The Two-Year Ban on Rockpool Harvesting

Many of us will have directly seen the impacts of the stripping of the shellfish, seaweed, and other creatures from our rockpools and the inter-tidal zone around our local coastline. Thanks to the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust’s recent proposal to MPI and Fisheries NZ, parts of our shoreline have now received protection from harvesting for two years, commencing 12th March.

There are two key issues we would like to highlight:

1. The first is that only part of the proposed protections have been incorporated in the announced ban, and some areas within our local area, such as Waiwera and some local estuaries, have been left wide open for ongoing exploitation by the so-called “bucket people.”

   
   

   Having investigated this further, the simple reason is that MPI received objections to the ban in the omitted areas, which they were obliged to consider. We are pleased to see that there is a way forward to include those unprotected areas in future – a monitoring and observation regime will be in place and if take continues or increases in these open zones the Minister can take the additional step of adding them into the banned spaces. We fully expect pressure to relocate from the protected spaces to those without cover under the ban. The process for reporting these matters will be announced soon. The general advice is simply to watch, observe and record, not to confront.

2. Second, this protection is not part of a nationwide framework. While today catch limits apply to some intertidal species, many others have no protection. A more effective long-term approach would reverse this model, allowing MPI to issue blanket protection for intertidal species, with harvesting permitted only where specific limits are defined.

   
   

   A community BBQ is planned for Sunday 22 March at Okoromai Bay, Shakespear Regional Park, to mark the introduction of the ban. Further details will be shared as they become available.