Changing Tides Tai Tōrua - Ocean resilience webinars

[ELISABETH] Tēna koutou, tēna koutou, tēna koutou katoa. A warm welcome to Changing Tides Tai Tōrua, a web series that focuses on all things moana. Thank you so much for tuning in today. At last count there were over 300 people registered and who knows how many of you sitting at each laptop, at each screen. So thank you for having us at your laptops and your living rooms and your lives during this unprecedented moment in time.

The intention of Tai Tōrua is to bring together experts from Aotearoa and around the world to discuss issues facing our moana and the impacts of climate change on our marine environment I'm your host Elizabeth Easther. I'm a broadcaster and writer among other things and ever since I made the documentary series 'Islands of the Gulf' for TVNZ I've found myself spending more and more time writing about conservation and working with people whose focus is to preserve our precious environment and vulnerable ecosystems and the more I learn the more I want to learn and need to learn and I'm sure that's why many of you are here tuned and today.

We are all here because of our passion for the ocean. This series has brought to you by WWF New Zealand and the Department of Conservation and I would like to thank these organizations for making this series possible and to thank all our speakers starting with today's panellists: Joe Harawira, Tom Trnski and Di Tracey and all of you for joining us today. This series will provide opportunities for learning and discussion. We will open up dialogue, encourage discourse and work towards improving the health of the Moana.

To paraphrase Bob Dylan the tides they are a-changin and we must change with them. But before I hand to our first speaker a couple of quick housekeeping matters. Chat: chat windows are open or active for the first 10 minutes of this session. Use that chat ability to ask any technical questions if you're having trouble. Although don't ask me because I have already proved behind the scenes here that I am NOT a technical person. QA: there is a QA facility at the bottom of your screen. Type your questions as they spring to mind they will be filtered to avoid duplication and questions that are off topic will be removed. Voting: if you see a question you want answered give it the thumbs up and that will help move it to the top of the list. And questions with the most votes will be asked first. Recording: all these sessions are being recorded for quality assurance and training purposes. Actually no, just public record and this one will be put up on YouTube tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand channel. If you know people who would like to have been here please do share it with them.

And finally, our kaupapa. Please be respectful and your comments and questions and I know I've heard this a lot lately but just be kind. It's always applicable. Rule of thumb if you wouldn't say it to your grandparents keep it to yourself. So today, our first webinar you have joined us for Aotearoa: Our Moana. The indigenous knowledge that Māori share with the moana provides unique opportunities for understanding and protecting our ocean. Today we will learn more about this connection, along with exploring our marine diversity: from the surface to the deep sea and how our ecosystems are connected to the wider Pacific region.

And now the good stuff our three wonderful knowledgeable speakers Joe Harawira, Tom Trnski, and Di Tracey. Leading the panel today Joe Harawira. He's a storyteller, a teacher and for the past 20 years he's been the Cultural Tikanga Advisor at Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation. Joe has travelled extensively representing his people on the world stage sharing indigenous insights, his perspectives and experiences born of a unique knowledge system of connectedness to the heartbeat of the land. And when we were having our planning meetings prior to this event we talked tech specs and who was using slides or PowerPoint and Joe said he'd simply be doing a kōrero and that his point of power is his Tā moko. Joe's talk today, Te Araroa Tangaroa, the many pathways of Tangaroa and to launch this series officially Joe will begin with a karakia. Kia ora, Joe.

[JOE] E ngā mana kei ngā reo, rau rangatira mā. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Kia inoi tātou. Pou hihiri Pou rarama Pou o te whakaaro Pou o te tangata Pou o te aroha Te pou e here nei i a tātou Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e I'd like to begin our webinar by acknowledging the many voices that have come on our webinar today. And it's my understanding that we have overseas cultures and peoples who have zoomed in to our webinar. So first of all I'd like to acknowledge you. I began the session with a karakia. And I did it in the Māori language which is the Māori language which is the language of this link.

And there's a reason why I haven't translated that karakia. All I ask you to do is to hear the spirit of the words, the spirit of the language, the spirit of the Māori language, the language of this land. And so, nau mai, piki mai, kake mai , welcome. I'd like to begin my kōrero with a little bit of a story. In the beginning there was nothing. The unknowing nothing, the unseeing nothing. The beginnings of my times, the beginnings of our times, the beginnings of me, the beginnings of us, the beginnings of we, the aborigine of Aotearoa. Io, the creator began the configuration of the universe with a sacred karakia and a waiata.

He had children, Rangi and Papa, whom bore many, many sons within the darkness, within the confines of darkness, and at the separation they had many sons who were given responsibilities. We called them kaitiaki. And one of the sons was given the responsibility for being the kaitiaki, the guardian of the oceans and the waters. And his name was Tangaroa. And my connection to Tangaroa is one of what we call in Aotearoa, New Zealand whakapapa. Whakapapa is about connection, connectedness and being connected to a source, to a heartbeat.

And so, my knowledge and my experiences and understandings around the marine ecosystems and this guardian, kaitiaki called Tangaroa have a connection back to our being, our creator, Io Matua Kore. The connection for me is about energy. It's about the radiation of my energy, and my heartbeat and connecting that to Io Matua Kore, to Rangi and Papa, the sky father, Rangi and the earth mother, Papa and to their son.

One of the many sons, Tangaroa. Whakapapa is about layers and it's about connection. And I liken the energies of our connection through heartbeat to the ebbing tides. The ebbing tides, the flow, the ebb and flow of the moana, of the oceans. Within the domain and my way of viewing the moana and the oceans and our ways as Māori we have many microcosms of knowledge and things that make up a whole in a holistic sense and whakapapa is just one of them. We have a, what would you call it? We have a an understanding of working in two paradigms, in two worlds.

The spiritual world we call the kauae runga the metaphysical world, the spiritual world and we also have the kauae raro, which is the physical world. Tangata, people who are living. And our understandings and knowledge of interactions and working with the moana have come from centuries of observation and interaction with the moana. Our interactions with the moana have determined our ways of seeing, our ways of being, our ways of knowing, our ways of understanding, which are prevalent in all of the pūrākau - our stories, which are prevalent in the karakia - our prayers, which are prevalent in the waiata, all of our waiata and in our stories. And so, all of those contain mātauranga or knowledge and in our case mātauranga Māori, which are determined by what we call tikanga or protocols and processes

Tika is the root word of tikanga and tika means to do things, do things right. And these protocols and processes that came about through these observations and interactions with Tangaroa and with the marine ecosystem have determined our ways of working and understanding earth. And so, the Māori in view of the moana and the oceans comes back to connectedness and it's incumbent I think, no incumbents not the right word. We can see that in a saying from the Whanganui people and that saying goes like this: Mai i ngā maunga ki te moana, ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au. As the rivers flow from the mountains to the sea, I am the river, the river is me. Tangaroa and people.

I view and we view Tangaroa as a sentient being, a person. And we interact with Tangaroa as if it is a person, because we understand that the emotions and the things that we feel as people, Tangaroa feels exactly those same things. And they're concepts of 'mauri'. Mauri is a life principle, life force. So Tangaroa has a mauri, based around the word 'mana' - integrity. So Tangaroa, the father of all of the things under the ocean and within the ocean has mana - integrity.

Tangaroa has wairua. Tangaroa has a spirit, just like you and I have a spirit. And Tangaroa to we is a sacred being, just like you as an individual are a sacred being on this planet that we call earth. And so with those concepts, in viewed within the person - 'Tangata', which is the kauae raro, the physical realm. But when you stretch back and reach back into the spiritual realm that is the connection. So, everyone listening to this webinar at this moment in time has a life principle, has mauri. And, so does our oceans and our seas.

Everyone listening to this webinar has mana. You have individual integrity. There is nothing, no one like you as an individual on this earth except you. You are special, just like Tangaroa and our marine ecosystem. Everyone listening to this webinar has a 'wairua' - a spirit. Everyone listening to this webinar is a sacred person on this earth. And so the acknowledgments to Tangaroa are the same as the acknowledgments to people to people. And we used that concept of mauri wairua mana and tapu to the tiniest of the the organisms in the sea has mauri, has mana, has wairua, has tapu,  right through to the blue whale has mauri, mana, wairua and tapu.

That is our connection to ourselves and then back to our Creator. So, I think I've only got through half of what I wanted to get through, but the voyaging, of course the Māori people, we use the ocean currents and the flow for voyaging. We observe the Stars to get from point A to B. Those of you who live by the ocean, Hīrere, have an intimate connection with the ocean as a food source and for recreation. And I suppose for me the ultimate thing is around sustainability and understanding the impacts of climate change, and the unsustainable practices that are affecting the mauri, the wairua, the mana and the tapu of Tangaroa, of our oceans. Tēnā koutou, kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Joe, that was uplifting, thank you so much. And our second speaker because we want to get through these so we can get to our Q&A because it's a very good one that interesting, that's already popped up on the screen. But our second speaker is Tom Trnski. Dr Tom Trnski has been working in the field of marine biology ever since he was a small boy growing up in Australia. And he would be looking under rocks for crabs and in tidal pools for anemones. And the lucky man, he has turned that boyhood enthusiasm into his profession. Tom is now head of Natural Sciences at Tāmaki Paenga Hira, the Auckland War Memorial Museum. And over 30 years, Tom has led marine biodiversity surveys across the Pacific, from Indonesia to French Polynesia and science engagements with indigenous communities. Tom was actually meant to be on a research vessel right now spending four weeks sailing from Rapa Nui the Easter Island through to the Pitcairn Islands, finishing up in Tahiti. But lockdown put a stop to that and tom has found himself marooned in Tāmaki Makaurau. But on the bright side that does mean Tom can talk back to us today. His focus, marine biodiversity in New Zealand. How we fit into the South Pacific region and what is so special about Rangitāhua, the Kermadec Islands. Kia ora, Tom. Oh, Tom?

[TOM] Hang on! I have to unmute myself. Ah, good one. There we are. Kia ora tātou. Thank you very much Elizabeth, and thank you for the.... [background noise] Are we ok? [background noise] Can you hear me?

[ELISABETH] Yes, all good to go Tom, please continue.

[TOM] Thank you. Thank you Elizabeth for the introduction and thank you Joe for the karakia and and your kōrero. I put this up because you all know that the world is made up of 70% Ocean and the Pacific Ocean is the largest of all oceans. I do want to acknowledge that the Polynesian, Polynesians and eventually Māori, who settled New Zealand made the largest voyage ever on earth and they use their mātauranga to get to Aotearoa. So, my background is actually in larval fishes.

That's the stage after the fishes hatch out of the egg. And that is that also the very important stage that fish is used to disperse across great expanses of ocean, not unlike our Polynesian voyagers. The Pacific Ocean is huge, but it is spot dotted with very small islands and large expanses of ocean in between. The challenge is: "how do things disperse across these largest expanses of ocean?" and "how do they find them? And this is something that I've been interested in all my professional career. Thanks to my background in larval fishes, but also my opportunities to go travel around the Pacific Ocean. As Elizabeth said, a few weeks ago it should have been cruising the east and south east, central eastern Pacific. Just to give you a little bit of background.

I'm sorry, this is a little bit of a biology 101 session But the important thing is that almost all fishes spawn eggs that turn into larvae. And the larvae are the dispersal phase of fishes and eventually the fishes do settle somewhere, most fishes at least. And they settle into their juvenile habitats and sometimes stay there for the rest of their life. And that becomes their adult habitat. So, in a way, this is the way that things can can jump from one island to another and make large migrations across ocean scales. It's important to understand how these things are connected because what we see in the ocean environment is totally dependent on the ability of larvae to disperse. And not all larvae can disperse in the same way. Larvae interact with the whole range of oceanographic currents. Most of them spend time in the surface waters and they spend weeks to months at sea. Some of them make huge migrations of thousand of kilometers.

And some just a few kilometers. And some even less than that. But the key point is that they have to interact at the ocean and the ocean is not a uniform mass of water that doesn't move around. It varies in both space and time. And that influences what species occur where around the ocean. Getting to a more regional scale. So this is New Zealand, and you see that the main ocean current that influences at least the northern part of New Zealand comes off the East Australian current. For those of you who remember Finding Nemo that was the current that Nemo was riding down with the turtle, down the east coast of Australia. During this warming period of ocean environment over the last few decades that East Australia current has strengthened.

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Has strengthened quite radically, and has changed the fauna and the Marines biota that occurs down the east coast of Australia. Things that didn't occur in Tasmania are now occuring and breeding in that area. The Tasman Front which you see coming across to northern New Zealand, the other bit of orange or orange red is actually the warm water current that hits the top of the North Island and not only brings warm water species across to northern New Zealand. You also see a lot of cold water currents in blue that hit the bottom of the South Island as well. So putting that into a regional perspective, since I've been here in 2007, I've had the fortune and the opportunity to lead a number and participated a number of expeditions across the Pacific.

And the main reason is to try to look at how northern New Zealand is connected to therest of the Pacific. Biologically connected that is. I won't go into any of these expeditions. But I have had the opportunity to go to Rangitāhua,, the Kermadec Islands seven times. And that is in the northern part of New Zealand's exclusive economic zone. And is an important area of study, which I'll get to in a minute. But I have it the opportunity to go to some very remote islands, most of which are uninhabited.

To discover the biodiversity with colleagues, to discover the marine biodiversity of those areas. some key points that I wanted to make about what we've discovered is first of all that we still are in an era of discovery. It's actually quite hard to believe that every time we go to a go to a new island or an island group we increase the known diversity of fishes by 10 to 20 percent. We make many new species discoveries and similarly for seaweeds and invertebrates we find similar scales and sometimes in invertebrates greater scales of new discoveries. And what we're doing is building our knowledge of biological connectivity amoung the islands. This helps explain the distribution of these species and also building models to predict changes over time.

We are in a very dynamic time in the Anthropocene, which is the era of human impact. Where sea temperatures are changing, currents are changing, storm events are increasing in intensity and also there's a lot of fishing pressure, as well on a lot of these islands. Some of the findings we've found is that some things that have were considered one species have been identified as representing probably more than one species. And interestingly the area's if you look in the bottom right hand corner, the things that are most similar to what's found at Rangitāhua are actually not the populations closest to it, but further to the east around Rapa Nui.

Similarly the most common reef fish at at Rangitāhua, is a small damselfish, which has the same name as what's at Rapa Nui or Easter Island, 3,000 kilometres away. But it looks quite different. It's much more yellow and looks more similar to a golden coloured and damselfish that's just to the north of us, here on Rangitāhua, Whether it’s a a new species or not is still under investigation. So looking at the location of Rangitāhua on the land, on the bottom-scape of the oceans and you can see we have a very large continental area which is all the yellow and green area as well as what's emergent above sea. Much of it is what is volcanic and particularly along the Kermadec reach. It's adjacent to the second deepest trench on earth in Tonga, just to the north of Rangitāhua.

And so, it's a very dynamic and very interesting marine environment to study. Part of the reason for that is that it is one of only now get this, it is one of only four islands in the world that are considered pristine, in that they have not been influenced by people or very little influenced by people. Three of those are in the Pacific, They’re the black dots on this map.

Two on the west coast of Central America. Rangitāhua which is number two on the left-hand side of the chart and one more location. Why this is important is that there are virtually no places except these four where we can study marine systems in the absence of influence by people. So it's very hard to tease out natural changes to Marine environments and separate those from human influence changes without these bellwethers of change on these four islands. So, Rangitāhua is an important area for study and in research. Things that we've found is a very common species of urchin across the pacific, which was thought of as one species was described as a new species of it up from Rangitāhua and now has been found to occur in a much broader area as well. Similarly, some of the top microscopic algae that cause ciguatera toxin,

I won't go into that but it actually makes fish quite toxic to people, but not to other fishes. But it it has been found at Rangitāhua and with close relatives of the same toxin has been found at Rangitāhua. In a global environment where sea temperatures are increasing, could that ciguatera toxin,turn up in northern New Zealand? Or potentially impact some of our fishes that we like to eat as well? It’s just a hypothesis, but certainly something that we're actively following with some of our colleagues.

This is a graph of the species of fishes that have been discovered at Rangitāhua over them over the many years. Just on one trip, in 2015 we discovered nine new, not new species, but species that have never been recorded from there in the past. All of these are tropical fishes, remembering that Rangitāhua is on the margin of the tropical islands to the north and the temperate seas to the south in northern New Zealand. And it effectively is a stepping stone for some of these tropical species that eventually could turn up in northern New Zealand. And with warming temperatures and as I said the currents that will change, modelling predicts that some of these species will in fact turn up in New Zealand over the next decades.

The oceans have been doing us a very huge favour. We have certainly a lot of people have been noticing on land at least changes in atmospheric climatic conditions. Whether it's storm events icebergs melting and glaciers melting. And so, they're being quite moderated. Some of those events even though we're noticing at sea level changes, big sea storm surges.

But actually, the oceans have been doing us a big favor in absorbing almost all of the atmospheric carbon that it be has been generated over the last hundred or so years. And it's only a matter of time and obviously that's having any impact on oceans, before that gets saturated and the impacts on land will become more intense. I can't finish this without presenting this graphic of catches of fishes across the Oceans that had reached their maximum sustainable catch in a particular year - from the 1950s up until about 2000. And as an area becomes red it actually reaches maximum sustainable yield. And as you see, by the year 2000 pretty well all the Oceans except for the Antarctic have reached their maximum sustainable yeild. Which does tell us about the pressure that people are putting on our marine species, particularly the larger attractive species that we like to eat. So I'm just going to finish up talking about protecting these areas.

Some of the island nations around us to the north of us have made huge strides in trying to protect species that occur around their oceanscape. For example Palau and Micronesia has protected over 80% of its EEZ from fishing/ Pitcairn Islands, Fiji has a target of over 50%. Many islands are now starting to realize the impacts of some of these that some of these fishing and human-induced pressures are having on their environments. And the reason they're protecting this is: protecting marine environments increases resilience of marine systems to major global impacts. Whether that's climate change, storm events or whatever. It also protects their reefs from damage and that also protects islands from storm events. It helps build fishery targeted species. But it can't compensate for massive overfishing. And it also helps return ecological function of marine systems.

And I've had the benefit of working in Rangitāhua where we're working in a system thats fully functional and it has all the ecological levels present in it. If you look at the image behind me there's 12 sharks in that image and there's very few places left on earth, even in my lifetime that I've seen big changes in the number of sharks that occur in some of these remote reefs. So it's time to change. It's time to look after our connected ocean system. And as joe said restore the mauri of Tangaroa because that's the most important aspect of what we have to achieve. And I've been really enjoying working with indigenous communities across the Pacific to try to help restore some of the integrity of their marine system. Tēnā koutou katoa.

[ELISABTH] Kia ora Tom, that was fascinating. I think most of us would love to go to the Kermadecs and it's not a book a 7-day package sort of place. So, I'm shining a light on the motu and the moana in that area. It's just so interesting, although also, yes, there's some serious news in there as well. That I hope we take note of and do something. Right, okay, third speaker today is the wonderful Di Tracey.

Di Tracey is a fisheries scientist at NIWA, Taihoro Nukurangi and she's been researching deep-sea marine life and using their waters for decades. Interestingly, because what tom was saying there is always something else to discover in the ocean, last year Di's team, one of the stars that they discovered out of 600 new and potentially unknown ocean species, was a worm that feeds on bacteria and has no eyes. And I would be very proud if I'd found that. Now Di also works on aging deep-sea fish and has now moved on to aging some of the most ancient and threatened corals in our region. Di's talk today - Deep-sea corals and New Zealand waters. Kia ora Di.

[DI] Kia ora Elisabeth and Tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Di Tracey āhau No Taihoro Nukurangi. Thanks to DOC and WWF or inviting me to participate in this webinar. It's certainly been great to listen to Joe and then Tom's kōrero just now and get their perspective about our marine biodiversity marine, Māori knowledge and connections. In my talk I would like to take you all a bit deeper. Into the dark waters of our marine realm, in fact. So, I will mainly be talking about deep-sea corals. A lot of people in the audience know that we have deep-sea corals in the region. But probably not all of you. And my hope is that the coral information won't be out of sight and out of mind by the end of my talk. Quickly, thanking the funding agencies who've supported a lot of the deep-sea research in our region.

