Ross Sea: Antarctic Marine Protection ... Oct-Dec 2016... · 3 ECOlink October-December 2016 ECO...

www.eco.org.nz 1 ECOlink October-December 2016

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2016

NEWSLETTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION ORGANISATIONS OF NEW ZEALAND

Ross Sea: Antarctic Marine Protection Celebrated

It is rare that environmental groups get to celebrate major successes, but this time we really are celebrating the recent major successes at the October 2016 Antarc-tic marine meeting (CCAMLR)

The decision of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR, in Hobart, to create large no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Ross Sea, and some areas of strictly limited fishing, is huge, literally and figuratively. The Ross Sea MPA will give varying measures of protec-tion to 1.55 million km2 of the Ross Sea in the South-ern Ocean which is around Antarctica.

Claire Christian, director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), said “ASOC is thrilled to see that CCAMLR has protected 1.55 million square km of the Ross Sea, 1.12 million square kilometers of which will be fully protected with the remaining area designated as special research zones. We are disap-pointed that CCAMLR could not agree to permanently protect the Ross Sea, however, we are confident that CCAMLR will recognize the value of protecting this area and will renew it in 35 years.”

Cath Wallace of ECO said the Ross Sea was identified by a major scientific study as the least modified ma-rine ecosystem on earth. It is clearly the most impor-tant marine ecosystem to protect. Penguins and other seabirds, killer whales, seals, many kinds of fish but particularly tooth fish and the fantastic corals, starfish, krill and bivalves, and other astonishing sea creatures that live in the Ross Sea, will all stand a much greater chance of surviving and functioning as an intact eco-system with this decision.

The Ross Sea is home to 38% of the world’s Adélie penguins, 26% of Emperor penguins, more than 30% of Antarctic petrels, 6% of Antarctic minke whales, and perhaps more than 30% of “Ross Sea” killer whales. Moreover, it has the richest diversity of fishes

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IN THIS ISSUE:Ross Sea MPA Clebrated 1Join ECO Policy Working Groups 3ECOs compendium of Policies 3MSC Certifies destructive deep sea fishery 4Open Government and Democracy 6ECO’s AGM 2016 7Reflection of Waitangi Tribunal Freshwater Hearing 8Mapping Sensitive Environment’s Project 9FSC national standards and exotic forestry 10NZCA Considers Land classification and other matters 11Massive Sand Mining Proposal Returns 12ECO Withdraws from LAWF 13Resource Legislation Bill delayed again 14The Future of Our Fisheries Review 15IUCN World Congress and Policy Matters 16

ecolink

The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area will result in the fish-ery moving north and away from the more biodiverse shelf and slope. Grahic: Antarctic Oceans Alliance

2 www.eco.org.nz ECOlink October-December 2016

Ross Sea: Antarctic Marine Protection celebrated

CCAMLR also made progress on krill management and protection of collapsing ice shelves so as to allow the effects to be researched prior to any commercial fishing in new areas.

ASOC was pleased that CCAMLR progressed its work toward fully regulating the krill fishery in the South-ern Ocean. Renewing Conservation Measure 51-07 helps to spread krill fishing and that the catch limit is at a precautionary level. Concentrated fishing can put added pressure on penguin and seal colonies, especial-ly during the breeding season.

“The renewal of this measure will protect penguins, seals and other krill predators from the risk of starva-tion,” said Rodolfo Werner, ASOC senior adviser.

CCAMLR also introduced a risk assessment proc-ess that will enhance their capacity to respond to the impacts of fishing and climatic changes on krill-reliant predators.

CCAMLR took small but important steps towards ad-dressing climate change during the meeting. There was agreement to develop a climate change workplan to address major scientific questions and fill information gaps. An intersessional discussion among CCAMLR Members on enhancing consideration of climate change impacts will also continue.

ASOC urged CCAMLR to move more quickly to incorporate climate change and ocean acidification into its decision-making process and management rules.

At last, a substantial gain for the Antarctic marine environment. This time in 2017, the MPA will take effect. It’s time to celebrate!

in the high latitude Southern Ocean, including seven species found nowhere else.

It is time to celebrate the combined efforts of ASOC, the Antarctic Ocean Alliance, and their member or-ganisations and supporters, Peter Young, of Fisheye Films, who made the Last Ocean movie which raised awareness immensely. We congratulate too all the sci-entists, officials, politicians and diplomats for achiev-ing a major conservation success with protection or safeguarding chunks of the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

Minister Murray McCully, New Zealand’s diplomatic team led by Jillian Dempster, the science teams and conservation groups including ECO, ASOC, the Ant-arctic Ocean Alliance, The Last Ocean team and all our supporters should all take a bow. This result is a joint effort. An essential ingredient was sustained public pressure and the tenacious work of non-governmental organisations, including ECO, who launched the idea. There have been years of effort and careful diplomacy by New Zealand and the USA to achieve the result.

ECO’s Barry Weeber was at the CCAMLR meeting that achieved this result, and he has worked for years for this result and provided much technical support. He deserves our congratulations for his efforts and the outcome.

The success is substantial but is not everything that is needed. Opposition from some countries and fish-ing industry interests in several countries blocked full protection for the whole Ross Sea. We are still work-ing to establish protected areas in another 18 areas in the Southern Ocean. Proposals from Australia and Germany for protection of East Antarctic areas and the Weddell Sea, respectively, have not yet been approved and need urgent attention.

On the Ross Sea, concessions had to be made, but we can build more conservation around what we have, as people understand better that more protection is need-ed. We would have preferred that the protection is for the whole of the Ross Sea and that it is permanent - but pressure from two resource-hungry nations prevented that. But good on them for agreeing to the protection gained. It is disappointing that so-called “research fishing” has been allowed and that the northern tooth fish spawning banks and the eastern areas of the Ross Sea are not better protected.

The MPA formally comes into force on 1 December 2017, the start of next year’s Antarctic fishing year. Over the next year there are a range of transitional measures that need to be developed and implemented at next year’s CCAMLR meeting including an agreed research and monitoring plan.

Penguins and other top predators will be protected by the Ross Sea MPA

Photo: John Weller.

Thanks to John for all the great photos and as-sistance in the MPA campaign.


ECO Policy and Working Groups

ECO’s compendium of policies by Cath WallaceIn ECO’s 45 years of existence, our members have adopted a wide range of policies, and the 2016 AGM continued that tradition. Keeping track of those policies has also been a task that the Policy team at ECO has taken on. Jenny Baker, Cath Wallace, and a number of volunteers supervised by Michael Pringle, ECO’s Executive Officer, have compiled a draft com-pendium of policies. It is not yet complete because of the job of typing up for electronic storage of the older Resolutions that ECO’s AGMs have passed.

For several General Election cycles ECO worked with member and non-member environmental and recrea-tional non-governmental organisations to develop a

portfolio of policies that we recommend the incoming government – of whatever hue - to adopt. This has helped our internal policy making and has often set the agenda for consideration by parties and by officials.

ECO’s collation or our policy compendium is still not finished, but it can be viewed at the ECO website. The Committee has resolved to review the policies with a view to considering gaps, redundancies and those which have been overtaken by events. We will not remove any policies but a review might be worthwhile.

If you are interested in this process of review, please let us know. We particularly welcome input from ECO member bodies and Friends of ECO.

Join ECO’s policy Working Groups:

The mechanics of ECO’s policy development work is done by working groups which report to the Executive Committee and to the Member bodies via the AGMs and Annual Reports. We were rather stretched last time we called for nominations to working groups and we apologise for not following up on all those good people who were nominated.

ECO has a number of working groups which assist our work on environmental issues, to provide for more input from Members and Friends and interested indi-viduals in the wider environmental community in NZ.

