Marine protected areas The only enemy is indifference

Forest and Bird, Volume 19, Issue 1, 1 February 1988, Unnumbered Page

Marine protected areas The only enemy is indifference

by Dr!

Bill Ballantine

Although New Zealand does not have many marine protected areas yet, it has had one for a decade and this one is highly unusual in both nature and rules.

, he ‘Leigh’ reserve was the first created (1977) and it is highly successful in terms of popularity, value to local fishermen, and as a means of understanding more about the marine environment and our effects upon it. In fact the proper title of this reserve is the ‘Cape Rodney to Okakari Point Marine Reserve"’ and it covers 5 km of coast, to 800 m seawards, near the village of Leigh on the coast north-east of Auckland. The success of Leigh is rather surprising and does not support current conventional wisdom on how to select and run marine protected areas.

It is generally supposed that marine protected areas should: ® be special or unique in their natural features ® be as pristine and natural as possible ® be remote from large centres of population ® have few previous human uses or activity It is also generally supposed that rules and regulations should permit and approve traditional and culturally-important fishing; other fishing except when proven harmful; and cooperation with all existing users if possible.

Did Not Conform

The Leigh reserve did not conform to any of these features. it was a typical and representative piece of coast spearfishing had ravaged the central area it was an easy drive from New Zealand's largest city it was popular for picnics, fishing, camping etc. In addition, the regulations imposed by the reserve forbade all killing, removal or disturbance of life; gave no specific reasons for the restrictions; and provided no compromises with existing users although these, of course, continued their activities on all other coastline. It is generally supposed that such tough restrictions, especially if imposed without specific and demonstrated reasons, will prove both unpopular and/or unworkable. The experience at Leigh, however, shows that the benefits and popularity of the marine reserve are directly linked to the strict regulations and the resulting idea of complete naturalness. This is true both in the strictly scientific sense and in the view of the general public. A more usual kind of marine reserve was created around the Poor Knights Islands off Whangarei in 1980. Spectacular in its scenery and underwater life, the Poor Knights Reserve was Virtually pristine apart from deep sea fishing; it was 20 km off-shore and difficult to reach; and the islands were uninhabited.

Regulations were worked out that allowed big game and some other fishing to continue; distinguished different zones, methods and species; and initially won cooperation from existing users. These rules have been successful in maintaining the Poor Knights as a very special and unusual set of marine habitats with a high degree of naturalness; at the same time protecting the status quo, including most existing recreational fishing. New Zealand has therefore practical experience with two very different types of marine protected areas. Both have been

successful in their own way. One is the type found in many countries and is suitable for protecting special marine areas. The other is less common but has been remarkably successful in creating a major asset out of an ordinary piece of coast.

A Vision of the Future

I believe that the success of the trial marine reserves means: (i) we should arrange for more; (ii) as some benefits are local we should have marine protected areas in all parts of the country; (iii) because the benefits only relate to the habitats protected, we should make sure some of each habitat is included in each part of New Zealand. But what area of the coastline should be protected? In my opinion, at least 10 percent of all marine habitats and regions should be aimed for, a figure which would provide a reasonable level of insurance against specific greed and general ignorance. We should commence at once and proceed rapidly to create more marine reserves. No purchase or compensation is

involved, only a change in public policy for a public asset. No useful purpose is served by delay. On the contrary, by pressing ahead quickly any difficulties will be reduced and the benefits maximised. Of course, special areas will need to be protected because of their unique, rare or spectacular features. Protection of ‘‘the best’ will obtain widespread support fairly easily. It will be clear which places are ‘‘the best’’, and what rules are needed to protect them. However, precisely because they are ‘‘special’"’ these areas will be unable to provide general benefits.

Therefore, the major effort should be put into obtaining the major benefits, and experience has shown that these lie in fully-pro-tected areas which are typical, representative and accessible. The only stumbling blocks are pyschological and social, although they are serious and normally inhibiting — unless active counter measures are adopted. While the case for the protection of specific places for specific reasons is reasonably easy to argue, the reservation of ‘‘ordinary’ areas for general reasons is really quite difficult in any particular case. Why was this piece selected? Hard data can be produced to show somewhere is the "‘most special" in some respect, but it is not possible to prove anywhere is the ‘‘most typical" of its kind. Furthermore, if the general benefits of naturalness are sought, it is not possible to give specific reasons for the banning of particular activities: People who have been fishing or otherwise exploiting an area for years and are told to stop, feel entitled to an explanation. If no actual evidence of harm can be provided, then they will be certain to question any bans.

Prevention Better Than Cure

But specific sense is not necessarily general sense. It is clearly absurd to wait until clear — damage is apparent before we move to save any part. ‘‘Prevention is better than cure’ may not be universally true, but it is obviously worth retaining one straight ruler, one undamaged piece, one natural bit. But so far we have no system for doing this in the sea. A practical system for selecting and protecting a network of typical marine habitats would have to include socially and politically effective arguments for each. These could be generated at three levels: The principles noted above — at least one representative example of everything in each area, accessible to the general public and with the total reaching 10 percent by area, all of full protection. A range of local and/or pragmatic points, decided as far as possible by local people, such as ease of boundary recognition, policing and control, degree of current exploitation, adjacent land use and effects and size, viability and distance from other reserves. This would be done so as to maximise the benefits. For example, one site might be handy to schools, preferred by local fishermen as a nursery ground and well away from

shipping lanes, while being no better as an example of sheltered harbour habitats than several others. A range of cultural, aesthetic and emotional points which again would be decided locally if possible. These ‘‘subjective’’ reasons are in fact vitally important. In some cases objective supporting evidence is possible and desirable, but the points are still in the area of opinion. The ‘‘subjective" reasons for creating a marine protected area could include: the tourist and recreational value of non-ex-ploited areas; protection of historic wrecks, scenic features and areas of traditional significance; use for pollution monitoring, management tests, and control of general exploitation levels; moral and aesthetic

preservation values (from genetic diversity to showing children what it was all like once.) Finally, it should be recalled that exploitation will still be the norm in the sea. At present it is total in New Zealand (minus some tiny fragments). If the above programme went ahead, the present range and level of exploitation would still continue over 90 percent of all sea areas in all regions. The ‘"‘compromise"’ is in favour of exploitation and overwhelmingly so. There is no need or value in any further compromise or reduction. Areas ‘‘reserved"’ for recreational fishing

may be required in some places but this is a matter for fisheries management and is separate from and in addition to marine protected areas. There is no point in confusing these issues. If full protection from exploitation and

the full benefits of naturalness are the watchwords for marine protected areas, then the idea can be sold to all intelligent and responsible fishermen as a being a direct benefit to them, even more so than for other citizens. If any kind of killing or disturbance is permitted then most of the real benefits disappear along with the principles, so that while there may be less opposition, there is virtually no support either. Marine protected areas with ‘‘nil extraction’ offer real benefits to all citizens. The creation of a network of such areas covering 10 percent of the coastal and offshore waters requires only the political and social will to do so. This programme does not require large amounts of public or private money, merely the support of large numbers of people. This issue is of real social importance but does not have any predetermined position by party, class, sex, race or religion. There is no enemy except our own indifference. 4 Dr Bill Ballantine is director of the Leigh Marine Laboratory.