So, I'll talk about protected deep-sea coral fauna. Hidden from view at depths of 800 metres or more, live a range of diverse and colorful deep-sea corals. And an understanding of the science of this group is required both by scientists and managers. So I'll describe what colors we have in our region, show their distribution, present some age data and briefly mentioned species associate, anthropogenic impacts and the oceanographic and geological environment in which the corals are found. And just to start off, of course we know that New Zealand is the fourth or fifth largest EEZ in the world and supports incredibly large biodiversity and abundant deep-sea fauna. Phylum Cnidaria: the corals and enemies and relatives are one of these abundant groups.

Tom's mentioned Rangitāhua a lot and we do have some warm water stony corals up in the Kermadec region. They look a bit like this: shallow water scleractinian's close to shore, and like this. And you would have seen images such as these in the Pacific region and off Australia. Occasionally, long-dead fossils float up on to our Northland beaches and we get asked to identify these fauna. So we do have these shallow reef like corals in our region. Also, in shallower waters, for example in the Poor Knight's Island region we have, in about 45 metres, amazing and diverse ecosystems such as this.

And here we also see shallow water corals, from primnoid sea fan coral and golden corals. Swimming up over this Ridge here in the shallower water a two spot demersal and clustered amongst the corals are some orange sponges. But there are many more cold water corals in deeper waters. And the images I will show you in these next few slides, have all been taken by the NIWA deep-sea towed system, DTIS. And it's deployed off Tangaroa our research vessel. And I assure you having been on this vessel for many years it's not always this calm when we're at sea. So the black corals, they sometimes are uniplanar and tall like this coral in this image.

Bushy, tree like and the image in the middle is a black coral from the fjord region in the dark shallow cold waters. But these corals, the same genus also occur in our deep-sea waters. One of the most important groups are the Scleractinians, the Stony Branching Corals. They form large fragile 3D matrix colonies, reef mound or thicket structures, that existed for hundreds or thousands of years. They're made up of calcium carbonate, the aragonitic form of calcium carbonate. And the upper zone where you see all these pink and white parts of the reef, alive. The lower region comprises of dead coral framework that supports this live matrix.

These corals provide biogenic habitat on sloped margins, ridges and sea mounts throughout our region. And it's the dead and live matrix, both parts that are really important and act as refuge for some fish and invertebrates. And our research focus has been on impacts on these corals, in particular. And for me understanding how old these corals are. So we take small samples small branches from these coral reefs to identify them and then age them. They don't always live on hard bottom substrate. Sometimes Scleractinians, Stony Branching Corals occur on hard substrate and 400 meters on the top of the Chatham rise on flat slope. And here you can see little clusters of Goniocorella dumosa stony coral. Swimming over this area are Banded Bellows fishes and Inflated Sea urchins, echinoderms or Tam O'shanter urchins. within the Scleractinian coral group we also have cup coral forms. These are found on soft sediment but also attached to hard substrate throughout our region and some of them have bioluminescence. Another key group are the Primnoidae Sea Fan corals, Gorgonian Octocorals.

And here's a whole lot of sea fans, just circuiting this little outcrop here. And this large orange animal here to the left is a Brisingid sea star. The diversity of our three key families of Gorgonian Octocorals is probably the highest in the world for a single country. This is another Gorgonian Octocorals, the Bamboo Coral. It too luminesces, and we've aged colonies of this coral up to 400 years. Primnoidae sea fans occur throughout the region. This amazing image of biodiversity was taken in the Macquarie Ridge area. And let's not forget we also have other key deep-sea fauna in our region such as the sponges. Another Gorgonian Octocoral, the Plexaurid, an incredibly colorful group and the charismatic bubblegum coral. Our Kauri of the deep.

This reaches massive sizes and this image is also in the Macquarie Ruggieri area. You can see the whole colony overarching in the currents. And at the base of the coral you can see sheltered here a whole lot of small corals growing. Bottlebrush corals and other small bits of Primnoidae sea fans and Bubble Gum corals. And we've aged one colony of this bubblegum corals to five hundred years. They seem to have a faster growth rate than some of our other corals found in the region. There are the Hydrocorals, the Stylasterid Hydrocorals, Delicate Lace corals. And they're found also in many shapes and forms and colors, pink. red. And you've already seen this Google Maps image from Tom. And it certainly shows how extensive our marine realm is. And it's managed by several government agencies. And the ones in blue are the ones who fund a lot of our research. For DOC, they have legislation that provides spatial protection to our corals.

And the Wildlife Act protects Black corals, Gorgonian Octocorals, Stony corals and Hydrocorals. The groups that I just introduced you to. Fisheries New Zealand also has a role to manage the corals. And that comes under the requirement of the Fisheries Act. And I lead a couple of projects that are supported by Fisheries New Zealand and DOC to identify incidental bycatch of species collected by observers, from Deepwater and middle depth fisheries. And these examples on the screen here are some of the corals that have been collected by observers from our region. So the knowledge of our fauna has certainly advanced substantially in New Zealand, since the days of the Astrolabe voyages and Terra Nova.

These days we don't use Agassiz trawls. But sit in darkened rooms on Tangaroa for hours on end looking at video footage to identify the animals that we're seeing in the deep sea. And also, I identify what kind of substrate they live in. The coral distribution knowledge has extended from what we knew in the 60s. Which was quite a lot of information around the coastal region and a little bit out to Rekohu, near the Chatham Islands to an incredibly wide knowledge of the distribution of corals inside our Exclusive Zone, in the High Seas and also in the Ross Sea. But there are still a lot of gaps. I've mentioned seamounts quite a lot. And I just pause for a moment to introduce you to seamount features. This is a 3D Swath image showing the shape of the Andes knolls, to the east of the Chatham Islands. And often the corals, especially the Scleractinian corals are draped over the summit and down the flanks of these seamounts.  And to give you some perspective I grew up under the Taranaki, this wonderful mountain. And it is the same size as Le Havre, a significant sea mount in the Kermadec, Ring of Fire region.

So we have a really good idea from our taxonomic and molecular studies about how many coral species we have. Well over 1300 in the region. At least 500 still need to be described. And have a lot of endemism, at least 200 endemic species. We use guides to instruct observers and researchers to identify the coral fauna. We carry out, we produce a lot of spatial distribution plots and carry out quite a lot of habitat suitability mapping of the corals in the group. Where they are and where we predict they also may be. And as promised some aging data for some of these corals. The branching Stony Corals have incredible longevity. If you're looking at a long dead matrix, that has been aged to well over ten thousand years. If you're looking at just some pieces of coral colony we've aged some of these up to well over 2,000 years as well. For the black corals, for example Leiopathes. We've dated to well over 2,000, using radiocarbon dating.

Bathypathes are not as old, live to around 300 years. But again incredible longevity with these deep-sea corals. We're beginning to look at species association in relation to the corals. We're still teasing out the information about Orange Roughy and other species that always seem to be associated. And so we're just trying to link up that information. Globally there are definitely associations between fish and corals. And clearly there's an association between invertebrates and corals. Squat lobsters, here's one nestled onto the branches of a black coral. They are often seen, also perched on the top of these matrix , the reef matrix in the currents getting food. Ophiuroids are often wound around the branch of black coral or other species. And we've looked at a lot of stresses on the coral communities.

Anthropogenic impacts include fishing and our research has demonstrated appreciable impacts from bottom trawling, with little or no evidence of recovery in the short term. And of course it's not surprising because these corals are slow growing and long-lived. So the commercial-scale bottom trawling is a major risk. So too is climate change, that Tom's already mentioned. A changing environment of ocean temperature is a concern. We haven't looked at bleaching but we have carried out experiments looking at ocean acidification. And we're also looking at sedimentation impacts on these corals. What we've noticed is that the pink tissue, the coenenchyma, that covers the branches of some of the stony corals disappears under elevated pH, which was an ocean acidification impact. And just to finish off, the geological ocean and oceanographic setting is also paramount to understand where the corals are.

Corals fall at the natural confluence of biology, hydrography and geology. So we need to consider the environment as a whole when we're studying these animals and we regularly collect oceanographic and substrate data. So in summing up the need for engagement of course is paramount and needs to be two ways. We all need to talk to each other and make sure we're doing the appropriate research. We often communicate our science via risk assessments, workshops, engagements. And I'm really thrilled to participate in this webinar today and engage with you all. And I hope that the knowledge of our coral fauna and this quick snapshot that I've given, in the deep sea is no longer out of sight out of mind for a lot of you. If you need to know more, hot off the press is our state of knowledge guide, report. So thank you. Ngā mihi ki a tātou katoa. [Back to Elizabeth] Kia ora Di, that was great ! And I love the thought too of the confluence of those. Of coral being the confluence of those three quite separate, you know, differing things. That's beautiful. Now question time, we're very limited.

Can I please remind people if you give something a thumbs up it will rise it to the top of the heap. The one that rose most quickly to the top of the heap was a question. I'm not going to name people as well because this will be going on YouTube later and you haven't given permission for your names to be used. But one question, I think maybe if we start with Joe. How do you reconcile the importance of conservation in the moana with getting a feed for the whanau? [Joe starts] Yes it is a bit of an issue with iwi and hapu. With the likes of lockdown so to speak from an iwi perspective in terms of marine reserves. And so I understand that the Ministry of Fisheries have got mechanisms in place to and are working with iwi to work through that particular issue. But I think iwi understand that unsustainable practices that have been carried out because of economic drivers or the like are impacting on our ability to practice what we did in the old days, which was to go down to the corner take what was required to feed the family and keep the resource in a sustainable way. And so, we have to work with the times. But it is still an issue for a lot of Iwi.

[ELISABTH] Kia ora, also too I want to make it clear that some of the other panel discussions are going to focus very specifically on climate change and marine protection per se. So if we don't cover those questions now, please don't think we're ignoring them because they are actually really important to all of us. But I will go and throw a question to Tom here right now. Variety has asked is there evidence of tropicalization occurring in the Kermadecs? Is that why there are more species being discovered during each expedition? Or is it due to increased sampling during each expedition?

[TOM] That is a great question because that's the question we ask ourselves. The challenge with the getting to Rangitāhua is that it's a very remote area and it's very expensive to get there. So our opportunity to go to Rangitāhua is actually quite limited. So when we, when we're finding these additional tropical species there, you're right! It could be just because we're sampling new areas. Or going there repetitively and coming up with these species.

I think over time we will be able to confirm whether it is tropicalization. There's a project I'm involved in with Libby Liggins from Massey University looking at population genetics and source populations for some of the species occur at Rangitāhua. And some of which are actually starting to appear in northern New Zealand or appear in larger numbers of northern New Zealand. So there's some indications that the warming waters possibly is increasing the incidence of tropical species both at Rangitāhua and in northern New Zealand. And that's just a part of ongoing studies both with Libby and with students as well. So watch this space.

[ELISABETH] Lovely and then we also have a question now for Di about coral. And I've got a couple actually about coral and deep-sea trawling. But do, where is that one for Di gone? Yes, what is the importance and context of corals and our knowledge of climate change and marine ecosystems? I think that's you Di.

[DI] That's a few questions that sounded like. [laughing sounds] Well the coral provides an important habitat, an ecosystem, where there are a lot of different animals. So if we remove part of that ecosystem from trawling that's a huge concern. We have closed some seamounts to fishing, to protect areas. We have areas that are closed to fishing within the region. And so, that's definitely occurring. But the teasing out fish associations with these coral habitats is quite tricky to be fair. Because we see aggregations of Orange Roughy over flat bottom, where there are no corals and we also see them aggregating around these sea months, where there are plentiful corals. So it's quite hard to tease out that information. But there's definitely some kind of connection there, to what fish eat and then what the diet of the fish is that links back to the corals, for sure. I hope that answered the question. It would have seemed to be a two-faceted one.

[ELISABETH] And also too, someone else has asked in the coral department: Is there anything the public can do to increase coral protection?

[DI] Well, I've been thrilled to give this webinar today to inform people that there are a lot of deep-sea corals in our region. And then it is just really, just lobbying the decision-makers, government agencies who protect the corals, DOC. But that doesn't mean that there are a lot of areas protected within our region.

[ELISABETH] Thank you and I'm not sure who will want to take this. But, if tropical fishes arrived in New Zealand will it have consequences to endemic fish species? And are there some that are vulnerable to a change in the community structure, like with New Zealand birds, for example? Can someone?

[TOM] Probably me! Look that's another good question. And it's something we don't often know until after things have arrived. Some years ago, about 2013 a sea chest was opened up from a large super yacht that had sailed from Tahiti. And it took six weeks to come from Tahiti and it was full of juvenile tropical fishes. I've actually got some here by the way. And it was very risky that. Fortunately, they didn't open the sea chest and just empty it which some people do just before they they come into port. But we don't know what the impacts are. Certainly we know when species that don't belong in a place, for example the lionfish.

The Pacific lionfish that was introduced to the east coast of the US or someone dumped it from an aquarium, is now a major pest in the Caribbean and the south-eastern part of the United States. Displacing local species, they're not good to eat. They're toxic if they're touched. So there can be some major impacts that we can't predict until they actually arrive. And unfortunately, once a marine species arrives and if it can breed in the area, it's actually very hard to get rid of. And we have some marine species not a fish, but it invertebrates and seaweeds that have been introduced that have caused problems and are displacing native species.

[ELISABETH] Lovely, thank you Tom. And then we do have one more coral question. Has there been any evidence of coral showing improved resistance to warming oceans and ocean acidification over time? If so, how long would it take for corals to build up this type of resistance?

[DI] Oh we don't have any data in this region for that. What we saw from our experiment was that they lost a lot of the coenenchyme tissue, which meant that the branches were getting quite weak. So that kind of strength of the corals will become more brittle. As the CO2 increases and the pH changes we also see a change in the aragonite saturation horizon, which corals use to make their skeletons. And so, they would have less available to make those skeletons. So we can just assume that this would happen. At the moment we have no evidence in our region. But it was great to do that small experiment and to get that kind of result because that had been seen by global researchers as well.

[ELISABETH] Lovely, thank you and this question is for Jo. Can you please explain more about the relationship between kaitiakitanga, mauri and wairua?

[JOE] Mauri the life essence. In a sense they're both the same. But Mauri in a translation into into English doesn't do the words justice. You've got to feel it in the heart. Mauri is a life essence. Wairua is the spirit, the spirit of a thing.

[ELISABETH] Lovely, thank you. And then we will do one little marine protection question, just because it is important, and also it's quite a quite a topic at the moment. Tom, the Kermadec marine protection area, do we know what the plan is for an extension? Or, I know this is a complex issue, but is there any known plan? [Tom starts] Well, the government didn't, the previous government did announce it to the UN that it was going to be legally designated and unfortunately that didn't go through. I think the government missteped in not consulting sufficiently before they made the announcement. I am hoping that in time that will happen. Mainly because these large ocean sanctuaries have major benefits for big, for species that do travel across oceanscapes. Things like tuna, things like tuna, as in the fish that is in sushi, not tuna as in the freshwater eel. But they have benefits for some of these large migratory species that cross oceans as part of their life cycle. Though in time perhaps it will happen. I think it would benefit the whole community around Rangitāhua. At the moment it's only rings of out to 12 nautical miles, but eventually most of the EEZ around Rangitāhua could potentially become a marine protected area and join others in the Pacific that have already done that.

[ELISABETH] Oh, we've probably got time for only one more question and this is a very big question. And please too people know that at the end of tile will come up and you can also send questions to moana@DOC.govt.nz and that will come up at the end. And those questions asked are important. So this is to Tom and Joe. One viewer is interested in your perspectives. How you would balance values when it comes to marine protection, particularly given the differences in world views between indigenous and non-indigenous in the special context of New Zealand with the Treaty of Waitangi and the 1992 fisheries settlement between Māori and the crown? So that's a big one, but maybe Joe first or Tom.

[TOM]  No Joe first.

[ELISABETH] We have three minutes.

[JOE] I was just thinking about the first question: L A W and L O R E and the impacts on our ways of knowing and understanding from an L O R E perspective by the western L A W. And so, I think I've forgotten the question.

[ELISABETH] So the difference in world views between indigenous and non-indigenous?

[JOE] Yea, I think it beholds us all to understand each other’s customs, culture and ways of understanding and thinking to be able to come to a consensus, I suppose of how we can better approach those ways we see things. I think there is valuable, there is value in understanding the indigenous perspective because indigenous perspective as science, as well as Western science. And us we understanding the Western science as well. And oh, how is it that we weave into that fabric of understanding the world around us? That's my short and simple answer.

[TOM] Though if I could just finish up on that and you're exactly right Joe. We shouldn't see Mātauranga Māori or any indigenous knowledge system as a dichotomy between science and the indigenous college system. Where I found the real value is where the two come together, as you say Joe, woven together. And bring a lot more value and also benefit in understanding systems. Science is just an approach and an evidence-based approach to gain knowledge. Polynesian cultures also gain knowledge in means of kaitiaki, particularly of marine environments. They developed their own marine protected area systems through Rahui and Hātaitai and so. Mātaitai, sorry. And I think, it's not, they're not novel ideas. I think when we fuse the two knowledge systems together is when we get the best value and the best bang for our buck. And that's just and working with iwi and Pacific cultures that I've had the privilege of doing. My awareness of both the spiritual and physical aspect of the habitats and the species that live in them has certainly been broadened and certainly has increased my awareness of a different way of looking at things.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Tom and thank you Joe. That was a great answer to a good question. So thank you all so much. I wish we had more time but this conservation conversation is ongoing. And so, do please join please join us next week, same time, same channel same eventbrite booking system. And next week is - Our Changing Seas with Dr Huhana Smith, Dr Richard Levy and Dr Carolyn Lundquist. Kia ora, ka a kite anō te whanau. And now to close our session today. Oh, I have to also say I got the email address wrong before it's not moana its marine@DOC.govt.nz and to compose our session today I will pass back to Joe for a karakia. Kia ora.

[JOE] Kia ora, I'd like you to repeat after me Kia kotahi mai ki te ao nei Kia kotahi mai ki te whenua nei Kia kotahi mai ki te wairere nei Kia kotahi mai ki te hauora Kia kotahi mai ngā tāngata katoa Pātuki tahi ngā manawa e (times four), Tēnā koutou, kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Tuia ki runga
Tuia ki raro
Tuia ki roto
Tuia ki waho
Tuia ki runga
Tuia ki raro
Tuia ki roto
Tuia ki waho
Tuia te muka tangata o te rōpū e kohikohi ana nei
Ka rongo te pō
Ka rongo te ao
Tihei mauri ora

Kia ora Professor Huhana Smith, for your karakia Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. A warm welcome to our second session of Changing Tides, Tai Tōrua - the web series that focuses on all things moana, our precious ocean.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Welcome to those of you those of you who joined us last week and a warm kia ora to those of you who are here for the first time. Thank you for having us on your laptops your living rooms and your lives. It's heartening to see how many people are actively engaged in wanting to be a part of the change. Tai Tōrua - 'Tai" refers to the sea and the coast, also the tide. While 'Tōrua' refers to an alteration in direction and wind or current and it also has connotations in weaving. To do things and twos or double-strength.

So, the aim of Tai Tōrua, this webinar series is to make the wisdom of experts from Aotearoa and around the world accessible, as we discuss the pressing issues facing our moana and the impacts of climate change on our marine environment. I'm your host Elizabeth Easther and like most New Zealander's I've been a friend of the ocean since I was old enough to splash in the shallows. And like all of you I've seen huge changes to that environment in my lifetime. Since making the documentary series 'Islands of the Gulf', I found myself increasingly focused on conservation. Learning from those whose primary focus is the preservation of our vulnerable ecosystems. It is our mutual thirst for knowledge that sees us gather here today. Our passion for the ocean and our desire to see it protected sooner rather than later.

Tai Tōrua is brought to you by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation and I would like to thank those organizations for making this series possible. And to thank all our speakers including today's panellists Dr Richard Levy, Dr Carolyn Lundquist and Professor Huhana Smith. And all of you for joining us today It was so heartening when the three speakers today met for the first time last week on zoom. And all three were immediately enthused by each other and they almost instantaneously started making plans to communicate outside of this forum to share knowledge and move projects forward by some sort of academic speed-dating. So I know this is going to be a really positive session.