The groups provide analysis, background and com-mentary to current and ongoing environmental is-sues. They provide a means for Member Groups to contribute to ECO’s work. They also provide a basis for research on which there may currently be no other interest group working.

The groups work on issues of a regional, national and international scale.

We are now calling for suggestions for members of these groups – you may wish to nominate yourself, or members of your ECO Member Group, or others whom you know who may be interested in making a greater commitment.

The groups are as follows:

(1) Improved environmental management and laws

(2) Conservation, biosecurity and biodiversity

(3) Oceans, marine and fisheries

(4) International, IUCN, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean

(5) Climate Change and Energy

(6) Open democratic and participative society

(7) Policy and promotion of our environmental vision

Most of these groups have subgroups working on specific subject matter – for instance the Policy and Promotion group (7) has a subgroup delegated to work on Vote for the Environment, which will be important as we head into election year in 2017.

Some of these groups have already developed briefs and have members and a coordinator.

We need a range of skills, backgrounds, expertise, so this is a first call for suggestions and expressions of interest. We cannot guarantee every suggestion will be accepted but we would be very grateful for:

• The name and contacts of both the person or group making the suggestion, and those suggested.

• A paragraph or two on any person suggested.

• For each person suggested we will need also an indication of whether they have any conflicts of interest with the working group or ECO’s mandate, and with ECO’s overall goals and objectives.

• An indication of whether the person concerned has been consulted prior to them being suggested to us.

• An indication of whether the person belongs to an ECO member group, if that is known. We are par-ticularly keen to have people from ECO member groups, but that is not essential.

The work is unpaid – it is voluntary, like most of our work, and ECO mostly cannot help with expenses, but we would welcome expressions of interest and nomi-nations. Forward a nomination to the ECO office by emailing: [email protected]


MSC Certifies Destructive Deep Sea Fishery

Marine Stewardship Council Certifies Destructive Deep Sea Fishery

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), ECO, Greenpeace and BLOOM have slammed a decision by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to certify the New Zealand deep-water bottom trawl fishery for orange roughy as “sustainable” and “well managed”. MSC describes its certified fish as “respon-sibly caught”.

ECO along with DSCC, Greenpeace and BLOOM objected to the proposal to certify three New Zealand orange roughy stocks – Challenger (ORH7A) and Chatham Rise (part of ORH3B). WWF also separately appealed the certification. A decision from the adjudi-cator in early December rejected all the appeals which involved a joint hearing in London in late October.

“This is a farce and the public can no longer have confidence in MSC certification” said DSCC founder Matthew Gianni. “If the MSC can certify this fishery, which threatens to destroy deep sea corals and other long-lived and vulnerable deep sea species and habi-tats, as ‘sustainable’ and describe the fish as ‘respon-sibly caught’, then it lacks any credibility. The MSC should either be fundamentally reformed or replaced by a standard that the public can have confidence in.”

ECO’s Barry Weeber said that “The New Zealand orange roughy fishery history has been one of se-rial depletion and repeated stock crashes. It was not enough for the assessor to say that he understands concerns about past fishery performance and current uncertainties. The unsustainability of orange roughy fish stocks is a crucial concern and anyone who buys orange roughy can have no confidence that the fishery is sustainable.”

“The conclusion that fisheries would continue to be fished along existing tow lines is simply wrong,” said Claire Nouvian of the French conservation organiza-tion BLOOM, which also objected to the fishery. “This is a serial depletion fishery which relies on continuing to find new fisheries to deplete.”

“It is a travesty that this obviously unsustainable fish-ery, which has been demonstrably overfished for many years, has been certified by MSC,” said Oliver Know-

les, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace New Zea-land. “But it’s hardly a surprise. It follows many other controversial fisheries we have fought against but were certified anyway. The MSC is clearly broken, without urgent reform it now risks setting the sustainable sea-food movement back by misleading consumers.”

WWF Fisheries Director, Alfred Schumm, stated, “We understand that the certification of this unsustainable fishery, without adequately applying the precautionary principle and considering the destructive impact of the fishing practice, will have irreversible, harmful conse-quences for the environment”.

“This outcome raises significant questions about the objections procedure. Identifying needed improve-ments in both science and governance is essential in the usual evolution of any standards and certification programs. WWF will be actively encouraging the MSC to learn from the orange roughy case and following up to seek important improvements in the MSC certifica-tion process,” Mr Schumm said.

Problems with MSC

The certification of environmental destructive fisheries by the MSC has been a concern for ECO for over 10 years.

The certification process and review body is a closed shop when compared to the Forest Certification body the Forest Stewardship Council.

A number of problems exist with the MSC system of certification. These include:

Firstly the certifiers are paid by the fisheries client which gives them an inherent conflict of interest.

Secondly, MSC itself is funded by a fee and a royalty percentage of certified fish sold. This gives MSC a financial incentive to certify fisheries.

Thirdly the criteria and procedures give all the power to the certifier (CAB) to determine the default criteria, who the audit team are, and the outside reviewers. In the orange roughy process the certifiers rejected suggested to change the default decision tree, use the updated criteria, and issues over the outside reviewers.

Fourthly, objections can be made only according to very rigid criteria. Objections must be filed within 15 days of the certification - including evidence. In a nor-mal appeal system the notice of appeal or similar may be required within 15 days, but the evidence always follows later.

This puts an enormous burden on would-be objec-tors, whereas the certifier has had up to 2 years, and


MSC Certifies Destructive Deep Sea Fishery

has been funded by the fishing industry, to prepare the foundations of its case. That mattered in the orange roughy case, since a lot of documents were ruled inad-missible by the adjudicator because they had not been cited earlier, or because they came out days after the final report was released -notwithstanding that they were highly relevant to the certification.

Fifthly, the independent adjudicator is given very limited discretion by MSC. It is not a full (“de novo”) appeal from the decision of the CAB. Instead, the standard is that the “decision was arbitrary or unrea-sonable in the sense that no reasonable CAB could have reached such a decision on the evidence available to it”.

So the independent assessor cannot say “on the weight of probabilities this fishery is not sustainable”, instead they have to find that no reasonable assessor would have reached that decision.

Sixthly, fisheries are certified on the basis of rules that MSC itself lays down. So, in the case of orange roughy, whereas the international standard is that there should be no “significant adverse impacts” on “vul-nerable marine ecosystems” (VMEs) (such as deep sea corals), under the MSC certification, it is ok that deep sea corals are destroyed. The CAB said “information on Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs)” is “not relevant” (Decision para 21).

The MSC test applied was totally different: MRAG (the certifier) adopted the entire Kermadec region as the test (the ‘denominator’) and having done that, therefore almost inevitably determined the impacts (the ‘numerator’) “will not reduce habitat structure and function to a point where there would be serious or ir-reversible” (paragraph 49).

DSCC were very critical of this: in our view, it is the ‘drop in the ocean’ excuse (‘we are only damaging a little bit’). In our strong submission, the issue was the damage caused to the vulnerable marine ecosystems, which countries have agreed to protect. In the MSC world, it is ok, it seems, to destroy vulnerable marine ecosystems (e.g. para15 MRAG argued: “whatever lo-cal harm the fisheries may cause, the overall impact of fisheries is highly limited.”)

Seventhly, another critical issue was where the fishing boats are fishing: not where they are not fishing. But the certifiers argued that various marine protected areas - most completely irrelevant to orange roughy fishing (such as inshore shallow MPAs close to land or those in much deeper water) amounted to a ‘management strategy’, and, worse, argued that fishing vessels tend to keep to existing ‘tow paths’ (where they deploy their nets - in a complete absence of regulation requiring

them to do so (paragraph 95 etc).

