we have established a marine reserve.

Question from the floor:
If and when this process falls over does DoC have a contingency waiting in the wings to present as an alternative? There’s a lot more areas far more suitable from our point of view for a marine reserve. Have you considered them? Have you got something waiting to present when this goes?
Answer: (Jim Flack, DoC)
First part no. I’d be really keen to hear what you thought was suitable. No back up plan. Back up plan hopefully is the submissions. No back up plan.

Comment: (Jim Flack, DoC)
We’re getting closer and closer to Auckland by virtue its getting easier and easier to travel here. The fishing grounds you’ve had to yourselves you’re not going to have forever. There’s 1.3 million people over there. There’s 12 of us here fishing, 1.3M people over the ditch that’s still a problem for the marine life around Great Barrier Island.