Marine – Introducing ‘Hardly Protected Areas’

False promises and pretences are all that remain of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Protection Bill. Despite the tagline to “restore the Hauraki Gulf”, last-minute amendments will exclude public access to prioritise commercial interests. This legislative process has been hijacked by industrial fishing interests to maintain the status quo.

This means no fishing with your family in traditional and sheltered waters close to home. The Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill is about to pass through Parliament. However, the Bill completely misses the boat, failing to implement effective fisheries controls to address key issues contributing to the Gulf’s depletion.



Thousands of hours invested in the Sea Change process have been disregarded. All parties compromised and agreed to establish some marine protected areas, if fisheries tools were also implemented. That’s because you can’t close areas to fishing without reducing existing catch limits, otherwise fishing effort just shifts into smaller areas, quickly depleting them.

The problem is clear – fish abundance and diversity are declining in the Hauraki Gulf. Proposed protected areas are just a stepping stone. The so-called High Protection Areas (HPAs) now offer hardly any protection.

Minister for Conservation Tama Potaka has teased that commercial gill netting could be permitted in protected areas at Kawau Bay, the Noises and Motatapu. Condoning commercial netting from boats without cameras, at night, midwinter raises a red flag. Department of Conservation (DOC) officials advised the minister against this biased move.

DOC’s advice mentions species targeted by gill netters – kahawai, mullet, rig and trevally – can be caught outside the protected areas with minimal impact to commercial fishers. Details of this proposed amendment are scarce, but regardless, local families will still be banned from fishing in these areas under false pretences that the HPAs will restore fish populations. Past research identified that seven of the highest-ranking threats to New Zealand’s marine habitats sadly relate to human activity, including sedimentation, bottom trawling and scallop dredging.

So, effective restoration of the Gulf requires diverse and robust changes to the status quo. Declaring the entire Marine Park as a Type 2 marine protected area would ban mobile bottom contact fishing methods that destroy the sea floor – bottom trawling, dredging and Danish seining. Greater fish abundance and diversity is needed to address the significant loss of productivity in the Gulf.

If the Government is bold enough to designate the Hauraki Gulf as a separate fisheries management area, fish stocks could be reassessed and lower catch limits set to restore all species. Combined with fisheries controls, regional councils need to be held accountable to better manage land run-off and sedimentation from entering our waterways. Coastal hot spots for juvenile fish and spawn are being suffocated by run-off.

The Protection Bill is due to be enacted soon, but it’s not too late to put the pressure on officials and voice your distaste to your local MP. Otherwise, we risk losing more public space just to satisfy commercial demands..