In fact, history shows that orange roughy fisheries are a serial depletion fishery, and that far from keeping to ‘tow paths’, the fishing industry seek out new grounds after having exhausted old grounds.

On fishing, the models were just that: computer models based on inadequate data. When we argued that there should have been video surveys and sampling, the assessor found that “It may be that it would be desir-able to have video surveys and sampling as part of the informational mix. The lack of information from such particular sources, however, scarcely means that the collection of information is so deficient that the fisher-ies must fail under this PI” (Performance Indicator). (para 102)

The DSCC group said that one positive stock assess-ment in 2014 (of one stock) is not enough to rely upon to conclude that the fisheries are sustainable (para 15). The assessor said that (para 70):

“I understand the WWF and DSCC Group’ s concerns about past fishery performance and current uncertain-ties and about how they might disagree with MRAG. But it is difficult to say that MRAG made a mistake of material fact, failed to consider material informa-tion or was arbitrary or unreasonable in relying on the stock assessment report and information derived from that report in considering PI. Ultimately, fisheries science judgments are within the province of the CAB, and, on questions involving the sifting and weighing of evidence, deference to the CAB is warranted.”

So it is the certifiers judgement that rules in the end.

ECO has had other issues of concern over the way submissions are considered by CABs and the engage-ment of CABs and MSC with non-industry groups and officials.

Other concerns involve how fisheries failures which are dealt with as corrective actions are reviewed and removed as a requirement. There is no appeal process on removal of corrective actions.


Open Government Action - ECO’s Survey

“Open government makes it harder to govern, but even harder to govern badly”

Open Government and Democracy by Cath Wallace

The ECO Open, Democratic and Participative Gov-ernment and Society Working Group, comprising Jan Rivers (of Public Good), Richie Miller, Cath Wallace and with help from others, surveyed ECO members and a much wider population of people and groups in civil society to find out what they wanted as part of the 2016-18 Open Government Action Plan.

We then made the results available to civil society and to the States Services Commission which belatedly organized some workshops and other mechanisms to get ideas for the Plan, part of the Government’s com-mitments to the Intergovernmental and Civil Society Open Government Partnership.

ECO had despaired of the Government’s feeble 2014-16 Open Government Action Plan and the lack of government action to organise processes for civil society to express their views. Our Survey was done as a “rolling snowball” survey where those interested could pass it on to others. This was because we wanted ideas and proposals from interested people and organi-sations, not a random sample of public opinion.

Gratifyingly, in the short three weeks we had the sur-vey circulating, we received 380 responses, with 130 individuals and eight organisations waiving rights of anonymity and saying that they wanted to work further with ECO on open government and democracy. ECO cut the time for the circulation of the survey to enable us to feed in ideas to the State Services Commission development of the Open Government Action Plan 2016-18.

The report of initial results of the survey – the quan-titative and quickly reportable results - were made available to those at a workshop organised by the State Services Commission. The reporting on the many suggestions in the qualitative section of the survey is largely done thanks to the work of Jan Rivers and Richie Miller and we expect to issue the report in the New Year.

We need further resources and help to engage more with those organisations the individuals who want to work with ECO on this. Finishing the report is our next big challenge with two of the Exec members overcommitted. We are promoting open government and democracy in many forums.

The State Services Commission belatedly in mid-year passed the carriage of the development of the 2016-18 and 2018-2020 Open Government Action Plans to Alistair Morrison, former senior journalist at RNZ National and Director General of DoC, now, Deputy State Services Commissioner. Morrison was dismiss-ive of some of the points ECO raised at the workshop

and through the website consultation, but we do sense there is now a bit more commitment to doing a better job on this process for 2018-2020. The SSC disestab-lished the Advisory Group that they had set up, and then largely ignored, and has established a new expert committee.

The 2016-18 National Action Plan is marginally better than the 2014-16 one which was derisory and consisted of work already underway passed off as part of the OGP Actions.. The recently announced 2016-18 Ac-tion Plan is still underwhelming and has one element in it that was not discussed at workshops but seems to be designed to conform to corporate desires and TPP commitments to have all regulations available in one virtual space. Rather than addressing Open Govern-ment it seems in one section to be about Open Data. You can find out more about the Open Government Partnership and the current plan at the Open Govern-ment Partnership website at http://www.ogp.org.nz/

This ECO working group also made submissions on the Intelligence and Security Review and the subse-quent hearings, and ECO has included the need for participative, democratic and open society and govern-ment matters in many of our other work, including in our submissions on the Resource Legislation Amend-ment Bill, the work of the Mapping of Sensitive En-vironments projects, particularly in relation to central and local government disclosure of data in shape files without charge, and in many other contexts.

ECO welcomes further input to our Open Government and Democracy work including input from our Mem-bers and Friends. Please send suggestions and offers of help and resources to [email protected]


Pohutukawa Steam Cream

ECO AGM 2016

Now at half price as a special for ECO Friends and Supporters.

$15 per 80g jar (plus $3 p and p anywhere in NZ).

All proceeds go to ECO.

This excellent moisturising cream contains fresh, natural ingredients: Pohutukawa extract, harakeke extract, Jojoba seed oil, Sweet almond oil, Shea butter, Avocado oil, Rosemary leaf extract, etc. The ingredients are fused with steam instead of chemi-cals.

The manufacturers also manufacture leading brands such as Trilogy and Wildferns.

You can order by emailing ECO at [email protected] and making a payment directly to our bank ac-count: 38 9016 0185477 00 or phone 04 385 7545

ECO’s AGM 2016 - Policy and programme for 2016-2017

At ECO’s AGM on 13 August 2016, in Auckland, several policy issues were decided and the Executive Committee was elected. Departing Exec members were thanked, including Geoff Keey (who is working for Forest and Bird now). This account of the AGM is of course subject to the next AGM’s approval of the minutes.

The new Executive Committee comprises the follow-ing, with positions to which they were elected at a subsequent planning weekend of the Executive:

Diana Shand , Barry Weeber (co-chairs); Cath Wallace and Betsan Martin (vice-chairs), Jim Kebbel (Treas-urer), Tony Dean (Secretary) Augusta Mackassey-Pickard (Whitianga), Richard Miller, Ian Shearer.

The AGM set priorities for the coming year, and reviewed the extensive work - and some successes of the previous year. These include:

To collaborate, coordinate and catalyse policies and actions in relation to:

(a) Antarctic and the Southern Ocean;

(b) Working on climate change action and reporting including reductions in GHG and especially in coal, oil, mining and gas;

(c) Marine and fisheries management;

(d) Open society, democracy participation and due process;

(e) Promoting the ECO vision [incl ECO’s constitu-tional changes, non-partisan rasing of election issues, environmental education, submissions and advocacy];

(f) Environmental Management and Law including the Resource Legislation Amdenndment Bill, the RMA, EEZ&CSA, Mining and exotic forestry;

(g) Protection of biodiversity, conservation, biosecu-rity.

The AGM was held in the context of a day-long conference on governance, policies and practice to improve fresh water quality and aquatic ecosystems, and another day-long discussion of actions to tackle climate change.

It was interesting stuff and we particularly thank all the speakers and those who contributed in the discussions.

Policy motions adopted included:

• In principle support for a tourism tax on foreign visitors which is additional funding for DOC.

• That Department of Conservation funding should be restored to a minimum of the 2007 funding lev-els prior to the 2008 budget cuts.

After considerable discussion of the pros and cons of the LAWF (Land and Water Forum) process: That ECO withdraw from the LAWF and cites reasons. Our reasons are discussed in this issue of ECOLink.