This series provides opportunities for knowledge sharing and connection creation. We will open up dialogue and encourage debate all in the name of working towards improving the health, the mauri of our Moana. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Now before I hand to our first speaker, a few minor housekeeping matters.

A chat window will be open for the first ten minutes of the session. You can use that facility to ask any technical questions if you're having any problems. Voting: if you see a question pop up in the Q&A situation or the Q&A's you have the opportunity to ask questions with the little icon down the bottom of your screen. And if questions are off-topic or offensive they will be removed. And if people see a question that they like or they would like to have asked give it a little thumbs up and it will rise to the top of the heap. We will endeavour to ask the questions with the most votes first. Recording: all these sessions are being recorded and put on YouTube.

You will find this one uploaded tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand website, along with last week's. So if you know people who would like to have been here and couldn't, can you share it with them, please? And finally, before we begin our kaupapa, please be respectful in all your comments and questions. I said this last week, but I'll say it again please be kind and please be courteous. Right, for any other comments do please email marine@DOC.govt.nz.

Today you have joined us for our second webinar Aotearoa - Our Changing Seas. As we all know a healthy ocean is essential in the fight against climate change and fighting against climate change is essential for a healthy Ocean. Today we'll explore the nature of our oceans future using insights from the past. We will hear about global climate change trends and the impacts on our diverse marine species. And we'll also learn about an innovative approach by coastal Māori communities in the Horowhenua to plan for climate impacts.

Today our three speakers are Dr Richard Levy, Dr Carolyn Lundquist and Professor Huhana Smith. First up Dr Richard Levy. He's principal scientist at GNS science, where he leads the Environment and Climate Research team. He also leads the Antarctic Ice Dynamics project and is an associate professor at the Antarctic Research Centre part of VUW. Richard's research focuses on the evolution of Earth's climate system, in the mid to high southern latitudes over the past 40 million years. In one online bio, Richard describes himself as a glacial stratigrapher and paleoclimatologist with expertise and microfossil analysis. And I used that sentence today as my vocal warmup. Richard's talk today - Our Ocean's future, insights from the past. Kia ora Richard.

[RICHARD] Kia ora Elizabeth, thank you very much. My mind is still boggling at the concept of academic speed-dating so on that note I'll share my screen and we'll crack into it. Thanks to all of you in the audience and the webinar world for taking time out of your day today to join us. And I hope I can provide today some insight, with some views into what we do is geoscientists, as geologists. Looking back into Earth's history to try to understand how the earth system responded in during past intervals of warmth, so we can perhaps learn a little bit more about how it might respond in the future.

So through this talk today I'm going to touch on some intervals, some past intervals of warmth. I'm going to describe to you how we know they were slightly warmer and we'll focus in on a couple of intervals that are very relevant for our current environment. Then I'm going to talk a little bit more about how we can reconstruct sea surface temperatures and perhaps some of those reconstructions might give us a little bit of a view as to where we're heading into the future. I'll then talk a little bit about primary productivity: phytoplankton, zooplankton. What we can learn from studying sediment cores about how primary productivity was different or similar than under these past intervals of warmth.

And then a little bit on migration from the West and what I mean by this is: what can we learn from the fossil record, that might tell us what we might expect? Who we might expect to arrive from Australia in the not too distant future. And if I have time, we'll be pushing it I know. If I have time I'll talk a little bit about freshwater flux from melting ice sheets and what sort of impact that might have on our ocean system in the future. This of course the subject is most dear to my heart because I am an Antarctic geologist. And you can see in the background there I was lucky to take a trip a number of years ago on a voyage to the southern ocean on board a vessel across the southern ocean.

And that’s on Mount Erebus you can see in the distance there. Right, so cracking on into it. I know you're all gasping with horror at this at this diagram but bear with me. It's a pretty important piece of graph. It's a very important graph with a lot of information. But it sort of shows you why looking back into the past can be very informative about the future. What you see in this graph, along the the x-axis is time, looking into the future here from 1800 to 2300. Going back in time 800,000 years. Going back in time five million years and then going back in time 50 million years. And then on the y-axis you have past levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And one thing to note here is that over the past 800,000 years carbon dioxide.

These are data that have been collected from icicles that show interglacial and glacial timescales. Hundred thousand you timescales of past ice ages and interglacials where CO2 didn't really climb above 300 parts per million. You have to go back three million years to fourteen million years before you get to times when Earth last experienced carbon dioxide levels that we currently have in the atmosphere today. So if we want to understand how the earth system behaved under CO2 conditions that we currently have and are likely to have in the future. Looking at these projections here going up out into the each of the RCPS and you've got to jump back quite far in Earth's past to really understand.

But today what I'm going to focus on is this interval of time here the last 125,000 years up to a present. The last interglacial into a glacial and into our present Holocene conditions. And see what we can learn about the oceans as we as we study those time intervals. Right, now when I talk about glacials and interglacials and I can apologize if you already understand about this.

Many people talk when we talk about glacial intervals they think of the movie ice age and have got a good concept of the fact that about 20,000 years ago the earth had a large ice sheet sitting on top of much of North America, much of Europe, all of Greenland. And then today you were in an interglacial, where only Greenland was covered by ice. So we've gone from a glacial to an interglacial period. And during that time, this interglacial is when human civilization has gone from from building pyramids four-and-a-half thousand years ago to the point where we have actually sent satellites out into the orbit around the earth to measure our changes in ice mass using laser technologies. So we've done a heck of a lot in the last 10,000 years. This is our interglacial.

So, these glacial - interglacial cycles have been going on for hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands to millions of years back through time. So we are in one little unique period where humans have gone crazy. Now if we jump back to the previous interglacial. So the intellectual that predates the last glacial maximum, what do we know about that? It's a time when data suggests that it's average surface temperature was 1 to maybe 1.5 degrees warmer than present. Now that’s really important, because that's where we are heading right now. That's the anticipated amount of warming that we'll experience if we achieve the Paris agreement, 1.5 degrees.

So the last interglacial interval was slightly warmer, not because of CO2 levels, but because of the way the Earth orbits the Sun changes. And there is slightly more sunlight coming in because of the configuration of the orbits. But it caused our planet to warm up enough that it's an analogue for current and future warming. Now during this time we know that sea level at its peak was 9 meters, 6 to 9 meters higher than present. It's not sure exactly why. Whether most of Greenland melted? Or some of Antarctica melted? And we're doing quite a lot of work to figure out which ice sheet melted. But the point is it provides a temperature analog to look at the future.

So we've focused a lot of our science on trying to understand how the oceans responded around the New Zealand region during the last interglacial. Stage 5, Marine Isotope stage 5. You'll hear it referred to as many different, under many different names. Now, how do we find out? what the last interglacial was like? In fact, how do we find out what any past interval of time was like? We use sediment cores. Sediment cores and geological outcrop. So this is an example of a sediment core. This line, this panel here is an example of a sediment core that was collected from Antarctica. And we collect these things using ships.

Some examples of the various vessels that sail around the world I'm collecting sediment cores from beneath the ocean surface. So that we can try to piece together, how the ocean system responded? How the ecosystem in those oceans would look like? How did it function during the past? This sediment core shows an example of if if I was to dig in here and take a sample and look under a microscope I'd see millions, billions of diatoms. This is a diatomite. A diatom rich sediment. And then right here, at this line here.

This is actually transitioning into a glacial sediment. So, right at this instant in the Earth's past we went from an interglacial to a glacial. And it's essentially how we can start to look back in time to understand what these previous warmer intervals were like. Now this is an example showing a reconstruction of sea surface temperature during the last interglacial. And so, it was done by a colleague of mine at GNS science. Giuseppe Cortese and many of his colleagues and what this map is actually showing is the anomaly or the temperature anomaly between what the temperature reconstructions for the last interglacial were compared to today. And so we you see numbers that are 4.9, 3.5 degrees.

These are 4.9 to 3.5 degrees warmer than present during the last interglacial. In these areas here are actually temperatures, sea surface temperatures there were colder during the last interglacial than present. But you get a general sense that during the last interglacial average earth surface temperatures 1 to 1.5 Paris type temperatures. The ocean around New Zealand was much warmer than today. So, perhaps this is giving us some insight as to what we might expect the oceans to do in the future. What I've done here in this plot is actually taken those temperatures from that last interglacial reconstruction and plotted them on top of a of a snapshot of a Marine heatwave we had in 2019.

So these are data from NOAA showing that a lot of warming along East Australia, out towards New Zealand and around the Chatham rise. And some cooling north and south. And these temperatures are from that last interglacial reconstruction, showing that the general pattern of warming was very similar. We actually see a bit more cooling than in the last interglacial. Some cooling up here, that's captured in the heatwave. So, perhaps they last interglacial there's something similar to what we might expect to see in in the coming future as these marine heat waves become the new normal. Now once we have these sea surface temperature reconstructions, we can start to look at how primary productivity may have changed. Now we haven't yet done it for the last interglacial.

But we have done some work on the change from the last glacial maximum to present. And so we're looking now at the changes in productivity, phytoplankton, primary productivity and zooplankton from offshore New Zealand using models. And so, what we're seeing here in this panel is a model simulation, using an earth system model of intermediate complexity - the user model. And it has modules in it that stimulate zooplankton, phytoplankton and diatoms. So productivity in the oceans can be simulated. And what we've done is run a simulation for the last glacial maximum and a simulation for pre-industrial conditions and then looked at the anomalies, the difference between the two. And where you see blue colours it's showing us that productivity today is much higher than it was twenty thousand years ago. And in red productivity is much lower than it was twenty thousand years ago.

So this is a model output. But the really cool thing is we can then look at sediment cores. And here's a couple of sediment cores at location A and B, in this higher and lower productivity areas. And these are some of the data in these panels here A and B for those sediment cores. And what you can see is that in fact, in the in the past as you came out of the glacial maximum productivity was lower and it's increased today. So it's matching what the models are predicting. And same in the north. Higher productivity in the glacial maximum and dropping down into modern.

So the data in the model, when you compare them are showing similar outputs which is really cool. It gives us confidence that the models are actually capturing reality, I guess. So we can now use these sorts of models to look at what might happen as the ocean warms. Now just to finish up quickly because I'm running out of time. The other the other really interesting thing I think that we can we can tell from using fossils and in past intervals of warmth comes from looking at macrofossils. These are these are examples of shells that were recovered from a deposit up in the Hokianga. Now what's important about these shells is that today they don't live in New Zealand. Here's the modern distribution.

Most of the organisms live along the eastern margin of Australia, they don't live in New Zealand. But when you come to the Hokianga and you find them in the shale deposit, then obviously it's suggesting that at some point in the past conditions were right that they could migrate from Australia across to New Zealand. And it just so happens that these deposits are from the last interglacial and the interglacial before that. So, in interglacials that were slightly warmer than present you start to see these species migrating across from Australia. Perhaps on those warm currents that that we know are occurring from the sea surface temperatures reconstructions.

Now I am going to finish up, sorry Elizabeth. I'm going to keep going just because this is super cool. We've been doing quite a lot of work at looking at freshwater flux into the ocean and I draw your attention to this paper here published in Nature last year. I encourage you all to read it because it shows what happens to global temperatures as meltwater is incorporated into these global circulation models.

Most of the GCMs haven't yet incorporated freshwater flux and as we start to include freshwater flux into the models it's actually changing the climate in the atmosphere. So the oceans, I mean I think most of you know this. But the oceans matter and this is just to give you a little taster. This is a regional ocean model that Stefan Jendersie been using as part of this NZ sea rise program looking at Victoria University to simulate the ocean temperature change around New Zealand under our RCP 8.5 with fresh water flux. So these are Paleo proven models now we're projecting into the future. And again you'll seem fairly major warming up to 5 degrees around New Zealand compared to present under these projections.

But also what's super interesting is that we can start to look at temperature change with depth. And what you see is as the temperatures in the surface warm just below those surface warming's you get a cooling and in a slight warming. And by 2100 you've got warm surface waters, cold water sitting below that and warm others below that. So we can start to perhaps inform some of the people interested in fisheries, fish migration as to what might happen to ocean temperature structure into the future. So thanks very much for listening.

[ELISABETH] Her research interests include reviewing impacts of climate change on the seafood sector and developing tools to help New Zealand ocean ecosystems. On Twitter Carolyn describes herself as a boundary object in a state of flux. Carolyn's focus today: Impacts and implications of Climate Change on Marine Species. Kia ora Carolyn.

[CAROLYN] Kia ora tātou and thank you. Hopefully you can give a nod if my screen is showing up now. Ko Carolyn Lundquist āhau Kei mātai pūtaiao nga NIWA āhau Welcome everyone. I have the lovely opportunity to introduce you to then, what following on Richards talk. On then, what do all these climate changes in the ocean mean for marine biodiversity? And so, I've put a few of my own photos up here and some colleagues.

But just to emphasize Richards point, just a moment ago that the ocean is really important and particularly in New Zealand. There we are, tiny little New Zealand. You know right now I think leading the world many people think, in terms of our response to COVID-19. But we are an ocean nation. Our EEZ is quite large. It's over four million kilometres squared. And we do range over about thirty degrees of latitude.

So that means we do have subtropical environments and sub-antarctic environments, just in our own waters. And we have very shallow waters to very deep waters, over 10,000 metres deep in these fancy trenches. So that means the biodiversity that you can find in New Zealand's oceans are huge. We do have our subtropical coral reefs. Just in some of the photos in here you can also see some hydrothermal vents. We do have hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. We have fjords, we have mangroves.

If you're in northern New Zealand some people aren't actually always that happy about that. But we have our mangroves, our salt marsh, our sand dunes, kelp forests. So there's just such a huge and wonderful diversity of the different environments, the different marine habitats and ecosystems that we find in New Zealand. And just some numbers to throw out at you of what we do have. We have over 60,000 known marine species. But probably four times larger than that, of species that haven't yet been named or collected. And possibly up to eighty percent of New Zealand's by diversity comes from our oceans.

We're a hotspot. There have been reports, I know that WWF has done. And so we're hot spot for quite a few different taxa and we have lots of endemic species. So basically species that are only found in New Zealand. So it makes it quite exciting to know what's going on. But that also makes it very difficult when we're looking at the effects of climate change because if you are looking at a lot of Richards photos we see, often differences in what's going to happen.

Whether it's temperature or productivity or water circulation, depending on whether you're in those very northern subtropical areas of New Zealand's oceans or the sub-antarctic parts of the oceans. So we do see a whole bunch of differences on what might happen in these predictions, as well as what has happened. And so I'm going to pop up some information. We've recently just completed a review for the Ministry of Primary Industries, for Fisheries New Zealand that should be coming out online, hopefully quite shortly. I've put the reference down there on if anyone's interested.

But it's basically updating what information we know about climate change in our oceans. But also, putting this in this particular report: what does that mean for our fishery sector? And so, Richard presented a lot of information about temperatures. So we know temperature has increased. So you can see that picture on that bottom left with the diagrams, where we are getting a lot more of those black bars that are the warmer years.

This is actually about 10 years old in this photo. So we're missing quite a few more warm years that have happened in recent years. And most of you will know that we've had quite a few heat waves. It's great to go out and summer and have nice warmer water or even in winter to have slightly warmer water. But it isn't necessarily what our biodiversity is used to. And so we tend to see temperature is one of those much more widely recognised stressors on the oceans.

So, for example, we've had a couple of these big summer heat waves in 2018-2019 and the year before. And so what happens when we get these warm water events, well some things have been quite close inshore. So I've got a couple of pictures there. A couple animals, that one might be familiar with. In the middle is the New Zealand Cockle, but the other one right next to it is a heart urchin , which is a really common animal in kind of shallow depths from about 2 to about 200 meters depth. And when you find them inshore and the tide goes out on a nice summer day and it's very warm.

I don't know if you can see in the background of this photo, there are a whole bunch of dead shells on the surface. And we've seen a number of these mass mortality events on warm water summer days when the tides are exposed. Both of these sea urchins, as well as of New Zealand Cockles. Some of the other things we expect to see happening from these changes in temperatures, is the expectation that we might see southward expansion or extension of species ranges. So you might have seen in the newspapers this summer of Otago fishermen reporting catches of snapper.

So things like that aren't necessarily unexpected. And then as Richard was pointing out we may have some of those subtropical beasties coming down from the Tasman Sea. So we do have this southward potential expansion or migration. But we also see some animals and this has been seen by our Australian colleagues as well, where they actually drop down out of surface waters. And this might be what's happening with Hoki in these summer heat waves, where Hoki go down to deeper water. We see those high temperatures really will hit from the surface down to 20 to 40 meters depth and Hoki like it a bit colder.

So they may be moving a bit deeper and so they might not be where the fishermen are expecting to find them. And then as Richard also pointed out, we do see declines in a lot of the habitat forming species, like our kelps. And this has been a big problem in Tasmania, as well as in California and a number of other places around the world where you see temperature declines. So just making sure that we know what's going on and making sure that we're monitoring our kelps, so that we can respond and be aware if they are declining. Sea level rise. What does that actually mean for marine biodiversity? Well we know what it means for people. And through these are just some king tide photos.

So you're probably familiar with seeing a lot of these maps that have these little hockey sticks going up. But you know they're a bunch of different potential predictions depending on exactly how the world goes. Everyone is very familiar with scenarios now with COVID-19. But we do very similar things with climate change. On if we do such and such, with both how we treat changes in industry and things that result in changes in how much carbon is released in the atmosphere, those affect what sea level rise will be. But when we look at sea level rise one of the key things were worried about then is coastal erosions. So a lot of New Zealand's most endangered marine habitats, many of them are on the coast, our coastal sand dunes and salt marshes. So we've this is quite common, particularly on the west coast and with that combination of changes in winds and waves.

And I'll show you a predictive model of wind and wave changes, as well. But winds and waves, plus sea level rise, we're expecting this to have very large impacts on that coastal erosion, particularly on the west coast of New Zealand. Now sea level rise itself is quite complicated. In New Zealand we all know we're a very tectonic nation. And so this means we also have a lot of changes in how much of our country is actually going up itself or going down. So that coastal subsidence and so you can see in combination with sea level rise and how the landmass itself is moving, we actually see quite differences across the country in what we call a relative sea level rise.

So how much actual sea level rise is going on, which is slightly different to kind of the oceanic or global average. So we do see those local variations. And then here's as promised, this picture of winds and waves. Basically the red bits mean places in the world where we're expecting much higher rates of waves and winds. And particularly for those of us in New Zealand that like to go out on the ocean and experience the ocean, this does have a big impact on our ability to go out in the ocean on boats, on surfing, on these high waves and things of that sort. So, what else does that affect? Well, one thing that comes out with changes in rainfall or precipitation, is we know we have a lot of sediment coming in from land in New Zealand.

So most of you have probably seen something like this, where we have the sediment plumes coming off from land. And what you can see on the top right there is what happens when the sediment comes in and lands in an estuary. So that was actually a cockle bed that's underneath there. And we have smothering of the Cockle Beds. We have the waters becoming more turbid. So this is for coastal environments, is probably one of our much larger impacts that we're experiencing due to our changes from climate change, in that change in rainfall. And that obviously also varies around the country, depending on geology and land cover and use and other things that influence how much sediment is available in likely to flow on the ranges. I like to do a bit of work on mangroves.

And so, one question we look at with climate change is what's going to happen with our mangroves with climate change? And mangroves for those of you that aren't familiar with them, we do just have one species in New Zealand. But they're found in a rather restricted kind of part of the marine environment right at that upper end of the tidal zone. And so the question is, if sea level is going up, then are the mangroves actually going to move up with it? But also we know in New Zealand we have a lot of extra sediment coming in and mangroves like that. So over the last fifty or hundred years, we've actually seen quite rapid expansion. And on average, over a 3% increase a year increase in mangrove distributions in our four northern regions New Zealand.

