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From: GARY TAYLOR
_: 5
Date: 25-11-09
Time: 17:59
More marine farming on the cards
By Gary Taylor
We're likely to see a lot more marine farms in the Hauraki Gulf, Kaipara Harbour and around the rest of New Zealand's coast. Or at least that's what the government thinks. As part of its broader reform agenda, it set up a Technical Advisory Group to tell it how to grow aquaculture from $360 million today to a $1billion-plus industry by 2025.
The TAG has just released its report. It is bound to be controversial in Auckland because of the potential for conflict with other users of the marine environment. Boat and Yacht clubs in the region should be taking a close look. So too should those with houses and baches overlooking the sea. Submissions on the reform proposals close at http://www.fish.govt.nz/ on 16 December.
Commercial aquaculture has been undertaken in New Zealand since the 1960s. Greenlipped mussel is the most commonly farmed species with King salmon and Pacific oysters following. New species being looked at include kingfish, eels, clams, butterfish and Hapuka.
New Zealand's inshore waters are well suited to marine farming. We have 19,000 km of coastline and generally high water quality. Given the sector's dependence on a clean environment, it can be a useful "push" factor for cleaning up discharges of pollutants from the land.
If done well, aquaculture is an environmentally sustainable and economically rewarding activity. Putting it in the right location and keeping densities low are vital.
Aquaculture can have adverse environmental effects. These can include impacts on marine mammals and other wild species, accumulation of heavy metals in seabed sediments and localised water pollution. Marine farms can also have landscape impacts, spoiling pristine views. And nothing can be calculated to enrage the Auckland recreational boating community more than the loss of a favourite anchoring site to a marine farm.
A typical 3 hectare mussel farm will have 9 long lines each supported by 50 to 70 plastic floats. In an inshore location, these are visually dominant. There are large, offshore farms in prospect which would see the lines located 20 metres below the surface. This would avoid adverse visual effects and vessels could travel unimpeded over the top.
Finfish farming, apart from salmon, is in its infancy here. There are big questions about its environmental sustainability elsewhere. About 25% of all wild fish in the world ends up as fish meal for farmed fish and it takes somewhere between 3-6 tonnes of wild fish to produce 1 tonne of farmed fish.
The TAG, chaired by former Fisheries Minister Sir Doug Kidd, has done a good job overall. It says in its report: "The result of our recommendations will be a more effective regime which recognises the need to expand aquaculture opportunities without sacrificing the environmental standards and public character of the marine commons and recognises the rights of iwi, fishers, and other users of the coastal space."
The TAG notes that the present law, put in place in 2004, has seen no new marine farms established since then and is clearly not working. Instead it wants to mainstream aquaculture planning into normal Resource Management Act processes. That's fine. It makes sense to deal with all coastal and related activities in the same way.
But unfortunately the TAG then gets carried away. It proposes 4 further changes that taken together mean that environmental hurdles would be lowered and we could get aquaculture in quite the wrong places.
First, the TAG proposes setting up an Aquaculture Agency within the Ministry of Fisheries. Its role would be to foster development in the sector and to provide environmental oversight. But it can't do both: there's a clear conflict of interest. Instead, environmental oversight should be vested in a specialist Coastal Commission located within the new Environmental Protection Authority.
Secondly, it proposes to give Ministers the power to unilaterally direct changes to regional plans to allow aquaculture with no rights of appeal. That's political interference and shouldn't be countenanced.
Thirdly, it suggests that no new evidence should be allowed at appeal hearings before the Environment Court without special permission. But that proposition was considered and rejected during the phase 1 RMA reforms and for good reasons.
Fourthly, it proposes a strongly pro-aquaculture change to the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement that would tip the scales unreasonably in favour of development over the environment.
Aquaculture does have a bright future ahead of it and the government is right to target it as a growth sector. But it shouldn't get carried away and lower standards. We still need an environmental bottom line. Robust and effective environmental safeguards must be part of the new way forward.
Gary Taylor is with the Environmental Defence Society http://www.eds.org.nz/.
Last changed: 23-Jul-2011