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Managing from Ridge to Reef:Lessons from Seachange – Tai Timu Tai Pari
www.eds.org.nz1Raewyn Peart, Policy DirectorEnvironmental Defence Society
A place of many names: Te Moananui o Toi, Tīkapa Moana,
Hauraki Gulf
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A place of many peoples
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One of the earliest that was settled
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Ahuahu (Great Mercury Island) Ōpito
Sunde site, Motutapu Pig Bay, Motutapu
… and by far the most heavily settled
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Enormously productive in the sea
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“They were sometimes acres in extent, vast areas of seething water churned up by trevalli, underneath them kahawai, beneath them kingfish and beneath them again snapper –great pyramids of fish (1958, Peter Taylor, Lighthouse
Keeper, Burgess Island, Mokohinau)
… and on the land
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Cows per hectare
A global seabird hotspot
>70 seabird species sighted in Gulf (20% of global species), 23 breed here
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Home to threatened marine
mammals
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Brydes whale
Bottlenose dolphin
Orca
A vast fish nursery ground
www.eds.org.nz10 Graphic courtesy: John Zeldis
But now ecologically, a shadow of its former self
“Crayfish in those days, you could see them on the bottom”
“Trevally have disappeared”
“We used to gather pīpī and tuatua here 40 years ago but then all the shellfish was gone“
“We used to see the tails of the snapper feeding on pīpī beds”
“The whole bay echoed with the sound of kahawai … there seem to be a lot less now”
“Paua: there were areas where they were so thick you couldn’t put your feet on the ground without hitting them”
Voices from the Gulf
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Plethora of agencies were failing to reverse the decline
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Despite the Hauraki Gulf Forum being in operation for 15 years
Recent review (Dr Nigel Bradley, June 2015) concluded Forum not fit for purpose:
“The Hauraki Gulf Forum is failing to adequately promote the objectives of the Act, and will not do so without significant change.”
“The root cause of failure is governance, and in particular the inability or unwillingness of members to collectively act as a ‘political peer group’ to provide the leadership envisaged by the legislation.”
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So it was decided to try a new approach
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Seachange Project StructureDecember 2013
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Project Steering GroupMana Whenua and statutory
agencies
Independent ChairPlus Executive Facilitator
Stakeholder Working Group
10 members chosen by sector groups, 4 by MW
Project BoardTechnical support
Independent scientistsAs required
Prepares the plan through a
collaborative process
Sets the Terms of Reference for the SWG
Adopts the plan and agencies then
implement
Project Steering Group8-8 Co-Governance
Mana Whenua
• Paul Majurey (co-chair)
• Liane Ngamane
• Pirihira Kaio
• Shane Ashby
• Terrence Hohneck
• Jodi-ann Warbrick
• Nicholas Manukau
• Karen Wilson
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Statutory agencies
• Cr Penny Webster (co-chair): Auckland Council
• Mayor John Tregidga: Hauraki Gulf Forum
• Cr Mike Lee: Auckland Council
• Cr Peter Buckley: Waikato Regional Council
• Cr Timoti Bramley: Waikato Regional Council
• Cr Peter French: Territorial authorities
• Kathy Mansell: Ministry for Primary Industries
• Meg Poutasi: Department of Conservation
Role of Independent Chair
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• Liaison (go-between) between the SWG and the PSG
• Provide independent advice and counsel the SWG members
• Maintain oversight of the SWG throughout the plan development process
• Assist in resolving disputes
• Develop and set agendas for meetings of the SWG and chair them
• Recommend the draft plan to the PSG for approval
• Deal with media
OVERALL CREATE A SAFE SPACE FOR THE SWG TO DO ITS
COLLABORATIVE WORK
Stakeholder Working Group
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How do you represent the Gulf’s ManaWhenua and 1.5 million plus stakeholders?Unusual selection process resulted in good constructive people BUT: Some key gaps
What is the SWG tasked with achieving?
Purpose of the project in SWG Terms of Reference:
“To develop a spatial plan that will achieve a Hauraki Gulf that is vibrant with life and healthy mauri, is increasingly productive and supports
healthy and prosperous communities”
Much more than just spatial allocation!
Consensus model for decision-making:
“Consensus for this purpose means that every member either supports or does not actively
oppose (can live with) the decision”
Timeframe to deliver plan: 18 months!
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Key gaps in SWG representation AND short time frame to address complex issues resulted
in establishment of 6 “Roundtables”:
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Water quality and catchmentsFish stocksBiodiversity and biosecurityInfrastructureAquacultureAccessible Gulf
Operation of Roundtables
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• Co-chaired by SWG members
• Involve a wider range of stakeholders
• Plug some important gaps: eg fisheries quota owners, forestry
• Draw on additional skills and experience
• Drill into issues in more detail re science and solutions
• Report back to SWG with recommendations
• Key issue: timeframe too tight to achieve agreement on detail (6 months)
• May be used to test ideas going forward
Role of independent scientists
• SWG members agreed plan would be science-based (as well as MātaurangaMāori)
• Scientists presented work directly to SWG and Roundtables
• Plan based on existing science (not time or budget to do new stuff)
• Difficulties when science not definitive (which is often the case)
• Not all areas covered eg weak economic input
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Public input
• 25 Listening Posts
• ‘Love our Gulf’ message boards
• 2 web-based surveys
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The key issue which emerged based on science: Loss of habitat to support juvenile
fish. NOT something on the public or agency radar!!