So, the question is, if we'd run a whole bunch of these models. Richard would have introduced briefly some of these types of scenarios that we use. We can look at what effect we expect that to happen for mangroves. So will we have increases in mangrove distributions? Or will we have decreases? And it certainly varies based on the climate model, but it also varies based on what we do on land. So in terms of our different things that we can to preserve land and remove those sediment impacts that are coming in. Ocean acidification is another thing, many people might have heard of. And I recently heard this described is the osteoporosis of to sea. That I think describes it quite well.

But we know we've had increases in acidity. And some of the monitoring that's been done for pH of about 7% in the last about twenty years. And this is basically a big risk for our calcifying organisms. So basically those the things that have the hard bits. Our corals, sponges, sea urchins, all the molluscs, crabs, lobsters. But also, a lot of our algae. So, our coralline and our crustose forms of algae. And in particular, it's quite a big risk to our deep-sea corals. New Zealand has a huge diversity of deep-sea corals. And basically the depth where aragonite, which is what a lot of these are formed of. The depth where it dissolves with climate change is actually becoming shallower.

Making it more risky and more likely that they'll have trouble forming their hard bits. Oceanic circulation patterns, I think Richard did quite a bit of discussion of this, so I'll only briefly mention it. But we do have that possibility of subtropical species making their way into New Zealand. And you often in warm water years will see records of fishermen catching unusual fish. But then we have bigger issues when we're looking at the entire food chain. So what's happening with our food supply? With primary productivity, with phytoplankton biomass? And they're potentially very large changes that might happen because of changes in ocean stratification and how mixing occurs between the shallow and the deep oceans. We've done, had quite a bit of effort spent looking at what do we actually know for fishes? And I'm just about done here. But looking at about 32 species, that we've looked at in detail to see what information we do have.

So, for example, I've highlighted snapper here and Hoki, which are two very important fisheries in New Zealand. But basically, if you look at my little legend there. The 'Y' means we actually have evidence something will happen. The 'green N' is evidence that there won't be something that happened. And that little squiggly bit, that's in yellow, is where people actually, the experts, tell us that they're pretty sure something is going to happen. But we don't have any evidence yet. And then there are quite a few that we have the question mark. Where we actually have no information whatsoever, to know whether something will be impactful or not due to climate change on these particular species.

So, I think they key thing to pull out of it is that we have a huge posey information. We have a lot of things we think. Either because we know how species work from the experts. Or we know what's happened to species in other parts of the world. So we are pretty sure something is going to happen. But quite often we don't actually have the information to definitively say 'yes' or 'no', that it will be an impact. And temperature and ocean acidification are probably the two things that we know the best about. But again, not that much. And so I think leading into new Huhana's talk, with fisheries and with coastal habitats, more generally, a lot of it is working with the people who use or are interested in those habitats.

Whether it's biodiversity or the resources that they get out of them. And in this case, we've done some climate adaptation strategies here for fisheries, looking at what are the vulnerabilities of the species? And seeing if we can help to then develop management strategies and options that in this case will better prepare that fishery for the future. Identify the gaps that we don't know and then help the fishery to be more able to cope with climate change in the future. So that's me. Thank you very much from my bubble or ex-bubble to all of yours. And I'll hand back to you Elizabeth.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Carolyn, that was great, from your bubble. I'm really enjoying how these talks are dovetailing into each other. And, do please know that you can put your questions in the little box at the bottom there. So our third speaker today. Professor Huhana Smith is a visual artist, curator and transdisciplinary researcher. She is a co-principal investigator for research that combines Mātauranga Māori with science to actively address climate change concerns for coastal Māori lands in Horowhenua - Kapiti. Huhana actively encourages the use of art and designs, visual systems combined in exhibitions. The use of art to expand how solutions might integrate complex issues. And make those solutions more accessible for local communities. Kia ora Huhana.

[HUHANA]  Tēnā rā koutou katoa Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou Ngā mihi mahana anō ki a koutou katoa e kohikohi ana i konei Thank you very much to both Carolyn and to Richard. I'm just going to briefly talk about the importance of whakakotahitanga. I'm going to talk about the exhibition's very briefly. Not all of them, I'll just show you what I can within the time frame. I'm very willing to share this presentation with others if you request it. So you can request it either through Elizabeth or through myself. And so you've got more time to look at it in your leisure.

But of great importance, nō Ngāti Tūkorehe ahau, I’m from Ngāti Tūkorehe on my mother's side, I take home and my wā kāinga and my hau kāinga very seriously, because as we've had from the previous speakers we have impacts of oceans with climate change impacts. We've had impacts on marine. And then we're having those terrestrial, those relationships between Papatuanuku and Tangaroa coming closer together.

We have more interrelationships happening between water, subsurface and surface water. So what we try to do with hapu lead innovative research projects is that. We have been thankfully supported by Deep South. We're moving into our third phase now. But what we've tried to do is apply innovative approaches, where we bring Māori culture. We bring Mātauranga Māori. So, that's Māori knowledge systems. We bring environmental research. We bring nature, art, design, climate change scientists, museum curatorship, exhibitions, site-based research methods and alternative regenerative economies together.

Now you might think that seems impossible, but it can be done! In the time of us doing our Deep South project we've had three phases. So, we've done Deep South phase one: adaptation strategies, with a range of people. Landscape architects, designers. We've had my cousins Moira and Aroha. We've worked closely as a team and for many years now to bring the the tikanga or the Māori side of things forward. And then we've had the collaborative participatory research, integrative social well-being, fluvial geomorphology and groundwater expertise come together as well. We've also had a Masters architecture student working with us as well, over time.

This is important. I said to you before the importance of hau kāinga. It's not just the whenua, not just the awa. It's also the expressions of mana, of how Māori see themselves. So our meeting house Ngāti Tukorehe in Kuku, Horowhenua, which is between Levin and Ōtaki. Just very quickly for you, some ways that we see our research. And our research is underpinned by the knowledge of ancestors. But also, the knowledge of kaumatua, who have been that close connection to another world, and way of seeing themselves in close relationship to nature. So very much just, I think I'll just keep moving on from this because we've got a lot to get through. But I said two important things of our research, is that we focus philosophically on interrelationships. Māori knowledge systems is all about how things work together. And we focus on the interdependencies that I was, when that, in that, within that information as well.

And I'll talk a bit more about the methods as we move on. But this is the area that we deal with. So my Māori research teams and the other teams that I work with, with other experts. This is the area between the Ohau and the Waikawa River in Horowhenua. And we're just kind of edging to the edge of Waikawa. So between Ohau and Waikawa. The star is where our Tukorehe, meeting houses is. So this is a significant ancestral landscape, which is of great importance to iwi and hapu and how much we want to protect that from the impacts of climate change. So, I mentioned before two research projects. Adaptation strategies, risk assessments. We just finished last year. All of these are available online. And then we've got the Deep South: Phase 3 which is caring for the taonga that have been passed on by our ancestors. And we're looking at action orientated climate change transitions to water based land users, that might enhance taonga species. I'll just move on from there slide.

This is also, just before I do. We're also showing you some of the key areas that we've been working on since 2010. So these are not just recent projects. They've been built upon previous research projects. Kuku Ōhau estuary, this is what we look like in the relationship between the sea and the land. I'm going to just talk quickly about an innovative way that has become a way of practice for our teams. I talked before about Landscape Architecture. I talked before about Tikanga Māori and Māori knowledge systems. And then I talked about the ecological economics coming together. We've done exhibitions in spaces, on places which are Māori owned land, in a former dairy shed. And we had a big exhibition about climate change. Now, we as people, in an area that we know and love and that it is an expression of our identity.

It's very frightening and it's also very daunting just the level of information as Richard and Carolyn have shown so clearly. There is so much that you need to know about this space. So we somehow try and bring people together, to show them. What are the things that they need to know and understand? And then also, have that created within a Māori lens. So these are vision statements from Māori, for how we want to see things in our area. That's like creating flourishing land again. So having our farms, our coastal Māori farms, look after their whenua and their waterways really well. Tiakitanga, like caring and protecting for our coastal estuaries. This was an exhibition that focused on a dairy shed and three sheds in that dairy shed complex. This shed was the whakapapa shed, the oldest shed. So it showed us the coastal estuary and then Māori knowledge systems around estuaries, moons, tides, local knowledge to places of importance to Māori and then also, the vision statements.

We had another shed, we called the hīkoi shed, because in one of our research methods we walk and talk the whenua a lot. So we've been walking and talking this whenua in earnest, since 1995. But more so with funded research and with many more people, since 2009. And so the hīkoi shed showed us the climate change levels. So our estuary changing, our Kuku Ōhau estuary changing quite dramatically. And just to show you what that might look like, big banners showing us what 0.5 metre sea level rise looks like at present. And then showing this gradation stages. Which perhaps, spans a hundred years. So the potential of this area in Aotearoa, which links up with every other area in Aotearoa having issues, in regards to where water is not only going to lie. It's not to say that we're going to get a big blue lake. It does mean we are going to be wetter and that means our surface water and our subsurface water are meeting more. We're flooding more, we've got more coastal erosion, as the other speakers have put forward.

So in all of this kind of difficult and complex information, what are the solutions that we can put forward to make it easier for ourselves? To see ourselves as part of the solution? So Senior Landscape Architect Students creating projects around water, creating projects around sustainable papakainga, creating projects around harakeke. So very quickly, I'm an artist. So I paint, paintings when I get a chance. But, this was an installation that I painted before I created the installation. And it was very much about returning industry to areas that were renowned for their harakeke. Our people grew, well harvested harakeke for a burgeoning Wellington. We harvested harakeke in the late 1820s -1830s.

And returning to a newer, a renewed economy, where we're looking at customary knowledge and harakeke as an important, vital plant that could create a new economy, in a sustainable fabric industry. So these are some of the things that we've put together over the years, joining some different knowledge bases together. The other thing about the shed exhibition whakapapa, hīkoi and kōrero tuku iho, which as the oral narratives of place. So knowing our place, knowing our Māori relationships to this place. And being able to use that as the platform upon which to build solutions or analyse the what-if scenarios.

What if you see more flooding? What will you do about it? What if you see more coastal erosion? What will you do about it? So this shed, in particular, the kōrero tuku iho was about this. These were the what-if scenarios and then what. The illuminated panels in the back, illuminated by LED lights - what were the solutions? Just moving on, so many things in bringing together. But adaptation strategies, risk assessments, practical projects for people, to kind of do. You can see here, that we're trying hard in the third phase of our research is to implement some of these things that we've been talking about. We can manifest ideas about this. But we have to implement because we are really needing to be in an action phase. So it's just some of the crew, who came to our exhibition in March 2017.

Uenuku, Māori always had a very spiritual world. So when you get a rainbow, that's emanating off the ground, at the time of this exhibition. It was a fairly auspicious tohu or reminder that maybe we were doing something okay. But that we had a big job to do and perhaps we needed a bit of ancestral support. So this was a very spiritual moment for everyone who was present at that hui and spontaneous karakia going up at that time. I just flipped quickly to 2019. I didn't show you. We did, we took that exhibition out of the dairy shed and we put it in an art gallery. We put it in the museum, The Dowse Art Museum, in Lower Hutt and re-exemplified it for another audience, which worked really well too. But just moving into the last phases of this kōrero. Ngā mahi nō inaianei hei orange mō apōpō which is really all about, everything we do today has to benefit our future generations tomorrow. So we did another exhibition in Otaki.

This one was more about the risk assessments. Again just finalizing, finessing some of the things that we'd raised. And it was so beautifully raised by Carolyn and Richard about the impacts that humans have done. But what can we do as a community to kind of understand those impacts and then look forward towards the solutions? So there's again some of the detail of coastal inundation. And then what we might do. So we had that, this is now and when we have flooding, we kind of. Oh sorry yep, this. I'll move to the second one. This is a transition action phase that we need to put in place now. So this was done in 2019.

So we need to do this now. So it's revegetating regrowing the Ohau River Loop area, extending the wetlands, planting out the coastal areas and harakeke, returning native vegetation, making a strong coastal buffer. This is what transition phase two looks like, now and in the next 30 years. So, you can see that we have to adapt to the water. I just want to show this one too. This is for erosion control. And this was a young architect, a masters student from Victoria University, who was making erosion cold methods.

And then finally, I just want to leave you with. Whilst I didn't talk deeply about the harakeke, sustainable fabric industry, I can at a later date. But just showing you some of that customary and contemporary kind of interface. Contemporary artists showing his panels at the back there, at the Ōtaki Māori Film Festival. And then our contemporary, but customary makers of whatu raranga or our weavers, being able to create beautiful objects that are manifest from harakeke. But our process for harakeke, will be much more about a sustainable fabric industry, as a new economy. So I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you so much everyone. Ngā mihi aroha anō.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Huhana. One of the drawbacks of zoom is that we can't see the other people in the audience's eyes lighting up, as I know they were then. And there are going to be a lot of people who are going to be asking for more information about what you're doing. So thank you, so much. I also really enjoyed their marriage of art and science, so often seen as polar opposites. And you've got the mingling in beautiful. Okay so, question time! As usual, we are short on time. To paraphrase one of the questions. I won't be naming the people asking the questions because this is going on YouTube and we haven't sought permission for you to be name. But this one is for Richard. Other than observing productivity patterns, what other relationships could marine microorganisms have with climate change? E.g. Could they play a role in absorption of carbon dioxide?

[RICHARD] Yes, that's a big question. So, I mean, I guess part of the... A couple of things we're interested is and working with our colleagues at NIWA and universities around New Zealand is to try to understand the impact on the food web, as the phytoplankton change. And Carolyn alluded to this, it's a rather complex problem. We've been trying to figure out whether or not we can look at things like cell size variation? If the organisms under a warmer climate from the past, actually the populations got smaller in size. So the cell sizes themselves gets smaller. They can actually impact the feeding structure of a food web. So there is potential for shifts in the population size of the phytoplankton to have a major impact. But trying to understand all these relationships is incredibly complex. And and again our colleagues at NIWA have been working on this for a long time.

It's not a straightforward thing to address. In terms of carbon capture and sequestering CO2 , absolutely. We know that from the past. That when you get large blooms of phytoplankton, in particular. As they sink to the ocean floor, they can actually capture and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So it is something that people have looked at in the past. Even to fertilize the oceans to try to get these organisms to bloom. I know that's not modern vogue at the moment. There are a whole bunch of other things you don't want to have happen ,if you do that. So geo-engineering's a bit risky. But certainly, naturally in the past, we know that carbon has been pulled out of the out of the system and sequestered and captured in the seafloor through natural cycles of phytoplankton bloom. I don't Carolyn wants to add to that. I suspect she might.

[CAROLYN] Yea, no I think you've covered it more than I could. [Back to Richard, laughing sounds in background] It's really complex!

[ELISABETH] In seven minutes or less. This was also a paraphrased question and possibly Carolyn or Richards. Is it possible to quantify in economic terms the benefit of COVID for our planet? Presumably the stopping, rather than COVID itself.

[RICHARD] I saw that question and I thought wow! That's going to be a question that many people are going to ask, right? I mean I think that the question is, can we quantify the cost of essentially a shutdown and the consequences in reduction of CO2? And I was just reading a paper, before coming onto this webinar, that's just come out in Nature Climate Change, today. Showing that we've had a 17% reduction in fossil fuel, carbon dioxide production as a result of COVID. Now that's had a massive economic cost.

So, I imagine that there will be economists. There will climate change scientists taking these data and trying to model into the future what it would take to try to keep those levels low, while building our or global economies. This is going to be a massive area of research I suspect, with lots of great data to utilize now, which is pretty exciting! But assuming, nothing I'll be involved in directly.

[ELISABETH] Thank you, thank you very much. And a question for Huhana. Are there processes in place, as part of your project to plan for recording and/or protecting archaeological sites threatened by coastal erosion and sea level rise?

[HUHANA] It's a great question, thank you. Yes! We have already mapped our cultural significance and archaeological areas. We do know where they are because that's all out of the kōrero tuku iho or the knowledge of place. So the unfortunate thing about that, is that not all their land I showed you is owned by Māori. So the coast, the Kuku Ōhau estuary owned by Māori, the coast is owned by Māori. But across the river it's owned by somebody else. And a big, an important block of land there has quite significant archaeological areas. And we need to work with the new person who's bought it, who is a developer.

So we are just going to have to see and work closely with that person in order to enable iwi based protection plans, to be put into place. To actually really listen to those protection plans. Because we've been saying it a lot for that whole coastline. That you need, we need to step away from the coastline and protect some more, which means we need to protect our archaeological or our wāhi tapu or our wāhi tupuna or our battle sites. All those areas we as Tūkorehe know where they are. And that we actively work to put protection mechanisms in place, so.

[ELISABETH] Thank you. That’s probably all we have time for today. Unfortunately these hours fly by. Thank you so much to our three speakers, Carolyn, Richard and Huhana. I was, my head is exploding. And, remember too that this dialogue is ongoing and it doesn't end at 4:30. And it's vital that we use these discussions as a tool for change.

So do please join us next week. Same time, same channel, same Eventbrite booking system, for a panel event featuring a diverse group of speakers who will discuss the impacts of Climate Change on the Marine Environment including Leana Barriball, Dr Libby Liggins, Kirsty Woods, Jeroen Jongejans and Karl Warr. And thank you so much for joining us today. If you've got any other thoughts or queries.

If you want copies of the speaker's talks please email marine@DOC.govt.nz. Ka kite anō te whānau and to close our session today I'll pass back to Huhana for a karakia. [Huhana starts] Unuhia, unuhia Unuhia te uru tapu nui Kia wātea, kia māmā te ngākau Te tinana, te wairua i te ara tangata Koia rā e Rongo, whakairia ake ki runga Kia tina! Tina! Hui e! Tāiki e!

[KIRSTY]: Whakataka te hau ki te uru
Whakataka te hau ki te tonga
Kia mākinakina ki uta
Kia mātaratara ki tai
E hī ake ana te atakura
He tio
He huka
He hau hū
Tihei Mauri Ora

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Kirsty, for that Karakia. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa Welcome to you all. Thank you for joining us today for our third session of Changing Tides, Tai Tōrua. The web series that takes an in-depth look at our moana, the ocean. Thank you for making time to be a part of this panel discussion and to those of you who have joined us over the last two weeks, welcome back. And a warm kia ora to those of you who are here for the first time.

Today's session will be a little bit different to the previous two weeks because this day instead of three speakers we have six panellists, from a range of organizations, including a senior analyst, a Mātauranga Māori advisor, a scientist, a publisher, an artisan fisher-person and a dive tourism operator. And they all have one thing in common, the best interests of the moana at heart. I'm your host Elizabeth Easther. and like most New Zealanders I've seen huge changes to the marine environment in my lifetime. And as a journalist I'm always looking for answers, to find ways to help protect the oceans from further degradation, so they may flourish. Tai Tōrua is brought to you today by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation. Thank you to those organizations for making this series possible. And thank you to our panellists today, who are Kirsty Woods, Kaimoana Senior analyst at Te Ohu Kaimoana, Jeroen Jongejans the owner of dive Tutukaka, Dr Libby Liggins, Senior Lecturer and Research Academic and Marine Ecology at Massey University, Leana Barriball, Kaitohu Tuakana, Mātauranga Māori for the Parliamentary Commission for the Environment, Karl Warr, artisan fisher-person and owner of Better fishing in Hawke's Bay and James Frankham publisher and director of New Zealand Geographic. This series provides opportunities for us to learn from our panellist’s knowledge, to ask them questions and also to create connections.

Dialogue will be opened and debate is encouraged all in the name of working towards improving the health, the mauri of our moana. Thank you for joining us. But first as with all conferences whether online or face-to-face a little bit of housekeeping. Chat: a chat window will be open for the first 10 minutes of this session. You can use that facility to ask any questions if you're having technical problems. QA: there is a QA icon at the bottom of your screen. If you click on that a box will pop up and you can type in any questions, although they will be filtered to avoid duplications and any that off-topic will be deleted. Bearing in mind this is just one hour with six incredible panellists we probably won't get to answer every question. But you can also email marine@DOC.govt.nz, if your question isn't answered or to connect with us about any aspect of this forum. Voting: if you see a question appear that you would have wanted to ask rather than ask it again give it the thumbs up and that will help move that question to the top of the pile. We will endeavour to answer the questions with the most votes so please do let your thumbs do the talking.