The AGM also confirmed pre-circulated proposed constitutional changes to make our constitution more inclusive of Maori and Treaty issues and less anthro-pocentric so that our work is for the future, human and non-human and the environment itself.

Other, usual business such as the presentation and adoption of the Annual Report and the Accounts and Audit report were also duly done. The many volun-teers who keep ECO’s work going were also thanked.


Donate to ECOYou can donate to ECO via our

“givealittle” page www.givealittle.co.nz/org/ECO

or directly via internet banking 38-9016-0185477-00

(donations over $5 are tax deductible)

Reflections of Waitangi Tribunal Freshwater hearing

Plentiful Freshwater - How to Combine Māori Interests, Quality, Fair Access and Distribution?

These following are reflections on the Waitangi Tribunal Freshwater Hearing.

Treaty based restitution of freshwater is perplexing because of the Crown’s position that no-one owns water. This has the effect of forcing debates on the care and use freshwater into an ownership framework, and away from stewardship and kaitiakitanga.

The Waitangi Tribunal hearings on Freshwater in November threaded together law, history, and economics alongside Treaty (in)justness and cultural interpretation, and the riches of on-the-ground knowledge of Māori relationships with water. These relationships encompass spiritual and sacred practices, washing, healing, fish and other food, economic interests and trading; all this under the auspices of rangatira-tanga, or Iwi and hapū governance.

Decisions about land use and links with business and par-ties wanting consents for water and agreements for chang-ing land use, such as from forestry to dairy, lie with local government. This is where the spotlight falls for seeing how law is put into practice and whose interests are represented on district councils and regional government.

Poroti Springs near Whangarei and Lake Omapere, near Kaikohe,, are two of the case studies of local government decisions and practices which have had the cumulative effect of removing hapū from authority over their waters, and access to those waters. The hapū ‘acquiesced’ in the Whangarei District Council 1973 ‘consent’ to take water from Poroti Springs for Whangarei town supply, on the understanding that water was to be shared as a public good. However, according to oral evidence at the Tribunal hear-ings, the consent was to take 23 million litres of water per day, when the total volume of the Poroti Spring is 14 million litres per day. By 1983 the Spring dried up, and there was no water in the spring to support uses of the Hapü.

Poroti is an example of an issue throughout New Zealand – over-allocation of water. There are numerous examples of consents for far more water than is actually used. Zodiac Holdings, now New Zealand spring water, has a consent for 2500 cubic meters that has not been used. This is an

example of water banking, a situation of holding consents for water and not utilizing the resource, this prevents others from getting access to water.

In other situations such as Omapere, the land use changes have led to dairy farming with accompanying Regional Council approvals for irrigation. Farms adjacent adjacent to the Lake mean that pollution and algae bloom and depleted water levels make the lake too polluted for water use.

The RMA is central to the Waitangi Tribunal freshwater hearings as this is the primary legislation for the governance of freshwater. In the opening presentations to the Tribunal reference was made to two of the guiding principles of the RMA: stewardship and the principles of the Treaty of Wait-angi. The declining quality of freshwater and the disregard for Maori interests signify two significant failures of crown governance.

This failure of governance was underlined by Dr. Mike Joy in evidence to the Tribunal on the failure to measure the decline of water quality. Many people at the Hearing thought Dr Joy’s evidence on Freshwater was a highlight because it was based on ecosystems science which aligns with the in-tegrated approach of Te Ao Maori. A few of the points made by Mike Joy include his claim that the focus on nitrogen and phosphorous as indicators or water quality is errone-ous because it fails to take account of the ecosystem and the habitat of the water body.

Habitat condition is the crucial measure of a healthy eco-system. This is why there has been strong advocacy for macro-invertebrates index to be included in the National Objectives Framework (NOF) for freshwater. Speaking of the significance of macro-invertebrates as an indicator of the health of a water ecosystem, Dr Joy said freshwater ‘insects are the measure of integration’. Dr Joy also emphasized that snapshot sampling is a faulty method for assessing water quality. This involves taking a small glass of water from a river or lake periodically to measure water quality. However this fails to pick up the variation that occurs at different times of day and in different conditions.

One of the most compelling arguments Dr joy presented was that Next Steps to Freshwater actually weakens the guidelines for water monitoring and quality. He illustrated this by showing that the change in the standards for nitrogen levels that increased from1 to 6, and the allowance for E. coli moved from 260 units to 1000 units. In both cases the

Maori interest in water is more than funelling it into a use framework.

by Betsan Martin


Reflections of Waitangi Tribunal Freshwater hearing

standards have been lowered.

Alongside Dr Joy’s challenges to advancing degradation of water were examples of breaches of rules by local govern-ment. One emerged through a reprimand from the Environ-ment Court for a Council continuing to discharge into a river well after an consent expired. Another was of dairy farmers paying the regional council to permit them to flush effluent into the river during floods, when monitoring is not done.

Further significant points were emphasized during the Hear-ings. Iwi interests cannot be reduced to a ‘use’ in a resource; they have a greater interest than a ‘use’ right. The Treaty provides for tino rangatiratanga over Taonga – fisheries, forests, language, waters. This means authoritative decision-making.

Those presenting the case for Maori ownership of water showed the exercise of those interests and authority in water include decisions about discharges, use of gravel, fisheries, and other resources, access for use, prohibitions on use, and trading activities. These all exercise the authority over water which is multidimensional, and includes commercial inter-ests and safeguards or controls which equates with owner-ship. Another line of thought argued was that Maori interests are far more than ‘use’ of water – they extend to a relation-ship with water with spiritual values and traditional inter-ests with whakapapa, or genealogical dimensions. It was reiterated by many hapu representatives that Maori propriety interests are not confined to Maori only concerns, rather that propriety interests extend to general public interests as well, in line with governance responsibilities.

Maori relationship with water is recognized in Next Steps for Freshwater, the Ministry for Environment Consultation document through the framework of Te Mana o Te Wai, and the provision of Māori relationship with freshwater. Elabora-tion of the meaning and significance of ‘relationship’ was identified as an area for further elaboration at the Tribunal hearings. Māori interest are far greater than commercial interests –commercial interests and consent holding are but one dimension of Maori interests in water. A consent is a use allocation awarded by regional councils and not a Treaty based interest. *

One of the themes that ran through the evidence was the holistic systems in Maori traditions, and the view was expressed that common law does not take adequate account of the integrated whole for water. Hence the need for a brief snapshot of how the management of freshwater came to become fragmented.

Fragmentation occurred through a series of legislative changes – firstly in the early 1900’s, the beds of navigable rivers were vested in the crown. The water column itself was then separated from the bed in terms of ownership and jurisdiction. This had the effect of creating the fractured governance and legal system of waterways. The Treaty set-tlements legislation seeks to resolve this fragmentation, such as in the Whanganui River Settlement. While the fragmenta-tion through historic legislation persists in some respects, 1991 RMA seeks to address fragmentation such as separated

jurisdictions for land management, for river and lake beds and freshwater, for coastal and marine areas. The wholistic ecosystems of rivers and lakes and land and ocean are frag-mented by disconnected legal and policy regimes.

Where we have great complexity in this issue is that West-minster derived notions of ownership, which are usually located in individualized saleable interests, whereas Maori interests are in common property with an inalienable dimen-sion. One of the repeated issues for Maori is that the beds of rivers and lakes are indivisible from the water column; both are part of a dynamic interactive aquatic system. Owners of Poroti springs were considered to be Trustees, and as such made Poroti into a Reserve.

The idea of trusteeship could well be developed further for the governance of freshwater. Public Trusteeship is a frame-work for safeguarding common goods for public benefit.

