Statement to NZs Ministry for the Environment under its public consultation process

concerning the proposed New Marine Protected Areas Act

by Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn, 11 March 2016

I gratefully thank KASM for their help with producing this statement,1 some of which I support and
reinforce below.
I reinforce my comments offered at the 19 January 2016 Ministry for the Environment consultation
hui, Te Hapua, and further state:
1. I agree that the 1971 Marine Reserves Act is outdated and badly in need of an overhaul. This is
a critical opportunity for New Zealand to establish a legislative and regulatory regime that
optimizes our chances of ensuring a healthy ocean for the benefit of future generations. We
must bear in mind that our planet is three quarters ocean, and the sufficient functioning of those
oceans are necessary for all life on Earth. Therefore, the greatest benefit of a truly fit for
purpose protection regime in New Zealand is our vital contribution to humanitys own survival.
What higher, more urgent priority could there be?
2. We must recognize the larger context in which the imperative for effective marine protection
exists. A disturbingly uncertain future is right now racing towards us. There are a multitude of
converging crises which impose unprecedented levels of stress on our marine environment. For
example, nuclear radiation, over-exploitation of fish and other sea life, toxic chemical pollution
from oil and other extractive industry activity, and last but not least - climate catastrophe.
3. Such an alarming situation demands equally unprecedented and radical action, not just to create
environmental sustainability (a term which many argue has, through a series of deliberate and
perverted means, lost its original positive value), but to actively protect and restore life in our
oceans. The proposals in the New Marine Protected Areas Act discussion document go nowhere
near achieving this imperative.
4. If we consider what all the climate crisis and other threats listed above have in common, it is
that they were and continue to be caused (to some greater or lesser degree) by political, transnational corporate, business and industry actions and/or omissions. These behaviours are in
turn supported (and even driven) by an economic operating system that society is fast coming to
understand is a demonstrable failure in terms of delivering the much-promised social goods.
Thetragedy of the commons currently in play is clear evidence that the so-called free market is
incapable of producing a fair distribution of wealth whether that be environmental, social or
otherwise. Why, then, to do policy-makers still cling so desperately to such a failed model?
5. Therefore, it is a misnomer that we have to choose EITHER social justice and environmental
protection OR a truly dynamic, thriving economy. We can have both. But it takes a fundamental
and radical transformation of underpinning orthodox, failed economic ideology; it requires
dismantling that false dichotomy and seeing perhaps for the first time - the game-changing
win-win opportunities, not just for Aotearoa, but for our Pacific oceanic region and our World. It
demands that our Government, business, industry and wider civil society urgently:
a. Embark on a bold, genuine, open-minded exploration to determine what a true lifenurturing economic system (consistent with proactive environmental and human rights
protection) looks like; and
b. Implement that new economic system.
6. In addition to that macro level attention and effort, and more specifically, I call for the new
marine protection legislation to:
1

This statement was made using the online form at http://kasm.org.nz/mpa-submission/.

a. Ensure our legal and regulatory marine protection regimes are tailored to actual New
Zealand values and circumstances. This tailored regime may require higher benchmarks and
compliance specifications than New Zealands international obligations which reflect
minimum standards only.
b. Ensure that the current level of marine protection is, at a minimum, maintained and cannot
be wound back.
c. Ensure all significant decision-making under the marine protection regime complies with
Crown Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations to Mori and indigenous peoples human rights,
including the right to obtain Mori free, prior and informed consent (see the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007 which New Zealand endorsed in 2010).
d. Ensure better integrated and harmonized decision-making generally across all government
policy, for instance to reconcile seemingly contradictory aspects like the chilling effect of
Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement on environmental protection vs the need to restore our
oceans health. Ensure also that when such policy anomalies are being reconciled, the
highest standard (not the lowest common denominator) is agreed and enforced.
e. Allow for marine protected areas to be established throughout New Zealands EEZ, not just
within our territorial waters.
f.

Include areas that have current economic interests, such as seabed mining or oil and gas
exploration permits. Their exclusion drastically reduces the utility of any marine protection
regime, to the point of making it meaningless (and certainly NOT courageously world
leading).

g. When considering exploitative activities such as oil drilling and seabed mining, establish and
recognise the true intrinsic social, cultural and economic values of a healthy marine
environment. Presently there is insufficient research done in this area. This paucity of
research wrongly enables those who advocate exploitative activity in our oceans to argue
that such data "uncertainty" should mean the benefit of the doubt should weigh in favour of
business, industry and corporations exploitative and profit-making agendas. However,
there is no moral basis for any such claim. On the contrary, from a civic standpoint, the
decisive factor should be whether any proposal fulfils the requisite Crown Te Tiriti o
Waitangi obligations to Mori, or otherwise has the necessary social license. Furthermore,
given the multiple converging crises of our time, a precautionary approach (as opposed to
acquiescing to aggressive corporate privilege claims) should be employed.
h. Ensure true good faith Government consultation with the affected public regarding key
decision-making under the marine protection regime.
i.

Prioritize the establishment first of Marine Reserves to protect the most important breeding
and feeding locations for endangered species within the EEZ.

j.

Replace the requirement that the Minister for Primary Industries approve any marine
protected areas with the requirement that the Minister be consulted on any such
proposal.

7. To further elaborate on the broader contextual issues within which marine protection
imperatives ought to be located, I also refer to my statement to the parliamentary select
committee examining the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (submissions which were also
due today, 11 March 2016), a copy of which is available at
https://www.scribd.com/doc/302546454/Statement-to-Parliamentary-Select-Committee-sinternational-treaty-examination-into-the-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Agreement-2016-6mar16
(note that this is an updated version which includes formatting corrections and typo edits, but
the paper remains materially the same).