Recording this session is being recorded and will be put on YouTube. Today's will be uploaded tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand website, our channel, Along with the previous week seminars. So, if you know people who would like to have been here today but couldn't, you can share that with them. And our kaupapa is very, very simple. Please be respectful in your comments and your questions. And this week differing from previous talks we will begin by having each speaker introduce themselves to tell us a little bit about themselves and also about their relationship to the question which is Weathering the Storm. Then we'll get straight to the questions and discussion. And because we're all in different zoom rooms we're going to go old-school. Or actually literally like school and when a panellist who isn't speaking wishes to contribute they will raise their hand to indicate their readiness to speak.

Please also remember these sessions are simply the starting points for ongoing conservation conversations. For any other comments do please email marine@DOC.govt.nz. So the third webinar and the Tai Tōrua series: Weathering the Storm, where the focus is on the effects of climate change on the marine environment.

From its impact, our potential responses and also solutions. We'll explore what we currently know, what we expect to see in the future and then put forward ideas for ways we can be more resilient. A healthy ocean is essential to the fight against climate change and fighting climate change is essential for a healthy ocean. Now I'm going to invite each speaker to tell us a little bit about themselves. And our first panellist today Kirsty Woods. Kia ora Kirsty.

[KIRSTY] Ko Ruahine ōku pae maunga Ko Rangitīkei tōku awa Ko Ngāti Hauiti tōku iwi Ko Kirsty Woods ahau Kia ora koutou. I work for Te Ohu Kaimoana, which was set up as a trust to look after a treaty settlement between Māori and the Crown, that settled all the fisheries claims against the Treaty of Waitangi. And so our role is to really advance iwi interests in fisheries, in the marine environment generally. And to really support them in the management of their fisheries. And really help ensure that the settlement endures. So the settlement essentially is very important in terms of really helping iwi and Māori generally re-established their relationship with Tangaroa. And it did that through the guarantee of access to certain rights in the commercial and non-commercial fishing.

Once upon a time iwi managed all their fishing. Whether it's commercial or non-commercial themselves and within their own framework. But now we're looking at managing those things in separate ways. And so fisheries are really important to Maori communities for sustenance or maintaining a relationship on the water and really accessing Kaimoana. So the settlement gave iwi. and their local communities the ability to manage that kind of fishing themselves. And that's a very important thing. And we've seen even during COVID-19 a lot of stress on local communities not being able to get out there and fish and having to access fisheries in other ways. On the commercial side, iwi have always been involved in commerce side, in terms of the fishery settlement. What they ended up with was a share of all the commercial fisheries that are in the quota management system. And so that's a modern expression of part of their original customary rights. And so, essentially this is also part of the benefit that fisheries provide to Iwi through the income that they receive and through which they can support their people.

So climate change has obviously got big implications for iwi in terms of maintaining their relationship with Tangaroa and maintaining their fisheries. And as a lot of your previous speakers in other sessions have said there's a lot going. There is temperature rise, fisheries are moving, ocean acidification effects shellfish and so on. Increased sedimentation, as well from rainfall and so on. So there's a lot to get to grips with and so clearly this whole issue affects our relationship with Tangaroa and fisheries. So I guess what we're interested in is looking at how do we start to take action to deal with these things? We might have fishing rights on the one hand. But we've also got responsibilities to deal with the management of the fisheries and the effects on the environment generally. So our challenge is to build on our collective wisdom and our knowledge and access science and the knowledge of other people and work together to deal with us. So that's me for now, kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Kirsty So now we're going to hear from Jeroen Jongejans from Tutukaka. Kia ora Jeroen

[JEROEN] Kia ora Elizabeth, thanks for the introduction and thanks Kirsty for your little kōrero as well. Very important all of this. I'm originally from the Netherlands. Been 40 years in New Zealand. I've been diving for about 38 years and I've been in business for 27 years. Dive! Tutukaka is our business. We take out about 15,000 people per annum and we've conducted probably 350,000 dives at the Poor Knights, since I've been in business. We're into sustainability, well we're trying to be. We love the Poor Knights. We're into triple bottom line reporting, as well. So our business has to make sense from a social, from an economic and an environmental point of view. From a social point of view, we're looking after the 60 staff. We have had over 500, over the years. We're looking after our community. Our local schools and our visitors. We get about 15,000 per annum. From an environmental point of view, of course. We are looking after the Poor Knights and promote marine reserves whenever we can and we're very passionate about that. And from an economic point of view, we have to make in work. It's all kind of adds up. All the things we do. It's a capital intensive industry and lots of weather that sort of influences whether we can go out or not. So there's lots of variables.

So, climate change is one of the variables that's upon us at the moment, and we have to work with that. At the Poor Knights we notice an increase in subtropical fish. We've noticed an increase, a little bit of an increase in water temperature. And the weather that's sort of around us. We have bigger storms. We have a drier weather. Shorter, heavier rain falls. But yeah, we start already noticing, climate change having an effect on our environment. So what do we do at the Poor Knights Islands? We make customers aware of the amazing environment that we have at the Poor Knights and what it would be like if we had some more marine reserves around New Zealand. We've lost a lot of our biodiversity and we try to promote increases of more fish back into the ocean. So we talk about industrial overfishing and how we need to sort of change the way we extract fish from the ocean. And we talk about climate change and what it does to us.

And so, what do we do? How do we adapt to these changing worlds around us? Well we'd like to see by 2030, 30% of all the waters around the world in really strong marine protection. We believe if we want to keep biodiversity in our oceans, that's what we have to do. And we've been really, really slack in New Zealand at moving marine protection forward. Unfortunately, the other thing we try to do is reducing our footprint. You know trying to be better in our business and have less impact. And we've been trying to electrify some of our boats. That's going to take some time because the technology isn't quite there. And we're just doing our best. Every step we can take will move forward to protect our environment. And so climate change, yes, it's an important thing for us. Marine reserves and marine life is absolutely central to what we do. And hopefully with these sessions that WWF and DOC are doing, we'll see some more people actually really getting stuck into making sure that we protect our Moana. Kia ora, that's it for starters.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Jeroen, and now I'm going to hand over to Libby Liggins. Libby, kia ora.

[LIBBY] Tēnā koutou, my name is Libby Liggins. I'm a research scientist and lecturer at Massey University in Auckland. And my research is interested in marine biodiversity around Aotearoa, New Zealand, as well as the wider Pacific. And particularly, I'm interested in understanding how our biodiversity and ecosystems will change as a result of climate change, once we start to see species responding to that ocean climate change that we have seen around our coastline. I think throughout the webinar series so far we've learnt that there certainly has been changes to our ocean environment in terms of the physical oceanography and also the temperatures around our coastal environment.

What is less understood is what kind of biodiversity responses or what biodiversity changes have happened over that same scale of decadal change we're seeing in our ocean environment. So my research tries to address this data void, using a number of approaches. I'll mention to you right now. The first is using DNA of organisms. So by looking at the DNA or relatedness of individuals within a population in the marine environment. We can understand more about a species relationship to place. We can understand how long species has been in that place. Whether it's been undergoing a decline as a result of potentially climate change. Or potentially an increase, that may signal that, it is one of the climate change winners. And we might see a range shift in their species, for example.

So we use DNA to get this sort of hind cast view of a former baseline, that we don't have scientific data for necessarily. But of course, as New Zealanders we also have a great amount of knowledge about our own marine environment and we have generational experience of that. So another aspect of my research is about enabling those citizen scientists among us who have local ecological knowledge, Mātauranga about our local rohē, about those kinds of changes that we have seen and we feel are indicative of change. So harnessing those indicators of change, sightings of new species, increases in the number of a certain animal or displacement of a certain animal, plant or algae. And using that to guide research and future for understanding what kinds of changes we might see. Where we should look for those changes as scientists. So I'm really looking forward to hearing what the panel has to say and to get this interaction with the many people, hopefully, who are viewing today? So kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Libby. And now we're going to go to Leana Barriball. Kia ora Leana

[LEANA] Tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Leana Barriball tōku ingoa. He uri ahau o Ngāti Kahungunu me Te Āti Awa. Hello everybody, I am connected to the marine environment through very many pathways. I whakapapa directly through up to Tangaroa. But I also work in the environmental space and particularly in the marine environment. But I also play and take my whanau there regularly. I like going diving and you know grabbing some Pāua and Kina off the rocks if I can. But I also take my family down as much as possible and we have, we're always down there when we can. Some of the concerns that I have are quite broad in the sense that, you know, we've seen climate change coming for a while and haven't been able to really front foot it because it is a worldwide issue. But it is also a place-based issue. And a lot of our Mātauranga that our whanau have is very place-based and very specific to a region, or an area, or even just a bay. It can be that small. And so, what I am really interested in is how do we utilize two knowledge systems that exist in Aotearoa?

One of Mātauranga and the other of science, to be able to manage better the impacts that we are currently seeing of climate change. And so, one of the things that kind of jump out at me in terms of how we bring those two knowledge systems together, is that it's a different angle. Mātauranga comes out of a different angle. We look at the whole. We look at the connections. Whakapapa is a huge thing to Māori. Whakapapa, which is your genealogical traits, which also steam into the environment. It's not just a personal genealogical line. It is a broader genealogical line. So that connection is very important and within a Mātauranga Māori scope. And different to the way in which the what's commonly known about the system. So, humans are a part of the system, not separate.

Then also, kaitiakitanga is also a very important concept within Mātauranga Māori, the Māori worldview. Kaitiakitanga, defined in English is kind of guardianship. But it's actually a reciprocal relationship that you have with the environment and a reciprocal meaning. If you take something, then you have to give back something. And so, how do we acknowledge that in a system that is currently putting the responsibility on local government and central government and people that aren't a part of the direct community? And I think that's some of the opportunities that we hold within Mātauranga is it's not just Māori knowledge. But it's the system of how we know things that has, I think the biggest benefit, in terms of how we adapt to climate change. So yeah, that's it for me, until the questions come out. So kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Leana. And now we're going to turn to Karl Warr.

[KARL] Kia ora, I'm Karl Warr. So, I'm a artisanal fishermen, here in Hawke's Bay. So what it means is I catch a small amount of fish and sell it locally here, direct to the consumers. I've been doing that for about two decades now. And we found ourselves bottom trawling when we first came to Hawke's Bay and we're still doing that.

So bottom trawling is dragging heavy equipment chains and ropes and things across the seafloor and herding fish into a funnel and letting it gather up into a Cod end at the end of that funnel. We then lift back to the boat and empty out, take out what you need and discard what you don't need. This is a very prominent system of fishing in the world today. It's not one that I enjoy. But I don't think that I would be of much us standing on the outside of it saying I don't like it, as I could be inside of it trying to see if I can bring about some changes with how we do it. So we're pretty invested at the moment, in changing the technology that bottom trawling is. So we've been working and some of you may have seen articles on the web or on TV about a cage that we attach to the end of the net.

So, the idea of that is just, it's an analogue device that just allows the smaller fish to escape, hopefully unharmed at depth. Fish that are caught at depth and brought to the surface and then released have to deal with barometric trauma. Which is, for a fish is the same as a human getting the bends. Which can be very painful and quite often fatal. So, lots of progress in that area. So that's why I'm still bottom trawling. Climate change, yes. So in the last couple of decades I'm seeing my fish leave the close nearshore areas. And they're going a lot deeper. And I assume that is for seeking temperature. Warmer water doesn't hold as much oxygen. And, if you need that oxygen for the immune system or to assist fecundity, the breeding and the spawning of fish. Then you're going to have to go with the waters are cooler. So, I guess what I may be able to offer is just an insight into the trends that I'm seeing, year by year out there. So we'll get into the conversation and see if I can help with some questions there. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Karl. And now, our final, sixth speaker, James Frankham. Kia ora James.

[JAMES] Tēnā koutou katoa. I hope everybody is well out there. It's a bit of a rainy day. My name is James Frankham. I'm the publisher of New Zealand Geographic and NZGEO.com. I've been a sailor, since really before I could walk, I think. I'm a diver and more recently something of an advocate. A more outspoken person, prone to outbursts about protection for the Seas. New Zealand Geographic has an audience of about a million New Zealanders across print and web and social channels. And all of those are curious about the environment and concerned about the environment as well. And in particular, the relationship with society. And we have a natural bias I suppose in our editorial towards marine issues, being a country that is mostly saltwater. So, through New Zealand Geographic we've done a lot of reporting on climate and climate science, over the years.

Particularly with a bias towards the marine environment. We've been at it for about thirty years. Most recently it's been through the NZVR projects. New Zealand Virtual Reality Project, which we've done in conjunction with the Blake Trust and WWF has been involved recently, as well. And we've attempted to give all New Zealanders something of a first-hand experience of our oceans and everything within it. So it's involved filming around New Zealand. Up towards the Three Kings, White Island and the murky and cold waters of Taranaki, as far north as the Kermadec Island and in Niue. And so, I had a pretty interesting sort of sense and overview of our marine environment, recently. And all of these different places have threats on them. Many or most of those threats are related to extractive industries, particularly fishing, commercial and recreational. But also pollution and sedimentation. And all of them has this overlay, over the top of that.

The big one being climate change, ocean acidification, sea level rise, increase frequency of storms, particularly in the tropics. And the dangers they pose to coral reef systems. And yeah, sea level rise, as well. And that affects society as much as it does biodiversity. So that goes for the places that are at less far-flung. I suppose the place is closer to our urban centres and closer to us too. And for me, I think the place that I feel most connected to is in a little tiny fiberlite batch down the eastern end of Waiheke island. We've had three generations grow up down there. And each is seen across their lifetime what are some pretty alarming changes. And I sort of felt like in my childhood, maybe that it had bottomed out. But that's not true. There's been some incredible reduction of biodiversity there. But there's also been the slow creep of the sea inshore, clawing away at the foreshore. I remember my grandmother planted some Pōhutukawa along the shore about 40 years ago, a couple of metres inland. And the sea has now torn those out by the roots. You know, it's washed in, underneath the Pōhutukawa there. We've had 240 millimetres of sea level rise in Auckland itself.

But that was enough to go metres and metres inland. There's also a shell midden there in the bay. And that’s the only evidence in the bay of pre-European activity. And half of that midden has been clawed away by the sea. So that's a thousand years of human culture swept away in the last 25 years. So, we don't have to look very far to realise how real all this is. The projections for the next hundred years range from half a metre of sea level rise to several metres, with much of the change already baked in. So, I feel very strongly that climate changes is. How do we say? A problem for a present and not just for our future. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora James. Understandably, very sobering, actually this whole topic is. So let us get on to the questions. And also, hopefully, some solutions because clearly they're incredibly pressing. Panellists, if you could now, please all turn on your videos, so we can see you all at once. Kind of like the Brady Bunch. And if you're not speaking and remember. If you have something you want to add, the hand is going to be handy. I'm going to start with a question for Libby Liggins. Libby, what is our level of knowledge of climate change? And where does the information come from? And how easy is it for general public to access it?

[LIBBY] Yes, so I can offer a science perspective on that. And I think that, based on what we've heard in these webinars and the work that's been coming out over recent years, we have pretty good understanding that it's definitely happening. We have measured over the last few decades what that change looks like. Climate change affecting the ocean by means of acidification, temperature change, oceanography, wave height. These sorts of things. We don't have good understanding, however, I think on what those biodiversity impacts have been. So this is where the stories I've heard from the panellists and I'm sure many people listening in today are really important. It's been acknowledged I think nationally and probably internationally as well that we lack understanding of how biodiversity has changed through time. We don't have those time series.

So, our national report from our Ministry for the Environment came out late last year. And although, climate change and the impact on biodiversity was identified as a very priority issue ,one of for priority is for our marine environment, it was also acknowledged that we did lack that baseline information to be able to predict what kinds of changes we're going to expect and biodiversity going forward. So for that reason and the information are starting to come from more diverse places, I think. So, we have very good science, of course, generating really good intel. And regionally that's going to take some time to come out. We use controlled experiments because of course climate change is not one thing that's changing. Its many different things, happening all at the same time, in seascape where we're also suffering things like sedimentation and fishing. And these other pressures that we don't necessarily control very well. So for that reason a lot of our climate change information in terms of how biodiversity will respond to impacts is done in a laboratory setting.

Having said that, we have seen large impacts overseas, in response to ocean climate change. So the collapse of ecosystems, the change in distribution of certain species. And we're in a position in New Zealand to heed that warning. So similar to the case that we have with coronavirus, we're somewhat isolated from the greatest impacts I think on biodiversity in New Zealand, for several reasons. But you know we have an opportunity here to, I guess address what is a huge environmental problem. It is global. But we have a national capacity to respond. And the solution is going to be social. And so, that's something I think we just want to keep in mind. That we're not going to always have all the information. But that shouldn't, I guess restrict us from being proactive and taking a proactive approach, that we've seen work so well for our nation just very recently with coronavirus.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Libby. Oh yeah, that's given me a lot of food for thought. I'm going to go to Leana now. Leana, how are we using Mātauranga Māori in Aotearoa? How is it informing the response to climate change?

[LEANA] Yeah I guess, maybe I'll just try and define Mātauranga a little bit more, so that we can get a better understanding. It is its complete own knowledge system. So it's not just the knowledge. It's not just Māori knowledge that Māori hold. It's also the way in which we interpret it, the way in which we validate it, the way I wish we analyse it. It's all within this whole system and it's all about connectivity.

So for example, we have Maramataka, which is the lunar calendar and that was utilized pretty much by everyone. They had different versions. But it was a lunar calendar, that basically helped to inform the way in which we would interact with the environment. So on a, say, a moon phase there was tohu, which are signs in the environment that would tell you that you'd have to go out and start building your nets to catch the Inanga, which are whitebait, for example. And so, this system as I said was utilized to shape how we interact with the environment. And through wananga, which is where all experts would come together and have a good kōrero, or have a good talk about it.

That's how the information was validated. So thus, the system sits quite distinctly outside of science or any other knowledge system that was created. It has its own way of evolving. And so, when I think about the use of that Mātauranga Māori and the way in which we manage climate change, kaitiaki are doing it right now on the ground. So kaitiaki, our guardians that are interacting with the environment, with the marine environment are using the tohu that the environment is giving them to influence the way in which they they interact. And so, an example of that is, I have a couple of cousins who are Rongoā experts. Medicinal Māori, medicinal plants. Who have noted that last year the Pōhutukawa bloomed twice. And that's not normal. And in terms of normality, it has happened before.

But it's it seems to be a little bit more frequent, at the moment. And so that's, you know putting up a question of what's happening here? How is this change? Is this change in issue? Is this changed just a yearly thing? And this is where wananga would come in. And this is when you would talk to somebody else who has knowledge, maybe from a different region or even internally. And that's when this Mātauranga would start becoming a little bit more refined and analysed. So when, from a climate change, that's happening right now. How we're using it at the level to manage for climate change, as a nation, big gap. And that is partly because there is questions around how to utilise the knowledge system, that isn't necessarily fully acknowledged within the current management system of our country.

And so, I think that that's probably where we need to put most of our effort into as thinkers, as academics, as kaitiaki. To go, okay well there is some knowledge and there's knowledge and there's value in Mātauranga. How do we appropriately take that and utilize that for the betterment of Aotearoa? And make sure that it moves as a whole and it doesn't get compartmentalised, or it doesn't get reinterpreted, or it doesn't get taken out of one knowledge system and put into another. So yeah, I think that's, yea... On the ground we're doing good, the further up the chain it goes, you've got a little bit of work to do.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Leana. And Kirsty woods, a question for you. Do you think our fisheries management system is adequate to support iwi to deal with the changes occurring as a result of climate change?

[KIRSTY] Well that's a big question and some people would think it's a loaded question. And before I go ahead, I totally support what Leanna just said. And I think that's part of what needs to feed the way we make decisions about fisheries. So I think, the fisheries framework itself, it's like a big bubble box. So the outside, the structure is there. But there's a lot that needs filling in and a lot of detail that needs to be sorted out and issues within that framework. So we obviously, we have a system for setting catch limits.