The hearing included a proposal for a Freshwater Commis-sion - with scientists and representation of the Crown and Maori to manage water. The idea of payment for commercial use was debated. One of the startling things that emerged was that the current cost of consents is only to cover the Re-gional Council processing costs - the water is taken for free.

The situations, such as at Poroti and Omapere, need local so-lutions that are enabled at the national level. Next Steps for Freshwater provides some scope for Maori to define their relationship to water through the framework of Te Mana o Te Wai – a section of this water consultation document.

The Claim on Freshwater is to determine whether the 1991 Resource Management Act and the new Government policy proposals in Next Steps for Freshwater, comply with Treaty of Waitangi agreements? The claim itself is to be in 4 stages, and the latest hearing was Stage 2. A Geothermal Inquiry will be next, in March 2017.

Taking a step back from the detail shows the major issues of fragmented policy which needs radical mending to create coherence with legal frameworks aligned with the intercon-nected systems in nature. A new framework of trustee-ship would introduce a public good dimension to resource management and might offer way out of contestation over ownership. This is not to resile from restitution for alienated freshwater, nor to deter a Treaty based approach to trustee-ship, and to a Freshwater Commission.

Wholistic water management means joining the bed and the water back together.


Mapping Sensitive Environments project

ECO Mapping Sensitive Environments project Intern - Marie Nestler

My name is Marie Nestler and I am studying in the fifth semester - doing a Bachelor in Environmental Monitoring at the University of Applied Sciences in Dresden in Germany, specialising in species conserva-tion and geographic information system.

I have joined the ECO team in the office in Wellington CBD as an intern research officer working on a project for mapping sensitive environments in New Zealand. The project topic was developed by Cath Wallace and with the help of Richie Miller and the expert in map-ping and the relevant databases, Paul Hughes from OpenGeo, the ultimate goal is to achieve a national mapping tool available to conservation minded people and groups.

I am working on a research project to identify and map sensitive environments in New Zealand includ-ing in our EEZ. The goal is to allow ECO members and other to see these sensitive environments in map

layers at different scales as people desire. Sensitive environments include, but are not limited to, public conservation and other land held by the NZ govern-ment; reserve land including that held by local govern-ment; environmentally sensitive private land and other land that is sensitive such as Maori land, private land under private protection such as QEII covenants, and areas identified by local authority plans as Outstanding Natural Features and Landscapes or Significant Flora and Fauna.

We are working to allow people to then see, superim-posed on these sensitive environments, certain kinds of permits for any development activities, such as the mining industry has for prospecting, exploration and mining permits. We are still in the project proving stage, and are experimenting with web-based availabil-ity and real-time updating from official databases.

Paul Hughes, the principal of Geo of has provided ECO with lots of expertse and has developed a handy web-based tmapping tool for using existing open-source public data bases. This will give you an idea of the sort of thing we are aiming at.

See http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=5175cae6626b424a98e02d45b5ac99b5 for a partially completed example of what can be achieved for any type of development.

This project will involves finding ways to cross check development activities, with Conservation, Steward-ship and other public or protected land, and then also to examine for some areas, the local authority land, planning and ecological classifications. Some Councils however are unwilling to share their shape files or want significant payments for these. ECO’s team on the pilot project and development phase has been entirely unpaid and we have no resources for such payments as we develop this tool to help the public. We are look-ing for partners to help with the technical and financial side of this project.

During my backpacking trips through Europe, Brazil, the USA, Canada and Asia, I got to know nature and learned to appreciate it very keenly. I want to learn much more about our environment, preferably together with people having similar ambitions.

Working with ECO is great and I am very grateful that ECO offers me the opportunity to gain confidence and knowledge in this field, also to contribute my own ideas and learn more about the actual work. Besides that, I appreciate being able to see a part of the world I haven’t studied yet and to learn more about New Zealand in all its facets.

Terrestrial and Sensitive Environments - Coromandel Peninsula

Note: Mineral licence areas are indicated by red lines.

Stippled areas are those protected by schedule 4 of the Crown minrals Act.


Forest Stewardship Council National Standards

Forest Stewardship Council National Standards and exotic forestry

NZ Forest Accord

ECO’s working group on Improved Environmental Management and Law has a sub group that works on exotic forestry. Key aspects of that work includes par-ticipating in the exchange of views and ideas with the members of the New Zealand Forest Accord of 1991. ECO has has worked collaboratively with forest indus-try interests to develop common policies on climate change and forests, both indigenous and exotic.

Accord parties marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the NZ Forest Accord with an event in Wel-lington and a meeting in which we discussed several issues, including: climate change policies; and the convening of a group to develop good practice guide-lines for forestry contractors and others to avoid the spread of weeds and pathogens such as Kauri die-back on forestry equipment and contractors’ gear.

Forest Stewardship Council

Work in relation to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and its National Standards review and revi-sion has been led by Colin Saunders of Timberlands, with environmental input from Bill Gilbertson, the coordinator of such work for ECO, and ecologist Meg Graeme both members of the FSC National Standards Development Group.

The submissions period has been extended until 5.00pm 13 January 2017. ECO invites Members, Friends and others to send us input for our submission on the matter. The draft proposed FSC standards and other information can be found at https://nz.fsc.org/en-nz/policies/public-consultations and submissions should be sent to Colin Maunder Chair – NZ FSC Standard Development Group, Timberlands Limited, PO Box 1284, Rotorua New Zealand or [email protected] .

Suggested text and other material for the ECO submis-sion should be sent to [email protected] with the subject line FSC Standards.

GE Trees

The FSC global Standards currently prohibit the use of genetically modified plants so we were surprised when WoodCo, the body of growers and processers of timber in New Zealand issued a statement calling for GMOs to be permitted in New Zealand forestry. Since many of the companies that grow trees have forests that are FSC certified, such a policy may point to them wanting to change the FSC rules on GE. They also appear to be backing the Government’s moves under the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill for it to deny Councils the right to decide whether to allow GE in their region and district, and instead hand this function to the EPA.

The message from the NZ Forest Owners Association summarized the changes that the timber industry wants and it invited responses:

“Woodco, which is the pan-industry council compris-ing the Forest Owners Association, Farm Forestry Association, the Wood Processing and Manufacturing Association, and the Forest Industry Contractors As-sociation, has recently put out a position statement on biotechnology.” “The statement is available here:

http://woodco.org.nz/images/Woodco_Biotechnology-PositionStatement_101116_public.pdf

“In essence the paper states that Woodco considers “that the benefits of biotechnology have the potential to improve sustainability by contributing positively to a number of environmental and production challenges. Our view is therefore to support and endorse biotech-nology (including genetic manipulation techniques) research and deployment, where appropriate, in New Zealand, to capture the net benefits for the industry and New Zealand, while ensuring protocols and proc-esses reduce any potential for harm.”

“Woodco believes the Environmental Protection Agency is the appropriate regulatory body to consider approvals, not regional or district councils.”

We welcome your feedback and comments on the paper, either directly to me by return email [email protected]”

ECO is also interested in your views on this. Grant Rosoman of Greenpeace has written to Woodco ask-ing whether the companies with FSC certified forests intend to abandon the FSC in the light of the New Zealand industry GE policy endorsement.

Resource Management processes

The ECO Exotic Forestry sub working group has been trying to keep an eye of what the government and councils are doing in relation to forestry, both in relation to climate change policy and in relation to the proposed National Environmental Standards under the Resource Management Act, but these always seem to be with MPI and not yet available to ECO.


NZCA Considers land reclassification and other matters

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NZCA considers land reclassification, land disposal, policies and more

Minutes of the October 2016 meeting of the NZ Con-servation Authority (NZCA) reveal that it sometimes retreats behind closed doors to discuss matters from which it wants to exclude the public. These include cases where there is discussion of concessions on DoC land, including protected land. This could include minerals consents, tourism and other consents.

