New home for BoP marine life

Forest and Bird, Issue 267, 1 February 1993, Page 5

New home for BoP marine life

THE PORT of Tauranga Ltd has turned a channel enlargement exercise into a novel opportunity to maintain an important habitat for marine wildlife. At Forest and Bird’s suggestion a reef, which was to be dynamited to increase the size

of the harbour entrance for container vessels, was shifted to a nearby location inside the harbour. Rocky habitat is uncommon in the Bay of Plenty, with boulder habitat particularly scarce. Shifting of the Tanea reef began early last year and has almost been completed. Over 100,000 cubic metres of boulders will be moved and the

new reef will occupy over a hectare of the harbour floor. Other parties involved in the project are the district and regional councils and the Department of Conservation. The University of Waikato is surveying the effects of the overall port dredging programme while Forest and Bird field officers Ann and Basil Graeme have a contract with the port authority to monitor the recolonisation of the reef. Already schools of small fish and plant life have moved in and signs have been installed nearby asking people not to interfere with the new marine ecosystem. "This is the first time in New Zealand in the development of an industrial port that a reef has been shifted," says Ann Graeme. "We see it becoming an oasis of life in the harbour and the nucleus of a future marine reserve."