We've got requirements for mitigating, avoiding, re-mitigating the effects of fishing on the environment. And a number of principles in the Act, that really mean that these are all responsibilities that we all share. So, we think that there's a lot more to do to actually enable quicker decision-making, to enable Māori, Mātauranga Māori, to inform decision making. Leanna's right! We're talking about knowledge that's known in place and people are enacting, initiating. You know particular projects or initiatives based on that in their local places. But the big challenge is: How do we build on that to inform the way we do things as a whole? So for the commercial sector, for example. There's some big challenges there. In fact, there's a lot of work that's been going on finding ways to innovate and Karl's told us about what he's doing. But there's been work in in other areas as well, looking at modifying trawl nets for example, to reduce the harvest of sea lions is another example.

We need the system to be much more responsive. And so, while we're facing these changes with fish moving, being affected by acidification and so on ,we need to be able to make decisions and adjustments much more quickly. And so, what we think needs to happen is that, while the minister's got overall responsibility for making sure that fisheries are managed in a sustainable way, we need a lot more scope to take it responsibility ourselves for developing management on the ground. And as iwi collectively, we would see that and we've been talking about this for many years and still really need to see it happen, is partnership in fisheries management alongside the government. And that needs to be happening at a national level, right down to the local level. And our challenge is to work out how we do that.

What else was I going to say there? I think that for Māori, thinking again about the commercial side. I am aware that iwi collectively and I've seen some questions in there about commercial fishing. I think we can be satisfied that there are tools available to manage our impacts. But for Māori and iwi quota owners, they're interested in actually taking that further. And looking at how do we make sure that our fishing is managed in accordance with Tikanga Māori? And what more can we do? So that's sort of trying to take the knowledge to the next level. And look at how we apply it in a modern commercial setting as well. So the box with the framework is there. There's a lot more to do, to actually make it robust.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Kristi. I think you know with the speed in which things have happened in the COVID crisis. It's interesting to see how quickly things can change, virtually overnight. And hopefully you know some of the things we've learned through this situation can be taken into this, you know making things maybe, a more dynamic situation. Because it appears, you know what to put in the box.

[KIRSTY] Yeah and I think that for iwi to be able to make these sorts of steps, we also need to be secure in the rights that we have. So that we know when we're taking this action, that we can benefit from the rights that we have. But also take responsibility for what we're doing.

[ELISABETH] And though, yes true in terms of a dynamic reaction that you don't lose, you know, any ground and indeed get. Okay so a question now for Jeroen. You've been working in one of the country's best-known marine reserves for many years . What changes over time have you observed? And what role do you see that reserve playing in building resilience and the broader marine ecosystem with regards to climate change? Right okay, what have we seen change? The Poor Knights Island was a marine reserve that was made in 1981 and was only three percent of the actual reserve which was protected, the rest had a fishing notice. And so, nobody knew where the three percent was and everyone was fishing with floating lines and they were very happy with that. But it wasn't really sustainable.

So from 1992 to 1996, we began fighting to get 100% protection of the of islands. And in 1998 they became 100% protected. From that time onwards we've seen a huge increase in species around and the size of the fish. Lately we've seen more subtropical fish arriving and Irene Middleton has done some work on that. I think she's identified about 15 species so far, really exciting! People making photos on the water and video actually helps us to share the experiences. So the Marine Reserve is really useful in showing what we used to have, because what we've lost is our baseline. And when you talk to our elders and a couple of generations back you will see that people used to step into the water and pick up Crayfish. Nowadays there's no more Crays in around the Auckland area. We've just been industrial overfishing and also so that was not just the fishing.

There's all sorts of reasons why this is declined. But I think things like bottom trawling, with all due respect to Karl, if you look at the damage on the sea floor from that fishing method and I would say it's not very sustainable. We keep on damaging our environment and we have to wait all the time for more science. I don't think it's very sustainable. In the last, again in the last generation, what we have lost in our baseline of Fisheries is significant. And if we keep on talking about "Oh yeah but we have to wait for this, we have to wait for that." We've only got point four percent of marine reserves around New Zealand, marine protection. Look at Niue, they've got 40 percent. Yup, what we should be doing is getting 30% and whether do we call it Rāhui, or a marine reserve, or marine protection *intelligible*. We need to do something. We haven't done enough and quite frankly I'm getting very tired of it. Because we do a lot of kōrero, a lot of talking and we don't seem to make a lot of progress. And yet an eight-year-old can tell you that if you take too many fish out of the ocean it's not going to be good. And yet we just keep on doing it.

Have a look at the cod fishery, that happened in the 1970s, in the North Atlantic. Days before the whole system collapsed, we had official reports saying that things were going fine, it was sustainable. There's none left now. And so, we learned those lessons from over there and I hope you all learned them. But we need to have a little bit more action. And my challenge is to the next generation really, to sort of really get on to it at the moment. Because we are on a sliding scale of losing our marine biodiversity and climate change is not helping with this. But it's not the only thing. So that's sort of, the value of marine reserves, coming back to the start, is to give us a connection with how the marine life can be and has been in the past.

[ELISABETH] Jeroen, that's also very sobering food for thought . I'm going to go to James now. You are very outspoken in the field of marine protection and rightly so. Particularly, in Tikapa Moana, the Hauraki Gulf. In fact two of your recent stories that are available on New Zealand Geographic are incredibly, you know, from your heart. And I think that everybody should read them, if you haven't already. But as we know climate change is one of the mass of threats to these vital marine ecosystems. What are some of the solutions? Because your most recent piece, I was delighted to see some actual ideas for solutions. What are the solutions, in your mind, that could help build resilience?

[JAMES] Yeah well, I mean resilience is the key word isn't it? I present all of this by saying I'm not a climate scientist. But, you know that New Zealand Geographic is reported on climate science for three decades now. So, while I can't give you kind of high resolution insights into very specific problems. I can give you a very low resolution observation over a wide area, I suppose. and I feel like climate change is widely regarded as one of these wickedly complex and completely intractable problems, but it's not entirely true.

You know there are solutions and we just haven't deployed them yet. We've seen some really similar, wicked climate problems solved before. If you think back to the halocarbons of the 1970s, that were refrigerants, they can be used in refrigeration and other things. And the world came together around the Montreal Protocol in 1987 or about late 1980s, sorry, or somewhere around there. And today the ozone hole is smaller than it has ever been, since about 1982. So we can fix these invisible atmospheric global problems. We've done it before. We just need to understand the science and respond in a politically expedient way. If we've learned anything from COVID-19, it's the speed at which governments can move to avert catastrophe. And it's also been something of a revolution in science communication, as well. And you know this is my area.

This is where I sort of have to take it on the chin, that in many respects for climate science New Zealand Geographic has failed New Zealand. Because we haven't managed to communicate some of the most pressing issues and solutions. But for the first time now I feel like the public understands exponents, like we've never understood them before. We understand the value of projections. We understand the power of personal, public and political sort of interventions to change the course of the inevitable. So why we haven't been able, while we have been able to do that for COVID-19. And we haven't been able to do that or bring that same sense of urgency to climate and the marine spaces is a little bit beyond me. But it comes down to reducing emissions, of course. And in the marine space, it comes down to resilience. The marine space cannot be resilient when it is in a compromised stat. So, we have to be careful about what we take out. And we have to carefully consider what we put in. What we take out, in terms of extractive things, like commercial, recreational fishing and fisheries methods that we use. The oil and gas, what that's doing to the benthic environment. Understanding our inputs, being pollution from rural sources, from urban sources. And then protection setting aside a small portion of our sea area and protect it from extraction and inputs.

So science suggests 30 percent by 2030. New Zealand currently has 0.37% protected. Which is a shameful position for a country that had the first marine reserves in the world. Those marine reserves, they need to be representative ecosystems to be valuable and they need to be large enough to be valuable. So it comes down to extractions, inputs, protection. Libby referred earlier to the solution being social and and I'd agree with that. Leana referred earlier to this reciprocal relationship, for a kaitiakitanga. And it occurs to me that, you know Western Society is the only society in the world where somehow we've been able to divorce rights and responsibilities. We've been able to give rights to one group to exploit a resource and responsibilities to another group to try and regulate that process. And that's broken! We need a marriage of those rights and responsibilities again. And perhaps we need to reframe it as the Fiordland Marine Guardians do, to in terms of gifts and gains. Where we all have to give up something in order to get something. Yes, extraction, input, protection. That's the solution, I think.

[ELISABETH] Here's a rather big question and anyone can answer it. Put your hand up. Why is it taking so long? What are the hurdles?

[JAMES] I think its slow moving. I think we, I think it's too slow moving. I think we feel like we've got time. And yet, when you see the number of new cases of COVID-19 shooting up, you realize that you don't have time to react. But over a long course, we feel like it's, you know, we can wait another day.

[ELISABETH] Kirsty you?

[KIRSTY] I think the question is, why is it taking so long to do what? And people talk about marine protection and that we are very slow at it. But I think people value the oceans for a whole lot of different reasons and we need to be clear about what we're protecting the oceans for. And certainly, from our point of view, a Māori point of view, it's very much about an ongoing relationship of give-and-take and sustenance, more like a sustainable utilisation approach. And so, the protection that we need is from risks posed by the things that we do. And we need to be quite deliberate about identifying what those are. And I think marine reserves are one thing. They're established for a particular purpose. But if we're talking about protecting the marine environment from fishing, that's part of that box that I was describing. And there are tools in there that enable us to do the research, to really debate robustly about what that means and then what we should do about it. And I think that, a lot of what we need to do is within that framework. And it's not about putting it 30% of our oceans into no-take areas. I think that gets in the way of our relationship. We need to have a much more nuanced response to these problems. So I think it's a broader question.

[ELISABETH] That's really helpful. And Jeroen...

[JEROEN] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course I have a feeling about it. So I do think 30% by 2030 is the minimum we should be going for. Leave 70% for other activities. If we don't do it, we can keep on talking. Run and run, run, it's nothing. Let's have a look at what we have lost in the last 50 to 100 years, it is significant! And so, we need to look at rights from the ocean as well. Not just rights of all the people, that sort of have activities on the ocean. But, we should see that that the planet is like a person as well. And Māori have always been very good with that. They named rivers and keep it personal. So should the ocean be. The ocean should be protected And there's a next generation coming up. And if we leave them with nothing, then shame on us.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Jeuron. And Leana?

[LEANA] Yeah just quickly, I think one of our issues is that we're very good at looking back. But we're not very good at looking forward. So climate change is framed as an impact. It's not framed as a "what we want for the future". We don't want to be impacted by climate change . We want something different. So what we're very good at is going, okay well, climate change will protect. Maybe, we will do something here. Maybe we'll do something there. But we've lost track of what they are, of the marine environment, that we want to hold on to for our future. And so, if we just turn a little bit and reframe it to go okay, we know climate change is happening. But, what are our values that we want to hold on to and we want to keep? And then how are we going to keep those? If we want fish. If we want to be able to swim. If we still want to be able to go down and connect. The how are we going to manage what is coming at us currently? And I think that is the biggest issue. Where we're still in there this is our problem, rather than how are we going to get from here to there?

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Leana. Libby.

[LIBBY] Kia ora everyone. And yeah, so building I guess, on what Liana and Kirsty have said. And, I guess what's been speed so far on the panel. And I don't want a pre-empt discussion that will happen around marine protected areas, later in the series. But, I do want to say that I think the discussion about marine protected areas, or not, is not it's not a binary one, you know. There are different kinds of marine protected areas. Some that enable use or take of certain resources. And this is the kind of discussion we're having at the moment, in New Zealand marine scientists forums, where there is going to be, potentially, rezoning of our marine environment. There'll be different degrees of protection. Some will be exclusive. In that, that there will be no fishing, potentially. But there will be many other kinds of protection, where fishing will be allowed. And in fact, maybe the way we think about marine reserves, should not be about anti-fishing. It's really about trying to build the resilience of those marine populations that we do fish, some of them. But also those marine ecosystems into the future, so they can cope with climate change. So think about marine reserves and marine protected areas as essentially being your friend, you know. We want to build resilience, so that we can sustain our lifestyles, because we are part of this ecosystem as well. We are part of it. So building that resilience of our marine biodiversity is really a numbers game and a diversity game. We want to increase the numbers of individuals within a species found in our marine environment. And maybe we can do that and still maintain some fishing. And we also want to increase the diversity, which relies upon being a large, I guess, number of populations for a species. So diversity is maintained throughout the species. As well as there being diversity within any one area. So, I'll just advocate for, I guess a reframing of the definition, as to why we protect areas. It's not anti-fishing, it's really about enabling us to live sustainably within our environment. And secondarily, just to also think about the fact that marine reserves are here to serve us, as well as the environment. So there are different ways that we can protect our environment or have marine protected areas, without it being exclusively no fishing. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Libby. Kirsty.

[KIRSTY] Sorry, just quickly. I think just as context for that. I think that talking about a partnership perspective in the treaty and our own knowledge, that it has to be brought into this discussion as well. And if you're talking marine protection, generally. That can be through various means, not just through a specific tool, like a Marine Reserves Act or some new marine protected area. It can be done and all sorts of ways too. And so, I guess our offer is that we have a particular view and so on. And an approach to bear on this.

[ELISABETH] Okay, so that leads in quite nicely to a question from one of the watchers, viewers. I have read that commercial fishing has a strong negative impact on te moana. How do iwi balance or carryout manage kaitiakitanga responsibilities in this context?

[KIRSTY] It depends on what kind of impacts they have read about, the I think for iwi that the management of Fisheries, whether it's commercial and non-commercial, essentially it's still subject to the same requirements, in that the stock itself has to be sustainable. And there is ongoing research to look at what the status of fish stocks is. And in fact, since the quota management system, we're in a much better place than we used to be in fisheries, with collapsing. There's also the vexed question of different fishing methods and their effects and Karl has talked about what he's doing. And just really, there's a requirement to sort of adapt and gradually improve where you're having a negative impact. So, without actually knowing more specifically what question, what was behind the question, what kind of impact. I just say that commercial fishing can be managed and is managed on a sustainable basis. And iwi are all part of that system and benefit from it but also want to make sure that management, from now into the future, is in accordance with Tikanga and Māori values.

[ELISABETH] I've got a question for Karl. But first of all Leana your hand is up and then Karl I'm going to come to you.

[LEANA] Yea, very quickly. Just putting a disclaimer out there, as well. Not all Māori think the same, just like not all people think the same. And kaitiakitanga is a principle. And so, if you live by kaitiakitanga. then the whole system is balanced. You're going to be a part of it and you're going to have that reciprocal relationship. What gets difficult is that some iwi, some hapū some whanau, some individual Māori have decided not to live by those principles. And so we will see, I mean you know, Māori aren't angels. We're not saying we know a whole lot of stuff. We know stuff based on those principles. And if those principles are practiced then that is where we make our better biggest gain, disclaimer.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Leana. Karl, I just wanted to ask you, as a commercial fish a person. So you've been on the ocean for decades. You've seen the effects of climate change can you talk to us a little bit about the affects you have seen? And also your solutions, as an actual commercial fisherperson, even at small take person to mitigate some of this problem?

[KARL] Yeah, so... Climate wise, during the summer months we used to get a lot of the primary food chain coming into the shallow regions in Southern Hawke's Bay. So this is, so a juvenile pilchard is called a sardine and anchovies. So they're the first on the food chain ladder, up from your plankton. So if you've got plankton, these guys are eating that and then most of your other predatory fish species are eating them. So they're a very key part of the base of the food pyramid. So I'm noticing that they're not turning up in my area in summer. It's not to say that they're not still present. I hear from other fishers who have bigger vessels and fish further out. That they're seeing increased or pretty voluminous food markings out in deeper water. But I guess what's interesting to notice, they're not coming to where they traditionally were coming. So that's been a big change. To speak to the question about what are we doing? And why is this taking some time? It's a good question. So their little device I've got on that end of my net, reduces the number of juvenile Gurnard that are coming in to that net or being caught by over 95%. So pretty much, for every one Gurnard that I bring home that's a nice size, there's another little fish that's escaped unharmed, that's swimming off there and becoming next year's fish. Now that device is seven, six or seven years old. I still can't get the government put up the hand to say we'll pay the scientists to do an official review over it, so that we can ratify it as being the success that it is. Even though, I'm sending in catch effort data to Ministry of Primary Industries every day that I fish, which shows to the volumes and what I'm catching and what's going on. So I guess, you know like this port call is: where's my public calling for action and demanding that if you want change where is it? And who's monitoring it? I think there's this process where the public trust the regulator to get the job done. And they get busy with everything else in their life, just as I do. I haven't followed up and I haven't made an effort as to with all this rock phosphate that's coming out of Morocco and whether that's a clean and tidy thing for the dairy community. I'm trusting the regulator to do that. But I think this is one of the big downfalls. If we take what we are seeing as individuals and don't act upon, it doesn't necessarily mean the backstop of the regulator is going to come forward and make it happen for us. I think the key, or a big part of the key, to solving our responses to climate change, is making sure as a united citizen group, we're asking and we're demanding to see evidence, that our regulators and our tax gathering body, who's supposed to be charging up and making these, is actually getting the results out there. So, I'm sitting with you know. I've had three attempts at a funding bid to take facial recognition of fish, connected to mechanical sorting, so there is no bycatch. So you put a commercial fishing device in the water, it has a no bycatch. Now we've had three goes. We finally got success at getting funding for that through MB. We are now facing ourselves on the back foot with international position. We were world leading an area. We were the first to come up with that idea. Now we're chasing the team because other countries have got in and taken action. We're behind the eight ball . Why is this process happening? Why can't I? Even though I'm a small, one person fisher, why can't I get my government and my people to recognise a good idea when they see it? People I bump into on the street love it. They're asking, what's going on?

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Karl absolutely! I know that that's a question that people are going to be asking, beyond the time of this seminar. Has anyone else got anything they need to say? We have actually got to the end of our of our allotted hour. Is there anything else that anyone would like to close? No? Well, I just want to say thank you all so very much. We always knew that one hour was going to be ridiculously short. But that's what we've got and I wish we had whole days. But this dialogue doesn't end right now. In fact it's ongoing and it's vital that we use these discussions as tools for change. Do please join us next week for our panel on Wednesday, June the third. Same time, same channel, same Eventbrite booking system, for our fourth event about Marine Protection in Aotearoa. With a focus on: what precisely a marine protected area is? And why MPAs are important for Aotearoa. Our speakers next week include Associate Professor Nick Shears from the Leigh Marine Laboratory at the University of Auckland and Samara Nicholas Co-director and Founding trustee of the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust. Thank you so much for joining us today. Do please email any thoughts or queries to marine@DOC.govt.nz. Ka kite ano te whanau, and to close today I asked Leana for a karakia.

[LEANA] Tēnā tātou katoa
I te tuatahi, tēnei te mihi ki a koutou
ngā kaikōrero, koutou katoa
e mātakitaki ana i te ahiahi nei.
Me inoi tātou.
Unuhia, unuhia
Unuhia te uru tapu nui
Kia wātea, kia māmā te ngākau
Te tinana, te wairua i te ara tangata
Koia rā e Rongo, whakairia ake ki runga
Kia tina! Tina!
Hui e! Tāiki e!

[BRENDAN] Wāhia te awa
Puta i tua
Puta i waho
Ko te pakiaka o te rākau
o Maire-nuku
o Maire-raki
o Maire o te māra whenua
I ruka Tāne, i raro Tāne
Te rakiihi a Tāne
Te pakupaku a Tāne
Noho Tāne-te-ariki
Hoatu e Tāne ki uta
Tūturu ō whiti
Whakamaua kia tina
Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e 

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Brendan for the karakia. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us today for a fourth session of Changing Tides -Tai Tōrua. A web series designed to take a deep look at the issues surrounding our Moana, the ocean. Thank you for making time to be a part of this panel discussion. To those of you joining us for the first time, it's a pleasure to have you with us.