Though the topics of these non-public discussions are listed in the agenda for the meeting in broad terms, the public minutes themselves do not even say what the broad topic is. Functions of NZCA include land reclassification and disposal recommendations

The functions of NZCA are important, and include giv-ing advice to the Minister of Conservation in respect of the Conservation Act 1987 and associated legislation.

NZCA’s functions relate to advice on statements of General Policy, approval of conservation management strategies (CMS) and plans, advice to the Director General (D-G) and Minister of Conservation on the ef-fectiveness of DoC in relation to General Policies. All of these functions relate to policies, plans, and Man-agement Strategies, etc prepared under the above Acts.

The NZCA also has the authority “to investigate any nature conservation or other conservation matters the Authority considers are of national importance, and to advise the Minister or the D-G, as appropriate, on such matters.” You can see at least some of the advice it has given to the Minister and D-G on the NZCA

website (see below).

DoC land classifications & disposals, Net Conserva-tion Benefit, law changes proposed

Significantly, NZCA also has a role in proposing changes “of status or classification of areas of national and international importance.”

According to the Minutes of the October NZCA meet-ing, DoC has processes underway both to dispose of land and buildings, and to reclassify land and to re-categorise the conservation designation of land. This is potentially cause for concern for conservation.

The nature of such changes can be seen in more detail in a paper cited in the Minutes, and on the NZCA web-site. There is disquiet in some quarters that at least one Member of NZCA has represented coal mining com-panies wanting access to DoC land and who is known to favour land swaps and other “off sets”. He also has roles in a range of conservation initiatives and bodies. It is understood that he had a major part in the paper.

The January 2016 paper suggests that using the “Net Conservation Benefit” Test could be applied with no change to the Conservation Act. If that were so, it would go “under the radar”. It may have been that this was the basis of the DoC decision on the land involved in the Ruataniwha Dam: a decision that Forest and Bird took to Judicial Review, and which then went to the Court of Appeal, and DoC was found to have made an incorrect decision. An interesting report on this case by AUT law academic, Vernon Rive, can be found at http://www.vernonrive.com/.

Of further concern is the suggestion in the NZCA paper that changes to the Conservation Act criteria and the test in S16A to enable greater land swapping and Net Conservation Benefit could be made either by no law change or via a Supplementary Order Paper to the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill in Parlia-ment. This proposed mechanism would mean that it would be done once the Bill is reintroduced and thus the proposed changes would likely not be the subject of public submissions. We deplore the suggestion of this mechanism to change law of great significance to conservation and to the public – and of course to min-ing and energy companies.

Most conservation organisations have long asked that DoC get busy reclassifying Stewardship land to bet-ter protect conservation values that may be at risk.The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released a major report in 2013 calling for a review of stewardship land. Last year the PCE called on DoC to “pick up the pace”. The PCE noted that: “Compared with other categories of conservation land, the legal

by Cath Wallace


Massive Marine Sand Mine Proposal Returns - TTR

Massive Marine Sand Mine Proposal Returns - TTR

Seabed mining company Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) has gain applied to the Environmental Protec-tion Agency (EPA) to mine 50 million tonnes a year for 20 years in 66 km2 of the seabed in the South Taranaki Bight.

Submissions closed in on 12 December on the pro-posal. Originally submissions on the application for consent was to close on 14 October 2016. Attempts by the EPA and TTR to suppress from evidence from pub-lic scutiny caused delays as KASM and Greenpeace challenged the suppression in the High Court and won.

Hundreds of pages of redactions included economic modelling assumptions, the details of the content of the seabed sediment in the Bight, and the modelling with detail of the sediment plume that would be spread across the Bight from seabed mining. Taranaki Iwi Ngati Ruanui made submissions supporting KASM’s case in the Environment Court.

This successful legal action will allow greater public and expert scrutiny of the proposal.

South Taranaki is an important area for marine mam-mals including common dolphins, orca blue whales and the endangered southern right whale. The areas is also within the 100 m contour habitat of the critically endangered Maui dolphin.

The sand mining plume is of considerable size which will smother benthic communities and disturb or limit activity of pelagic species (ie those that live in the up-per water column of open water). The mining site is left as a dead zone and may take many years or decades for the fauna to recover.

ECO has been working with KASM and Greenpeace to assist on the TTR case.

The hearing for the application will be from 16 Febru-ary to April 2017.

protection of stewardship land is weak. This quite naturally signals to the private sector that it is ‘open for business”, said Dr Wright.

Significantly, the NZCA paper asks DoC to not give priority to such reclassification and cites the desire to have such land available for “net conservation benefit” trades or offsets. This again seems to align with the mining industry agenda though the paper argues that net conservation benefit, tradeoffs could enhance con-servation outcomes.

NZCA’s recommendations include:

1 “Guidelines for making land exchanges under Sec-tion 16A of the Conservation Act (in section 3 of the report, and expanded upon in Appendix A).

• Proposed amendment to the S16A test (para 4.1)

• Proposed legislative amendment to the RMA (para 5.4)

• Establish guidelines for revoking special conserva-tion status (para 9.1).”

In all, though some of the discussion in the paper

stresses possible benefits to conservation, many would also benefit those who simply want to do activities inconsistent with conservation on DoC land.

Other Functions:

The October 2016 Report of the Director General of Conservation to NZCA was taken “in committee”, as was the four year plan and financial overview, and the DoC 2025 update.

The public minutes record that there is work going on behind the scenes on consultation with Iwi on Conser-vation Law Reform, but little is revealed on the sub-stance of this.

On the policy front, NZCA has or is developing Prin-ciples on Freshwater, Coastal Management and Marine as part of a Policy Review, with Coastal Management discussed at the December 2016 meeting. These Prin-ciples, minutes etc can be found on the DoC website.

Nominations for NZCA members is currently open and closes with the Minister on Friday 27 January 2017 at 5 pm. Four positions are from people nomi-nated at large by the public or organisations such as ECO.

NZCA (continued)

TTR Application is off the South Taranaki coast near Patea.


ECO withdraws from LAWF

ECO Withdraws from the Land and Water Forum

ECO Executive has advised the Land and Water Forum of ECOs decision to withdraw from LAWF. ECO had been a member of the Land and Water Forum since it was established. The decision to withdraw came fol-lowing discussion at ECO’s 2016 AGM.

ECO has informed the new chair of LAWF Hugh Lo-gan and other environmental members of the LAWF of the AGM resolution.

The AGM made it clear that ECO supports discussion, collaboration and consultation in addressing our press-ing environmental issues so long as representation and arrangements are suitable and fair and the public is not side-lined, and where community and tangata whenua concerns carry weight.

In addition, the AGM was particular that this decision is not a criticism of others representing environmental concerns in LAWF.

The withdrawal letter made clear that ECO had high hopes for an effective approach to addressing New Zealand’s water issues when LAWF was initiated. ECO was concerned at the progress to date. Govern-ment actions, including selective implementation of LAWF recommendations, have been ineffective or counterproductive to achieving water quality improve-ments

Urgency is required if degradation of water quality is not to accelerate further irreversible damage to our rivers and wetlands and their ecosystems. This will have further tragic consequences for all that we hold dear – New Zealand’s ecosystems, land, landscapes, and biodiversity, and our culture, our reputation and our way of life.

Our concerns and suggestions

The selective implementation of LAWF decisions has undermined the negotiating process and confidence in the integrity of this process. When parties make con-cessions to reach a package of agreements, confidence and good faith are undermined when the Government selects elements only and does not implement the whole package.

