Marine Reserve Proposal in Eastern BoP

Forest and Bird, Issue 307, 1 February 2003, Page 5

Marine Reserve Proposal in Eastern BoP

marine reserve is being promoted around the Volkner Rocks, five kilometres to the northwest of White Island, eastern Bay of Plenty. To take the Maori name of Te Paepae Aotea, the marine reserve is planned to extend a mile around the rocks, enclosing some 1444 hectares. The rocks themselves comprise a group of emergent, tidal and submarine pinnacles, geologically linked to White Island. Large schools of ocean and reef fish are found there, some locally rare, due to a unique convergence of oceanic and subtropical currents this far south. Some 60 species of fish have been recorded. The deepwater reefs host soft

corals, sponges, gorgonians and colonies of black coral. Below that, recent scientific work has identified a deepwater crab found nowhere else and the first New Zealand record of a large and colourful tropical crab. The scientific value of the waters is important, according to the discussion document issued with the proposal, and preservation is deemed to be in the national interest. In Maori terms. Te Paepae Aotea represents the ‘threshold of the living’ journeying to Aotearoa, and the ‘departing place of the spirits’ of the Mataatua dead to their ancestral Hawaiki. The proposed Te Paepae Aotea marine reserve is a joint application by the DirectorGeneral of Conservation and

the Whakaari Marine Protection Steering Committee. An original proposal to promote volcanic White Island/Whakaari in the same marine reserve has been abandoned meanwhile, and there is talk of establishing a mataitai customary fishing reserve around the volcano instead. The Whakaari steering committee was established in November 1998, after a long period of little activity toward marine protection for White Island and the Volkner Rocks, despite recommendations from scientific enquiries and a Parliamentary select committee. The recent bid to protect Whakaari still proved too difficult to negotiate, hence the focus on Te Paepae Aotea.

Forest and Bird is part of the steering committee which also includes Maori, sport and commercial fishers, charterboat operators and officials.