And those of you have been to any of our previous sessions, I think you'll all agree it's been quite a journey, giving us all a lot to think about. I'm your host Elizabeth Easther and like many of you I've seen huge changes to the marine environment in my lifetime. And as a journalist I'm always looking for ways to educate myself about what is happening in the ocean, what humans are doing to it and ultimately to look at ways of finding ways to help protect the moana so it may flourish. Tai Tōrua is brought to you by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation.

Thank you to those organizations for making this series possible. And to the team behind the scenes who do incredibly clever things, that you might just have noticed to ensure that everything runs smoothly. And a heartfelt thank you to our panellists today. Dr Nick Shears, from the University of Auckland. Brendan Flack from Kāti Huirapa and Samara Nicholas from the Mountains to the Sea Conservation Trust. But before a hand to our first speaker, a few housekeeping matters. There is a chat window that will be open for the next 10 minutes, if you're having any problems, technical or otherwise. Do please use that and one of our behind-the-scenes people will sort it out for you. QA: there is a Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen. If you have a question, click on that the box will pop up, type in your question.

Although, they will be filtered to avoid duplication. And any that are off topic will be removed. Bearing in mind that we have just one hour, we may not get to answer every question. But you can also email marine@DOC.govt.nz. Voting: If a question comes up that you wanted to ask comes up on the QA, stick a thumbs up on it. And it will rise to the top of the heap. And we will try to answer the ones with the most votes first. This session is being recorded and we will be putting them all on YouTube, on the WWF New Zealand channel. And it will join all the other talks, so that if you haven't seen this or you know someone who wished they'd been here, you can share that with them. And people's choice: On another note we have quite an exciting announcement to make.

We're offering an eighth session of the series to be held in July called People's Choice. Is there an ocean topic you would like to learn more about? Or a speaker you would like to hear from? Let us know by sending an email to marine@DOC.govt.nz and all suggestions are welcome. And finally our kaupapa: our guiding philosophy is very simple. Whatever you say today in your comments or questions, please be respectful.

Today you have joined us for our fourth webinar: Marine Protection in Aotearoa, which sees us return to the original format of the first two weeks. We will begin with each of our three speakers giving a short talk, after which the floor will be opened for questions from you. The focus today, what is a marine protected area? And why are they important for New Zealand? An estimated 30 percent of Aotearoa, New Zealand's biodiversity is in the sea. And along our 15,000 kilometres of coastline more than 17,000 marine species have been recorded. We have rights over one of the largest areas of ocean in the world and with these rights come responsibilities. And while some progress has been made, our marine environment is under threat. But there is so much more we can do to ensure our biodiversity is protected for its own sake and for future generations. Currently just 0.4 percent of our coastal waters are in highly protected areas, while recommended proportion is 30 percent. So we have a long way to go.

One of last week's speakers Karl Warr sent us an email and he finished with this comment. "It is a privilege to help the cause of our most significant ecosystem. Two out of three breaths I take each day is oxygen made in the oceans. I'm very keen to see us as a society stay completely focused helping each other, help our oceans.

Now to our speakers. I'd like to introduce first of all, Dr Nick Shears, Associate Professor at the University of Auckland's Institute of Marine Science. With over two decades undertaking ecological research on rocky reefs around the world, Nick focuses on the importance of those ecosystems and how they're impacted by human activities including, fishermen fishing, sedimentation and climate change. Nick grew up at Whangaparaoa. Snorkelling, fishing, sailing, surfing and exploring in the Hauraki Gulf. And he declares himself fortunate to now have a career that allows him to continue studying and exploring the waters of Tīkapa Moana. He now spends his weekends sharing his passion for the ocean with his three daughters. And tells me one common family discussion, had while fishing is: how to strike a bit of balance that allows us to keep catching fish and eating them but also protect the marine environment. And one day while out fishing at Hauturu, Little Barrier, Nick's eight-year-old asked. "Why don't we have half for fishing and half protected? And maybe we can come to that question later. Kia ora Nick.

[NICK] Tēnā koutou katoa and thank you Elizabeth for the nice introduction. I'll just share my screen. So I'm going to be talking to you all today a little bit about the research. And what we've learned from marine protection in Aotearoa. And I have to be, a little disclaimer there, my research, I've only got 12 minutes. So I'm going to focus on work largely in the northern part of New Zealand, where most of my research has being carried out. So first of all, I'd just like to talk briefly about the types of marine protected areas that we have in New Zealand. So first of all, zooming out to a larger spatial scale, you can see our EEZ there, in the light blue, with a number of different sorts of marine protected areas. There's the sea mount closures in green. And also benthic protection areas there, which offer different levels of protection. As we move into our coastal environments, on the right you can see we have some large marine mammals sanctuaries, which limit certain types of fishing, that are potentially risky for our marine mammals. And obviously we want to minimize them getting caught, particularly for the Hector's and Maui's dolphins.

So as we come in more into our coastal waters, is where we encounter our marine reserves. So our marine reserves are our highest level of protection. They're completely no take, meaning there is no no fishing at all, within those areas. And we've got 44 marine reserves in New Zealand. And you can see that the large ones are primarily offshore islands such as at the sub-antarctics and the Kermadec Islands and if you look around our mainland coast. While we're doing well in terms of having quite a high number of marine reserves, it only covers a very small fraction, less than one percent of our coastal waters. Nevertheless those areas and as I'll talk about it being really important in terms of understanding the impacts of fishing and how those can be reversed through protection.

Now on the right there, we've got a range of different types of other sorts of marine protected areas. So, referred to as type 2 marine protected areas by Department of Conservation. And they include things like marine parks, like we have up here at Mimiwhangata, as well as cable protection zones, different sorts of fisheries closures and I think our Mātaitai. What these maps don't encompasses our more customary or traditional protected areas like Rahui and Taiāpure, which Brennan will be talking to us a little bit more about, later. Now my research, focusing on reefs and rocky reef ecosystems and understanding the impacts of fishing has naturally gravitated towards marine reserves, because they stopped fishing. So a lot of you will know that our first marine reserve was established in 1977, up north of Auckland. The Cape Rodney-Okakari Point or Leigh Marine Reserve.

Now this is about an hour's drive north of Auckland. But I think when it was established it was probably about a three-hour drive, along a windy track. But even then, prior to the reserve being established in the seventies, it was a very popular fishing location. So that was protected in 1977. It's about a five kilometre stretch of coast, that extends 800 meters offshore. And this was set up for scientific purposes. This is the Leigh Marine Laboratory, which is the University of Auckland's Research Station. And the scientists basically wandered areas where they could undertake their research without the concern of fishing. They weren't really necessarily interested in the impacts of fishing or trying to study the impact of fishing. It was more of a, you know let's just have an area, where we can do our research, that's not being fished. Little did they know you know how important these areas we're going to become, in terms of research and understanding how fishing impacts on our coastal environment.

So this is how do we use these reserves to understand the impacts of fishing. So you've stopped fishing within a particular area of coast. And so what we do is we set up a bunch of sites and survey sites within the marine reserve that are representative of that particular reserve and then survey sites on the surrounding coast. So that give us a quite a good picture of, you know, how the reefs in the reserve, or ecosystems in the reserve compared to outside. Now I'm showing you these four different reserves here in north-eastern New Zealand because they're you know the reasonable size reserves. They're currently found on our exposed coasts and they're all they've all been protected for 20 or more years, up to 40 odd years. And these have also been a focus of a lot of the research and monitoring that we do. And they all have a lot of rocky reef inside them and so they harbour a lot of the species that we're really interested in . Especially from, you know, we like to catch and eat Snapper and Crayfish. And so a lot of the monitoring is focused on things like Snapper and Crayfish, as well as the Kelp forests or Sea Urchin barren habitats that are found within those reserves.

You'll just notice here that the Poor Knights Island is completely encompassed within a marine reserve. So in order to compare to this site we also sample at the Mokohinau Islands, which are reasonably nearby. We recognise there's probably natural inherent differences between these locations. But it's sort of the best we can do. And we're interested in how these areas change relatively over time, following prediction. Now so, I just want to talk briefly about some of our recent monitoring results. So these reserves have been monitored for the last 20 odd years quite intensively. And that's funded primarily by the Department of Conservation. So one of the big species of interest is Snapper or Tamure, which is a really important species from a cultural, recreational and commercial perspective. Over 2000 tons of snapper are taken from the Hauraki Gulf every year by recreational fishermen and a similar amount by a commercial fisherman. So it's a really important target species. And throughout history it has shown the sort of typical decline. But then with quota management things have levelled off and this fishery is considered to be around its soft limit or just under 20% of its unfished biomass. The target for this fishery is around 40%.

So we've still got a way to go, to get it back up there. So how is this species responded to protection? If anyone's been to one of the marine reserves in northern New Zealand , it's pretty obvious. The snapper are abundant. They're big and so that ultimately means their biomass is much higher than the surrounding fishery. So the fished areas are thought to be about 20% of their unfished biomass. So if we look at what these biomass is are. So this is the biomass outside of the reserves in the surrounding coasts. You can see it ranges from 5 to up to 19%. So potentially lower than what the fisheries estimate are. But the big thing in where these reserves are really important is they are actually protecting the large individuals. So if you look at the fished. So these are based on diver survey results. So it's not necessarily the best method. We use other video methods as well that yield similar results for Snapper.

What you can see here. This is the size of the snapper. The dotted line is the legal size limit of 30 centimetres. You see very few individuals outside the reserves in that size class. Whereas, if you look inside the reserves you see lots of these big individuals. And it's protecting these individuals that is really important. Because they are an important part of the ecosystem, they're big predators, they eat Sea Urchins or kina. But they also produce a lot of larvae. So these are your breeders in the population. So one snapper like this, which is say about 60-70 centimetres, produces the same number of larvae as about 36 snapper, that are just on that legal size limit. So, this large snapper produces disproportionate amount of larvae.

So this means of these reserves produce up to18 times more eggs per unit area, than in fished areas. So, it's kind of long been a discussion around, how does that then contribute to the surrounding fishery? All of these extra eggs. And so some recent work, well not that recent now. Work that's been done over the last 10 years, has shown how larvae that is spawned or snapper that spawn inside the reserves. Their eggs spill out into the surrounding coasts and actually stayed within the surrounding waters. They weren't dispersed offshore or too far offshore by currents. And then that's now being supported by some genetic analysis which shows that about 11% of the snapper that are caught. Sorry juvenile snapper within this area, actually have parents from the Marine Reserve at Leigh. So it was quite striking really, that even a relatively small Marine Reserve could be contributing to the surrounding fishery.

Now crayfish. A lot of people with a New Zealand would have heard about the CRA 2 fishery, which is our local fishery in northern New Zealand, north-eastern New Zealand, being in pretty bad shape. It's just gone through a range of quota management. Oh sorry, quota cuts and this stock is also considered to be around, or just below that soft limit of around 20 percent. It shows very much the same patterns a snapper, if not even being in a worse state. So this is just an example, from the different reserves. This is the fish population outside the reserve and you can see in the reserve you've got a much more natural-looking size structure, with lots of big individuals. And so, things like crayfish, it's again those big individuals that are really important from an ecological perspective. And also, from a mating and spawning perspective. This is a large male crayfish standing outside his den, where he'll have multiple females that he's able to mate with and they can the produce large amounts of egg. So same sort of thing. These reserves are very effective at protecting these large individuals.

Now I've alluded to these sort of ecosystem effects and that's one of the big changes that we've seen within the Leigh Marine Reserve, following protection. I forgot to set my timer. Okay so, this is the marine reserve. An aerial image in 1975 and you can see all these light-coloured reefs. So what those reefs were, they were all covered in Kina, in the seventies. And you can remember from the start the photo of the snapper. So this area by the seventies had been heavily fished. But what's happened following the recovery. I'm sorry, the protection in 1977 was the recovery of snapper and crayfish. That led to the recovery of these kelp forests. You can now see from your satellite imagery the extensive kelp forests within the reserve. This was first recorded in the early 2000s and there was a lot of debate and question over whether this sort of pattern played out over larger areas? Or was this just something specific to Leigh? And what we've seen now is that it does occur in marine reserves throughout north-eastern New Zealand. These same sort of changes. So this is just some mapping work that was done by Kaitlin Lawrence. This is the as part of her master's.

This is the Leigh Reserve in 1977 and the pink area is all the Urchin barrens or kina barren habitat. And then this is her map now, where there's now very small amounts of Kina Barrens left within the reserve at Leigh. Now if we compare this to other marine parks. So this is Mimiwhangata Marine Park which was also a mapped and the seventies. But it allows recreational fishing. So it was kind of a fishing park, there's just no commercial fishing there. When this area was mapped in the seventies, there was relatively small amounts of Kina barren there then compared to at least Leigh. But when Kaitlin mapped this last year you can see over a third of those shallow reefs is all dominated by Kina. So, it's gone in the opposite direction to the marine reserve at Leigh. The Mokohinau Islands are fully fished.

They were also mapped in the seventies, which allowed us to now remap them last year. And you can see again with the Mokohinau, that the amount of Kina barrens has increased there as well. So what we're seeing around lots of our coast and lots of areas in the Hauraki Gulf, in north-eastern New Zealand are these extensive Kina barrens. But within our marine protected areas, these long-established no-take reserves, we see that the amount of Kina barrens is either non-existent or very low compared to the surrounding coasts. So while this is a very clear effect in north-eastern New Zealand, it is worth pointing out that these Kina barrens aren't necessarily a problem throughout the whole country,

There are you know localized areas where Kina barrens occur. But we have seen that through protection we can restore kelp forests to these barrens. So just to wrap up as far, as marine protected areas go and what we've learned. I think it's very clear that no take marine protected areas are effective in allowing the recovery of exploited species and ecosystems within their boundaries, if they're designed appropriately. They have a clear scientific value. Obviously, if we're trying to understand the impacts of fishing or the status of stocks, they provide an important reference point or baseline of an unfished population. And even with reserves at Leigh and Tawharanui, which aren't very big. These have had quite a substantial value from that perspective. And they obviously have a conservation and fisheries value ,as well. Not just from the point of view of providing a reference point.

But also demonstrating that it is a mechanism that can be used to allow ecosystems to restore and to protect harvested species. Such as protecting these large individuals, which you know can be important brood stock. But the values that we derived from marine protected areas, or the benefits, I guess you might say, is dependent on the goals that you have to start with when you're establishing a marine protected area and then how you design it. What fishing is going to be excluded? How long is it going to be protected? What I've shown you is the result of what happens when you stop all forms of fishing and over a long time period. And a lot of these ecological changes do take a long time to occur. If you think of a large snapper. It is going to take a long time to grow. And it's important if we are wanting to restore ecosystems and allow these systems to recover, they do need to be effective at protecting those harvested species, that drive these changes. And so they need to take into account edge effects.

So that where, things like crayfish, for example, close to a reserve boundary are likely to get caught because they venture across the boundary. And the boundaries need to be far enough offshore to encompass those movements of the adults when they move out onto the sand, for example. But there's a number of a fairly good understanding from this research of how to protect these ecosystems and how to protect these specie. So final point is that I'm not just talking about marine reserves. I think we're all aware now and can see there's lots of different mechanisms and more mechanisms for protection. Whether it's cultural tools: Rahui, Taiāpure, or now through the Resource Management Act, we can see that we can hopefully get some of these conservation and fisheries science values using other mechanisms, rather than just the Marine Reserves Act. And I can't do a talk on marine protected areas in Aotearoa without mentioning these three gentlemen: Bill Ballantine, Roger Grace and Wade Doak, who I guess are the three grandfathers of marine protection in New Zealand. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Nick, that was wonderful. And thank you too for bringing to mind the wonderful work of Bill, Roger and Wade. That’s something for all of us to remember and perhaps try and be like them. Now, our second speaker today is Brendon Flack, who comes to us from Otago. And just before we started he took us for a quick look around the sea the beach that is right on the doorstep of his home, which was quite amazing. Although, he does need a very thick wetsuit to go surfing I'm told. So Brendan Flack is Tangata Tiaki for Kāti Huirapa He is also the researcher and current chair of the committee of the East Otago Taiāpure, a customary fishing fisheries protection area established in 1999. Brendan has always been a keen surfer with that thick wetsuit and is also known to enjoy all the foods of the sea. As an adult Brendan was introduced to the world of traditional Polynesian sailing vessels and it's changed the way he views the ocean. Brendan also has a particular passion for helping young people understand the world that lies above and below the horizon. Kia ora Brendan.

[BRENDAN] Kia ora, thank you Elizabeth for that kind introduction. Ko wai au Ko Hikuroroa te mauka Ko Waikouaiti te awa Ko Puketeraki te marae Ko Kāi Te Ruahikihiki te hapū Ko Brendan tōku ingoa Nō reira, tēnā tātou katoa Yeah my talk today is on. So I'm just setting my timer. My talk today is on Inherited Stewardship. So I'm just going to share, I hope I'm going to share my slide with you people. And I may or may not have done that. And I think I'm fact I haven't done that. The talk is around kaitiakitanga and mahi kai. So that Inherited Stewardship in a changing world. I'm really not sure if I have this.... Yes here we go now. Hoping that you can see this, yep!

So mahi kai is that cultural connection to our tipuna, that relationship of the gathering of food that connects the people who live currently and connecting to the to the works of their ancestors. Now many of those species that we have now... I guess turned into... Many of them are extinct and many of them are in the classification of endangered or threatened species. So that the work of Tangata Tiaki is to increase the environment to allow the gathering once again of these special creatures, if you like. And return them back to the to the menu. We have particularly four principles, sorry six principles of kaitiakitanga.

The kaitiakitanga, these principles are around Rahui. And Nick, thank you for mentioning Rahui, Rahui is essentially restriction. Restricting not only technology, but in a modern world it is temporary closures, bag limits, fisheries legislation. Mauri: mauri is the health of entire ecosystems. And man has the ability to degrade or enhance the mauri of ecosystems, of catchment areas, species, individuals. One of the other principles of kaitiakitanga is utu, that is the reciprocity. It is giving back. It is conservation. It is particularly riparian planting, in a modern world. Habitat restoration, reseeding of shellfish, the removal of pest species. For instance, one of the pest species that we have in our Taiāpure is the Undaria pinnatifida. So Undaria is an invasive seaweed that arrived in this country about thirty years ago. We've got a program now where we're looking to eradicate it, or at least control the spread of the Undaria.

The other the other principles of kaitiakitanga are Ranginui, Papatūānuku and Takaroa. Now these Atua were these Māori Gods if you like, a Māori way of understanding the modern world, the environmental world. So when we understand these Atua, our ancestors Ranginui, Papatūānuku and Takaroa, we get to understand the relationship that these Atua have. We begin to understand, at least the little, in terms of sea level rise, ocean acidification, climate change, sedimentation, run off, all these land-based activities and changes to the to the environment. So now, around 2002 the East Otago Taiāpure finally began to have its... Was able to create a management committee. So our ancestor, our tipuna, our elders of Kāti Huirapa, it took them 10 years of hard work to create the East Otago Taiāpure. In 2002, we were finally able to establish a working committee. But our ancestors at that time had decided also to include the community into that into this management system. And in doing so, it was five years later that at first regulation was installed and that was a set net ban. It was created after a lot of work, a lot of conferences and consultation. And eventually this set net ban was the first regulation that the East Otago Taiāpure. was able to establish. We moved forward to 2008 and the first regulation around reduced bag limits was created.

In 2010, there was a reduction in the bag limits for wet fish. So reducing them from 30 down to 10 for a recreational take. Pāua was reduced from a recreational take of 10 down to 5. This Taiāpure took 10 years to establish. But then we fast forward to 2015 and our Mātaitai, freshwater Mātaitai, on the Waikouaiti River was established. It was established and it took nine months only, from for the creation of our freshwater Mātaitai. There was I think a change, in the in terms of society from those early 1990s, when I guess a mistrust was formed around indigenous management of coastal areas. Now 2015, the community had gained the trust, I guess, to be able to manage or at least showed to be able to managed a freshwater Mātaitai on the Waikouaiti River.