ECO’s members have been deeply concerned with how participation in LAWF has been used to defuse public debate and divert opportunities for public input.

While parties have been negotiating in good faith, there has been a “smokescreen” effect of LAWF, when the Government points to LAWF’s effort to improve water and aquatic ecosystem quality and allocation while simultaneously providing major subsidies to irri-gators and removing democratic rights. There is a fur-

ther issue of the removal of democratic processes and rights and the proposed increased ministerial direction in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill.

Some elements of the LAWF design, rules, processes and practices have suffered from a number of problems and flaws as well as the Government’s lack of commit-ment.

There are unresolved tensions in relation to LAWF’s agreements and how those not at the table have a voice.

ECO supports forums in which information is shared widely, where information can be contested and where sufficient time is available for this. The time allowed for Plenary Members when provided with papers by the Chair was often far too short for members to respond. There was rarely an opportunity to contribute to the development of texts.

Outcomes

ECO considers the end-point for LAWF should not be just forum discussions and knowledge sharing, but effective action to halt and reverse the degradation of the quality and quantity of freshwater throughout New Zealand.

ECO Members’ concerns have for some time reflected dissatisfaction with Government responses, with selec-tive and slow action, an apparent unwillingness at sev-eral levels of government, national and local to achieve effective action and outcomes for freshwater. Stronger policy, standards and regulatory action and changed social attitudes are needed as well as improved LAWF processes.

If there was Government commitment, with stronger national policy, standards and regulatory action, then this would be reflected by Regional and District coun-cil policies, plans and action. Such central and local government commitment to address water degradation is lacking.

This is evidenced, for example, by the Government’s weakening and reclassification of what are acceptable water quality standards and how these are measured,


Resource Legislation Bill delayed again

Resource Legislation Bill delayed again by Cath Wallace

monitored and reported. Resistance to implementa-tion of the One Plan in Manawatu, local government failures to enforce District Plan rules in the Macken-zie area and to enforce resource consent conditions, and failures to sanction breaches across Canterbury, are further examples. The lack of timely and effec-tive Government follow-through from the Mackenzie Agreement has reinforced the sense of lack of commit-ment.

Participatory democracy and collaborative institu-tional design

The lack of due process for those not invited to the LAWF table or not in the core group are concerns.

There is a significant question of whether parties in LAWF are to be bound by agreements if the govern-ment only partially implements these? Will they be able to exercise their rights under the RMA?

Collaborative planning only works if the institutional arrangements are suitable and inclusive, if participa-tion is meaningful, representatives are chosen by the constituencies that they represent and there is timely implementation. Legal tests against the RMA Purpose and Principles must apply to collaborative outcomes and water matters.

On the EEZ & CSA, the ability of the Minister to decide on policy and processes with little regard to the Act itself, and the exclusion of marine exploration, mining and processing wastes from the definition of dumping are particularly anti-environmental.

Changes to the Conservation and Reserves Acts seem primarily designed to assist minerals industry access to conservation areas and reserves.

The Government’s contempt for the public submis-sions was clear from the mere 5 minutes allocated to individuals for submissions, and just 10-15 minutes for many organisations. Many people agree that Maori should have rights to be consulted not only on poli-cies but also on consent applications – but it would be distasteful to see such gains at the expense of the environment and of participation and due process for everyone else.

The Bill is likely to emerge from the Select Committee process about February or March 2017. ECO will be looking closely to see what emerges.





The Government, with the support of the Maori Party, has returned the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill to the Local Government and Environment Select Committee but the other parties refused to agree to a fourth extension to the Committee deliberations. The Government has agreed to make changes to give more consultation with Maori, to win over Maori Party sup-port for the passage of the Bill.

The 180 page Bill was the subject of 764 submissions and a 500 page departmental report. Many submit-ters agreed on numerous flaws in the Bill, particularly ministerial override and regulatory powers. The Bill seeks to make a number of damaging amendments to the Conservation Act, the Reserves Act, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Act (EEZ&CA), the Resource Management Act and reasonable changes to the Public Works Act.

Particular concerns centred around the provisions for sweeping Ministerial powers to override Regional and District Councils, to tilt decision making in favour of business, and to limit the scope of submissions and the basis of appeals under the RMA. Politically appointed Boards of Inquiry instead of the Environment Court appeal track has also been a big concern.

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ECO Withdraws from LAWF (cont)


Future of our fisheries review

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Participate in fun online surveys and choose ECO as your charity of choice.

Go to Buzzchannel to sign up.

The Future of our Fisheries Review

The Ministry of Primary Industry (MPI) has released four discussion papers outlining proposals to change management and regulatory arrangements for fisheries. The papers are called the “Future of our Fisheries”.

The Fisheries Management System Review priorities for fisheries policy over the next 2 years are:

• Maximising value from our fisheries: This proposal outlines options for valuing our marine ecosystems and fish resources to optimise sustainable resource use.

• Better fisheries information: This proposal outlines options for identifying and capturing more information in near-real time and ensuring consistency.

• Agile and responsive decision-making: This proposal outlines options for ensuring fisheries system decisions are well informed, responsive to need, and reflect risk.

It is regretable that the Purpose of the Fisheries Act is not to be addressed since it is a major problem in that utilisation is not constrained by the sustainabil-ity requirements. Aspects of the QMS are part of the problem and should be addressed system design drives discarding and a disregard for the impacts of the fish-ing methods used.

• Integrated Electronic Monitoring and Reporting Sys-tem (IEMRS): Proposed electronic reporting of catch and fishing activities by commercial fishers, monitor-ing and verification using automated geospatial posi-tion reporting and automated on-vessel cameras.

• Enabling innovative trawl technologies: Proposed regulations to allow innovative trawl gear to be ap-proved for commercial use. This would partially deregulate trawl gear controls with unclear benefits.

So what’s missing?

The proposals fail to acknowledge parts of the current

problems with New Zealand’s fisheries management. These can be described as:

1. The dominance of commercial fisheries in fisheries management. Other fishers (recreational and custom-ary) and other interests in the marine environment are either ignored or poorly considered in decisions.

2. The absence of modern principles and components of fisheries management. There is no clear precaution-ary principle in the Fisheries Act – yet such a principle has been adopted internationally since 1996.

3. The absence of a clear ecosystem based manage-ment framework. The burden of proof should be on fishers to prove their activity is ecologically sustain-able.

4. The cost recovery regime should be redesigned and implemented so that fisheries are managed for the long term. This will require solid investment in fisheries research rather than the current avoidance of short-term cost.

5. The failures to protect vulnerable marine ecosys-tems and threatened species. Commercial fisheries kill thousands of seabirds (including albatross and petrels) and hundreds of marine mammals (including sea lions, fur seals, common dolphins, Maui and Hec-tor’s dolphin). The Wildlife Act and Marine Mammals Protection Act give little protection for threatened and protected species. Fisheries continue to catch tonnes of deepwater corals and other benthic species.

6. There is a lack of prior informed environmental as-sessments on fisheries. Such assessment are required internationally with bottom fisheries and have been partly developed in Australian Commonwealth fisher-ies. This would assist in reducing bad environmental practices and reducing the environmental footprint of fisheries in New Zealand. This is an essential ele-ment of any measures to increase the reputation of NZ fisheries.

Lastly MPI needs to develop and implement some legally binding standards. The “Harvest Strategy” is weak, and is just general policy and has no teeth. The fishing industry killed the proposals for standards for benthic impacts. MPI hasn’t done anything on stand-ards for nearly eight years. It is time to develop a priority list.