Based on snapper science:
• Lots of eggs produced
• Lots of food for adult snapper – which eat almost anything
• But life cycle bottleneck at juvenile stage – lack of suitable juvenile habitat providing a good food source and refuge from predation
Widescale historical loss of suitable habitat for juveniles due to ….
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Dredging and loss of historical dense mussel beds
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Restoration will require
reduction in sediment and
active provision of hard
substrate:Revive Our Gulf
Trawling and widespread destruction of horse
mussel, coral and sponge beds
Trawling continuing in outer Gulf
Bottom trawls 2011-2014Blue: untrawled
Green: low trawl nosOrange and red: high number of trawls
If trawling stops recovery may still be slow and require active
intervention
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High levels of sediment blanketing estuaries and most of inner Gulf
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Major sources:• Waihou/Piako Rivers• Wairoa – estuary filled up• Mahurangi River
Also much historical sediment from early land clearances being resuspended
But science doesn’t provide all the answers: Another significant issue was loss of vulnerable
reef species: Based on anecdotal evidence
• Depletion accelerated over past 20 years or so
• Accessible inter-tidal reefs being stripped
• Offshore reef systems fished much more often
• Largely function of:• Growing Auckland population
• New ethnicities
• Improved technology (larger recreational vessels and GPS chart plotters/fish finders)
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Evolving structures for ManaWhenua
At the start:
• Project Steering Group: 50% Mana Whenua50% statutory agencies
• Stakeholder Working Group: 4 ManaWhenua members (out of 14)
Need for more support soon evident:
• Mātauranga Māori Representative Table: Mana Whenua members of PSG and SWG with specialist technical support
• Plan Writing Team: Mana Whenua writers and technical support people
• Complicated by ongoing Treaty settlements
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Evolving structures for PSGIndependent Review Panel
Membership
• Paul Beverley (chair): Partner, Buddle Findlay lawyers
• Professor Charles Ehler: marine spatial planning consultant to UNESCO
• Dr Chris Battershill: Professor and Chair of Coastal Science, University of Waikato
• Dr Dan Hikuroa: Research Director, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga
• Dr Rick Boven: Director, Stakeholder Strategies
Role: Report to the PSG; 2 reports so far
Issue: Arguably expertise would be better used contributing to the project rather than critiquing it
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Seachange Project Structure currently: now too complex?
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Project Steering GroupMana Whenua and statutory
agencies
Independent ChairPlus Executive Facilitator
Stakeholder Working Group
10 members chosen by sector groups, 4 by MW
6 RoundtablesWater quality and catchments,
Fish stocks, Biodiversity and biosecurity, Infrastructure,
Aquaculture, Accessible Gulf
Project BoardTechnical support
Independent Review Panel
5 members
Independent scientistsAs required
MātaurangaMāori
Representative Table
4 MW SWG members
8 MW PSG members (6 also TW reps on HGF)
Power of Collaboration
• Hear each other’s views
• Build up trust
• Learn new information
• Shifts positions
• Creates social capital which can be applied in a wider setting
• Makes things possible that previously were not
BUT: Very time consuming and emotionally sapping
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Many inherent tensions in the process: Requires strong leadership to resolve
• Co-governance versus collaboration
• Agency-led versus collaboration
• Mana whenua and Pākehā world views
• Extraction values versus conservation values (esp. marine reserves)
• Catchment users versus marine users
• Non-statutory versus statutory
• High level versus detail (directly related to time and resources)
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Content of Spatial Plan?
• Will identify what it will take to reverse the degradation of the past 175 years during the next generation
• Focus is on big Gulf-wide moves (strategies and actions) not local management
• Spatial element likely to include location of priority areas for action, areas requiring more fine-grained management, and provision for aquaculture and marine-related infrastructure
• Will contain a package of statutory and non-statutory measures
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How will the Plan be implemented?
Key question we’ve been grappling with:
“If stakeholders develop a non-statutory Gulf-wide plan, and then hand implementation over to agencies which didn’t develop the plan, and which still operate within a fragmented institutional framework, will it work?”
Concluded PROBABLY NOT. So the plan will potentially drive institutional change
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Lessons learnt for scaling up
• Taking a catchment-to-the-sea system approach enables systemic issues to be addressed (which can otherwise fall through the cracks)
• Collaboration is a powerful, and potentially effective approach to deal with complex and intractable issues
• But for collaboration to work agencies and Mana Whenua need to be willing to give up power
• Development of novel solutions can challenge ‘business-as-usual’ thinking
• Effective implementation of scaled-up planning may require institutional change
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