Comments on some of the proposals:

1. “Abundant fisheries”: It unclear in the document what managing for abundance means or how it would differ from the current arrangement. Keeping or al-lowing fish stocks to reach close to their unfished stock size is good for the ecosystem and can provide signifi-


IUCN World congress Report

IUCN World Conservation Congress & Policy Matters

The International Union for the Conservation of Na-ture and Natural Resources, IUCN, held its four-yearly World Conservation Congress (WCC) in Hawai’i from late August to early September 2016. Four ECO Exec-utive members were there for ECO, as were other New Zealand members of IUCN including the government, WWF NZ, Lincoln University’s Ann Brower, Mark Christiansen, a representative of the New Zealand Conservation Authority, Catherine Iorns-Magallanes, former ECO Executive Committee, and various others and IUCN Commission members. ECO Exec mem-bers either paid for themselves or got help from other (ECO-compatible) sources to attend.

IUCN has six Commissions comprising volunteer ex-perts: the Species Survival Commission (SSC); World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA); Commission on Environmental Law (CEL); Commission on Eco-system Management (CEM); Commission on Educa-tion and Communication (CEC); and Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP). Together, they provide a formidable and mostly au-thoritative global knowledge team.

IUCN Congresses are hugely demanding and fascinat-ing. For a start, the membership of IUCN includes governments, government agencies and environmental and related NGOs, and as result of governance motions passed in 2016, also Indigenous Peoples Organisations that share IUCN’s goals and meet the membership criteria. There is always robust and usually respectful debate.

The first segment of the Congress is public so mem-bers, interested and sympathetic others and of course those who would seek to divert IUCN from its mis-sion, are present. Mining, logging, fishing, hunting and whaling interests are present, often in the guise of being committed to sustainability.

This section of the Congress has multiple simulta-neous events and presentations, from workshops to

conference style presentations, to conservation campus learning events, stalls and posters, art displays and lots of participatory events, “knowledge cafes” and any number of side meetings and receptions and of course exciting networking and informal exchanges of ideas.

Programme confirmation and the usual business of electing the President, the Regional and other Coun-cilors and Commission Chairs for the six expert Commissions are done in the second segment of the Congress. Policy and Governance issues, other busi-ness and reports and discussion fill the second part of the Congress. Negotiation of many policy and several governance motions, some originally prompted by ECO also engaged us. With the Congress being held in the Oceania Region, the Oceania Regional meeting was unusually well attended.

ECO was sorry to see distinguished New Zealander and academic Aroha Mead stand down from chairing the Commission on Environmental Economics and Social Policy (CEESP). She could not restand, having done two terms, but she served IUCN in other capaci-ties previously on the Council, and was one of the very well regarded Commission Chairs.

Andrew Bignell of DoC was re-elected as one of the three Oceania Regional Councillors, along with Anna

cant economic and recreational fishing benefits. The current targets in fisheries management allow at least 60-70% of fish to be removed. In some cases more than 80% are harvested. Its time to move fisheries management to the regime of Antarctic fisheries. This regime recognises ecosystem roles and functions and requires higher stock sizes than are used in NZ.

• “Address discarding of fish” Discarding and dump-ing of thousands of tonnes of fish in New Zealand was highlighted this year by the report from Auckland Uni-versity, University of British Columbia and others (see May issue of ECOLink). One of the options here is to prohibit dumping unless the animal can be released alive and is likely to survive. There also needs to be

clear disincentives to discard and those incentives need to be on the quota owner and ACE holder as well as the fisher. Quota owners and ACE holders need to take responsibility for providing fishers with catch alloca-tions that match the multi-species nature of the fishery they are operating in.

Where there are no observers on board vessels it will be essential that there are cameras and landing moni-toring to allow catch comparisons for the purposes of enforcement and fisheries monitoring and assessment.

ECO welcomes further comments on the proposals. MPI submissions close on 23 December at www.mpi.govt.nz

ECO Co-chair Diana Shand introducing the CEESP report on certification and biodiversity.


IUCN World Congress Report





Tiraa of the Cook Islands and Peter Cochrane, for-merly of the Australian government and Great Barrier Marine Park Authority.

ECO Vice chair, Betsan Martin co-hosted as RE-SPONSE a knowledge Café event at the Congress which reportedly went well as well as attending many events and the Plenary Business sessions.

IUCN Policy making, particularly through considera-tion of motions occupied ECO considerably. Mo-tions negotiations began electronically well before the Congress began and is a core part of the Business sec-tion of the Congress. These involved both policy and governance motions. ECO was an active participant in both, before and during the Congress, and we often helped less experienced motion proponents to make progress with their conservation agendas.

We were often negotiating with government agencies and some NGOs whose interest was in blocking or watering down motions to protect species, ecosystems and instead they often wanted to allow extractive industries, even in protected areas. Cath Wallace, ECO Vice Chair and former IUCN Councilor, coordinated this effort and led the motions work and with input from others on the ECO team. Epecially on marine and Antarctic matters, ECO Co-chair Barry Weeber did a huge amount of work, while ECO Co-chair Diana did much of the work involving business and conser-vation as well as launching and work-shopping the CEESP publication on Certification that she coordi-nated and edited (see below).

Together with input from some members and like-minded colleagues, we worked through more than 100 motions on a wide range of issues, policies, practice. We made a series of comments and text suggestions on many motions. The difficult to resolve motions then came to the Congress for further discussion in a series of “contact groups” and we spent many hours trying to find solutions to allow consensus texts. Some attendees did not understand that IUCN is a member-ship organization and that these negotiations are not open for participation in drafting by those representing extractive industries and other non-member interests.

Some of the Motions that ECO was most involved in included a motion on the management and protection of Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdic-tion (BBNJ); one particularly dear to our hearts on the creation of a network of Marine Protected Areas in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, particularly in the Ross Sea; Policies on the exclusion of industrial scale extractive activities from protected areas; a range of specific species protection and area protection meas-ures; the protection of at least 30% of marine areas in Marine Protected Areas; the avoidance of dumping of mine wastes at sea; recognition of indigenous, com-

munity and privately protected areas; Natural Capital; Biodiversity Offsets; Forests conservation; ocean con-servation; reduction of over-fishing and much more. More information is available at the links below and there is a useful summary of a few of the key IUCN outcomes in the accompanying box.

Diana Shand, a Theme Chair within CEESP and former IUCN Councilor, worked intensively for months leading to the Congress coordinating and edit-ing the CEESP publication Policy Matters, Issue 21: Certification and biodiversity : how voluntary certifica-tion standards impact biodiversity and human liveli-hoods.

As the tile suggests, this issue is devoted to volun-tary product and service certification schemes to inform consumers and the impacts of these. This was launched at a special event at the Congress and she chaired a workshop on the same topic. New Zealander Grant Rosomon of Greenpeace, facilitated a discussion at the workshop of the structural strengths and weak-ness of such consumer information certificate schemes. This allowed for some rather frank exchanges on and with the Marine Stewardship Council and discussion of the strengths and reforms needed to the Forest Stew-ardship Council.

The International Council for Mining and Metallurgy (ICMM) was also there, with Newmont’s representa-tive explaining their membership showed they adopted best practice and extolling their great care for the envi-ronment and local people. But on September 18 2016, a few days after the close of the Congress, we received reports that Newmont’s security contractors had beaten up a couple who are Peruvian land owners of land that Newmont and its joint venture partner want to mine.wounds on themselves. (For more details see https://news.mongabay.com/2016/09/perus-goldman-prize-winner-maxima-acuna-denounces-attack/)

For more on IUCN, see https://www.iucn.org/ and http://www.iisd.ca/iucn/congress/2016/ For access to the IUCN motions, seehttps://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/IUCN-WCC-6th-005.pdf. For other aspects of the IUCN Congress see http://iuc-nworldconservationcongress.org/


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