That Mātaitai essentially led to a project called He Pātaka Wai Ora. And now He Pātaka Wai Ora is ko Hikuroroa te mauka,   so the mountain and the catchment, He Pātaka Wai Ora will once again become a healthy food store. Now the research that goes on in our Taiāpure. We take water samples. We connect with landowners, so that we can gain access to some of the areas that we've been excluded from for many years. And this He Pātaka Wai Ora has now formed part of a 200 year restoration plan for the restoration of our the habitat of the Waikouaiti Awa that flows into the Karitāne catchment area and into the East Otago Taiāpure. The Taiāpure is a coastal area that's 22 kilometres in length and encompasses four historic areas. Now I think I may have mucked up some of my slides there whanau. I'm hoping that you were able to get an idea of what I was speaking about. But I did have a plan B if I had technical difficulties. I've created this wonderful... Well a piece of art really. And it I'm not sure if you can see this, but this is a picture of a human being.

I guess in terms of the difference between a customary protected area and a marine protected area is that the human beings are part of that ecosystem. And marine protection essentially is a by-product of customary protection. Now I've got a couple of minutes left. So, I'm just going to quickly talk about some highs and lows of customary fisheries management. Once again a bit of high tech. In no particular order, well apart from chronological order. As I mentioned, 10 years to establish a Taiāpure, nine months, those years later, to establish the Waikouaiti Mātaitai. We've created these regulations that reduce the recreational fishing and commercial fishing. We've got an Undaria control program that's locally managed. And also working alongside the the Otago University and with a lot of help from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. One of the highlights or lowlights was a trip to the Environment Court, with Port Otago when they were deepening and dredging the Otago harbour and dumping 7.2 million cubic metres of sediment and sand just offshore of our Taiāpure. One of the other highlights... Anyway, that was at no highlight. But it was a was a trip to the Environment Court and then again to the High Court to establish a more robust regime of monitoring. 2014, we had a Pāua reseeding programme, where hundreds of people. Well, dozens of people around 120 to 130 beds, with about four or five hundred thousand Pāua that were donated to us. And last year we established a further Rahui on Huriawa and the whole of our Taiāpure, in terms of the closure of taking Pāuas in the East Otago Taiāpure and a strengthening of some of the other regulations that we have. And also a Rahui on the gathering of habitat forming kelp. So look whanau, apart from a little technical difficulty that I had there, it's awesome. Nō reira Tēnā koutou katoa. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Brendan, that was great! And I do like your strategy for dealing with technology when it doesn't go on. As some of you may have noticed I couldn't unmute myself, so we've had one of those zoom days. To our third speaker, Samara Nicholas speaking to us, we hope, from Whananaki in Northland. Samara has achieved a lot in the conservation sector and has been driven to do so from a young age. Ever since the spark was ignited, while she was a student at Kamo High School and involved in the creation of a marine reserve in Whangarei Harbour. In 2002, she founded the Mountains to Sea Conservation trust to educate young people about marine conservation through Experiencing Marine Reserves, an organization that has taken tens of thousands of school children snorkelling, hopefully igniting similar sparks in them. In 2018, Samara was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to marine conservation and education. One of Samaras EMR colleagues had told me affectionately that Samara can often be found on the shoreline on her hands and knees with her bum in the air collecting micro molluscs. With 75% of New Zealand's molluscs less than 10 millimetres when fully grown, Samara has raised funds for EMR by selling these tiny shells in lockets. Now let's see has Samara managed to get on, off the frozen...

[SAMARA] Ko Onekainga te maunga Ko Te Wairahi te awa Ko Whananaki taku kāinga noho Ko Samara Nicholas ahau So my presentation is going to be about the educational benefits of marine reserves and marine conservation in New Zealand. And I thought I would start by just start where it started for me, at Kamo High School. I was a year 13 student and my teacher, my geography teacher took us snorkelling at this wonderful site called Motukaroro. And Motukaroro is in the Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserve. And it was a Project that started in 1990, actually, as a geography project. There we go.

And it was pretty unique because we were looking into three different ecological areas to be protected by one marine reserve. And it was at a 16 year project. So I started as a student and I haven't really ever left. And like Nick, I can't really talk about marine conservation until I also give tribute to some great heroes these heroes. A lot of them I met back in these early days and they continued to mentor me along my career pathway. And also, significantly influenced marine conservation in New Zealand. So that's Wade Doak. Wade, Roger, Bill and also Hone Taumanu, is another one of my heroes. So after being so inspired at high school, I got together with some awesome people like Roger, Vince Kerr and we established the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust to enable us to provide a charitable umbrella for this really awesome marine education work. Because I got the idea basically for EMR while snorkelling with some Whananaki school students, one time down at Goat Island and seeing the look on their faces when they saw a big snapper swim by.

So we created this program Experiencing Marine Reserves, Te Kura Moana. And it is all about providing experiential marine education opportunities for young people. But also, for their whanau. Titiro ki te moana, EMR will take you down under. In a nutshell that's what we do. We take people in the water. And we've now reached, we've taken over 62,000 Kiwis through our New Zealand marine reserves and snorkelled with over 120,000. And our total reach for Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust is over 250,000 kiwi. So we start in the classroom with an introduction to marine biodiversity and and then we move on to getting out and connecting young people and their whanau with what is actually living and the issues happening in their local marine environment. As Nick said, in Northland it's quite common in Northland, we get the Kina barrens. So this is a very typical site in a north-eastern area, where we take kids snorkelling. And quite often they'll be like. "Oh awesome heaps of Kina". But when there's so many Kina like this it doesn't often equate to good eating. So in order for us to kind of get everyone excited we take them to a marine reserve.

Basically, that's the way we get them amping on about what's going on in the marine environment. It is the way we get them thinking about issues in their local area. And we provide all that equipment and expertise, to enable that experience, to foster the ethic of kaitiakitanga and looking after their their local area. At school, libraries and playing fields are seen as essential amenity that we must have. Likewise, this is something that Wade Doak passed on to me. He felt every New Zealanders should have access to a 'wet library' or marine reserve. And in my 20 years of experience in the marine education field, it's just very seldom that you can get up close and personal with snapper, unless it's in a marine reserve.

Nick's probably already talked about the rules for New Zealand marine reserves. No fishing, or any kind no disturbance, no feeding the fish. And he's probably mentioned how many there are. We now have you know 44. But there are some areas that are seriously lacking some summary protection. In particular, our Northland region. And when you take into account how many no-take marine reserves there are around our mainland coastline, its less than 1%. I'm very lucky to live quite close to Mimiwhangata. And Roger, in his work there. You can see that, just the change. The dark space in 1950 was the Kelp forest which is now, back in 2003, a lot less. So we've seen the benefits and Nick's probably talked about that, the benefits of full protection. And like I said we, see a lot more when we go into a marine protected area, compared to somewhere that has only got partial protection. And it really blows you away when you go to places like Tawharanui and see a massive Crayfish, out walking about. And I think this poem really enraptures that the kind of educational aspect of what we do and you know. "Too little seaweed. All fish hiding."

This is a local area. "People don't see much. Even though we won't touch. Keeping their distance. Away from us. How are we meant to learn? But in at the marine reserve, the kids they can observe things. They can observe a fully functioning ecosystem. We take kids from all around in New Zealand. Every year, we get a representation of students from all the regions we work in and take them out to the Poor Knight Islands Marine Reserve. And I often get letters from kids talking about how they want to become marine reserve. I particularly like this quote because it's not just a marine biologist. He wants to be a marine reserve scientist. We've got some really cool the outcome stories.

For example, one of our parents that came along on a trip with Experiencing Marine Reserves went back to his hapū and they have now established a Rahui. And our organisation, Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust is very much involved in how to monitor that Rahui. And we've been able to see a huge difference. And also, before we used to take kids from Kaitaia all the way down to Goat Island, which is three hours. Now we can take them to Maitai Bay because they can see snapper again. And just recently the monitoring showed really promising results And like Roger said, the important thing is that it's no take and long term. So we can call it other names. But we're all about supporting the aspirations of iwi and hapū to achieve marine conservation in their communities. So also, we go snorkelling in the Rahui at Maunganui Bay in Deepwater Cove, which is a... So the Maitai bay Rahui was a traditional enforced Rahui. Whereas this one at Maunganui Bay is under Section 186.

The important thing about our program is that, after they've had a great experience in the marine environment, they get out there and take action. That can be marine monitoring, presentations to the community and generating groundswell. We also do community guided Snorkel days, where we get people, basically community engagement in our marine reserves and also our special areas. And I love this quote. "Are all these people lost and stupid?" This was from Bill Ballantine. And it's kind of about Goat Island, where how many people would flock to Goat Island. We're also seeing the same in Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserve. And you know, maybe it wouldn't hurt to replicate some of these areas. So we've established our non-profit franchise in many areas around New Zealand. We have an amazing team of coordinators. And I'm just going to run through some of the highlights of them different marine reserves, in the different parts of New Zealand.

So Whangarei Harbour Marine is completely different to a lot of other places. We have cool things like *intelligible* and Spotty's and Nudibranch to look at. As a harbour environments quite different, but it creates a fantastic educational focus. Also, it really is eyes on the water. We do have the marine pests, Mediterranean fan worm in our harbour now. So we're able to involve the students of monitoring. We can pick up some of those the distribution of those marine pests. Also in Auckland, one of the struggles we had was volunteers. This summer we had 110 active volunteers and we hold amazing kayak days in these different marine reserves out there. Like for example, Pollen Island-Motu Manawa. Right next to the motorway there, But fantastic community engagement and Aucklanders can't get enough of it! And in Gisborne we work with Nga Mahi Te Taiao to deliver our EMR program. And this is where this awesome idea of the 'Tangaroa Suite' came from. The Marine Reserve is like a full cupboard that feeds the rest of moana.

That's a quote from Hone Taumanu. And the concept is that the Mātaitai is on the outside of the reserve and creates all the crayfish that move out and then the local people benefit. In Taranaki, this picture is actually from a really good day. It's not always like that! Also, Tapuae Marine Reserve down there, another great day. But generally, they have to take all their kids up to Goat Island to be able to see big Snapper. Again, just to be able to see a big fish in its natural ecosystem, very inspirational and grounding for our people. We have also seen down in Tasman Bay Guardians. This is a marine reserve in our Nelson Tasman region. At the Tonga Island and Horoirangi Marine Reserves. Really awesome recovery there as well, especially Tonga island with the crayfish. And Wellington, one of our most successful regions.

They've got Kapiti and Taputeranga Marine Reserve. To be able to see Pāua really close into shore at Taputeranga. And be involved in really special celebrations. We really got to get that community behind these reserves, that's really really important! And Otago! So we've been fortunate enough to snorkel in the East Otago Taiāpure. And so, that's our marine protected area in Otago.But we also took the students snorkelling at the Mole at Aramoana. And the kids down there were pretty keen to be able to see a Marine Reserve that would be accessible to them, a wet library for them. Somewhere that was close by. So a lot of marine reserves, currently on the proposal for the extension of marine reserves and marine protection in this region, a lot of the no-take areas won't actually be very accessible to the general public. So, just got a couple more slides here. I think being able to have a place that was accessible for our students to be able to get their inspiration would be amazing!

One of the last slides I was going to show is... Yeah, it's not my day today with technology. It was going to be the Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve. And being able to be part of going up there with Blake expeditions. Being able to see sharks because in the top predators and be able to snorkel with sharks. I mean that was really, really amazing! And it was like a wet Museum, where everything is... There's so much endemic marine life. So, I just think it's so important to have places where we can see the full ecosystem and share that with people. Also you know, there are ways like in Whangara with the 'Tangaroa Suite' of protection, with the marine reserve and the Mātaitai. There was a generational review of that marine reserve. But I feel like things are just a bit slow at the moment. And it'd be really great for us to get up there and keep supporting our communities to make things happen. And you know, perhaps get a bit more marine conservation happening in New Zealand. Because there's some cool stuff, but there's not quite enough. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Samara. That is totally accurate and also I like the fact that Brendan, one of your projects took nine months. And I would think we'd all like to know how we could achieve something like that. Now we are going to go a tiny little bit over. So if you need to go away obviously that's up to you. But I do think we need to have a couple of questions before the end. Great, so our first question is.. And also, I'm not naming the people who are asking the questions because this is going on YouTube. And none of you have given permission for your names to be used. So you know who you are. So, do you know if the value to the Fisheries of the reserve effect on Snapper, Rock Lobster and Kelp recovery has been calculated for New Zealand? This person is thinking about how to get at least some of the commercial fishing sector on side with systemic protection. Nick.

[NICK] The value, but well no it hasn't it hasn't been calculated. I understand there has been some work looking at how the reserve at Leigh, the estimates, could you know... could feed into the local economy and into the fishery for snapper. That's I think work in the pipeline. But yeah, I don't know if that's really.. It's a good idea. I'm not sure if we can buy our way into getting support through protection. I think there's a big enough movement now recognising the need for it. And the fact that the current systems, perhaps, need to be improved. So yeah, good idea and would be interesting to do.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Nick, another question for you. Based on research needs and challenges, do you have any thoughts about how to better resource us to acquire data and monitor impacts in the coastal marine area? And are there any existing operators and assets in the marine environment able to be adapted to achieve better data use?

[NICK] Another challenging one! Can you just say that... I missed the start of it.

[ELISABETH] Right so, do you know if the value to the Fisheries of the reserve effect on snapper... Oh no sorry, that's the... Sorry, that one's popped up again. Based on research needs and challenges, I wonder if you have any thoughts about how to better resource us to acquire data and monitor impacts in the coastal marine area? We'll just start with the one question.

[NICK] Yeah well, ironically a lot of our research at the University of Auckland over the last few years around on Rock Lobster, has actually been funded by donors. So there's been relatively little government resource put into marine reserve monitoring. But I do understand that DOC has got an increased budget for marine reserve monitoring and which is starting. I'm hoping to get some more monitoring going over the next few years. But generally, a lot of that monitoring has been done on the smell of an oily rag. But some of our work we've been doing lately is actually being funded by donors, such as tracking lobster movements in and around the marine reserves. So yeah, we just have to get creative in where we can find money.

[ELISABETH] Brendan we've got a question here for you. How can we bring about a national approach to what you're doing, in a timeframe that addresses the pressures of the issues overfishing, sedimentation and climate change?

[BRENDAN] Yeah well, I should that Ngāi Tahu has a network of customary protected areas. I can't remember the exact figures now, but Mātaitai, Taiāpure and temporary closures. So I think working with communities. Looking at it holistically, rather than, kind of siloing some of the issues. Yeah I guess, all I can do really a speaking on behalf of the work that we do here. But there's always that invitation for people to come and have a look what's being achieved in East Otago, rather than us trying to tell people how to do things in their backyards. So I would extend and invite any that do want to come and have a look at what's happening down here. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] I think we'd all like to take you up on there. Okay so, is there anything else our speakers would like to say before we close off for the day? Is there something you'd like to add to anything you've heard? Now it has been one of those days, most definitely. But do please join us next week for our sixth session. We should have our zoom issues under control. Our second panel discussion which is Kaitiakitanga o te Moana, which will see indigenous leaders from Aotearoa and around the world share their perspectives on ocean conservation. Our featured speakers are Associate Professor Kura Paul-Burke, marine research to the from the University of Waikato. T A Sayers, technical advisor, Motiti Rohemoana Trust and Sheridan Waitai, Ngāti Kuri Trust Board and Jacqueline Blake from Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve in Tairāwhiti, Gisborne. Ludovic Burns Tuki from Rapa Nui, Easter Island and Verna Wilson, the third from Alaska who is a member of our Friends of the Earth. Although, that session you must realise is not next Wednesday, but it will be held this coming Monday, June the 8th, which is World Oceans Day. Although it is still at 3:30 p.m. New Zealand time.

Using the same Eventbrite booking system and we'll run that day 15 minutes longer than usual to squeeze that little bit more in. I'm sorry we didn't have time for more questions. I love the idea of a wet library and even better Samarra, a wet museum. That's how... And I want wet encyclopaedias everywhere. So thank you so much for joining us today. Do please email any thoughts or queries about the People's Choice webinar and some of your questions that were going up in the Q&A. We will try and answer by email as well. And in the bottom of the YouTube when it's uploaded, because a lot of them were really important and we do want to get to them. So indeed, email anything you feel like saying to marine@DOC.govt.nz. Ka kite ano te whanau, kia ora. And now Brendan will close with a karakia. Thanks Brendan.

[BRENDAN] Kia tau ki a tātou katoa
Te atawhai o tō tātou Ariki, a Ihu Karaiti
Me te aroha o te Atua
Me te whiwhinga tahitanga
Ki te wairua tapu
Ake, ake, ake
Amine
Kia ora

[CONCH SHELL HORN]

[KURA] Ka tohi au ki te tohi ā-nuku
Ka tohi au ki te tohi ā-rangi
I tipu iho ko ngā pū, ngā weu, ngā more,
ngā pūkenga, ngā wānanga
Tēnei te kimi noa, te rapu noa
i te taketake, i te āhuru mai nō ngā rangi tūhāhā
Whakaea kia rite Uhi, wero
Hara mai te toki Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Ludovic for the welcome from Rapa Nui, Easter Island. And kia ora Kura the karakia. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Welcome everybody to Changing Tides - Tai Tōrua. A web series brought to you by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation.

This web series is designed to take a deep look into the issues surrounding our moana, the ocean. Te moana nui a kiwa. Thank you for joining us today for Kaitiakitanga o te Moana. A very special panel discussion to celebrate World Oceans Day. Today we'll hear from indigenous leaders from Aotearoa, Rapa Nui, Easter Island and also we hope Alaska, who will share their perspectives on ocean conservation. Welcome to Tai Tōrua. I am your host Elizabeth Easther. And as a journalist and also an enthusiastic amateur ecologist I'm always looking for ways to educate myself about what is happening to the marine environment, what humans are doing to it and ultimately to discover ways to protect our Moana so it may flourish. Today, to mark world's oceans day the theme of our discussion is 'Ko au te moana ko au, I am the ocean, the ocean is me' And we turn to those indigenous leaders for their knowledge and philosophies around marine conservation.

Our speakers today include Jacqueline Blake founding committee member and chairperson of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve in Tairāwhiti, Gisborne. Ludovic Burns Tuki from Rapa Nui, Easter Island and Easter Island and director of the Mesa del mar coalition, of more than 20 Rapa Nui groups Associate Professor Kura Paul-Burke, Marine Researcher, University of Waikato. Verner Wilson III of the Curyung Tribe in Dillingham, Alaska and Senior Oceans Campaigner of Friends of the Earth. Although we aren't having trouble trying to find Verner at the moment, so that we shall see if Verner arrives. And Sheridan Waitai from Te Hikuo te Ika and member of the Ngāti Kuri Trust Board. And Te Atarangi Sayers, technical adviser, Motiti Rohemoana trust.

Today's session, we have 15 extra precious minutes meaning we'll finish at 4:45 New Zealand time and it will be structured as a panel discussion. Each speaker will begin by introducing themselves and their specific relationship to the topic. Once again, those of you beaming and from all over will have the opportunity to take part in this kōrero, this conversation by asking questions. Or simply listen and learn more about indigenous methods for caring for the ocean. Before I hand to our first speaker a few housekeeping matters. Chat: a chat window will be open for the next ten minutes. If you're having technical problems, that also means you Verner, the aforementioned behind-the-scenes team will sort it out for you. QA: there is a QA icon at the bottom of your screen. Click on that a box will pop up and you can type in questions, although they will be filtered to avoid duplication. And any that are off topic will be removed.

Bearing in mind we have just one hour and 15 minutes today we may not get to answer every question. But you can email marine@DOC.govt.nz. Voting: if a question appears that you would have also liked to have asked, rather than ask it again just give the question little thumbs up and it will rise to the top of the list and therefore, make it more likely to be answered. Recording: this session, as with all the others is being recorded and will be put on YouTube. Today's session will be uploaded tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand channel. So, if you know anyone who wanted to be here today and couldn't do let them know people's choice as mentioned last week we are offering an 8th session, which will be a People's Choice session to be held in July. And we're keen to hear your thoughts about topics or speakers you'd like to hear from. And we're still taking suggestions. So please send yours to marine@DOC.govt.nz. Finally, our kaupapa, our guiding philosophy is simply whatever you say today and your comments or questions be respectful. Now I'll ask each of our speakers to introduce themselves and we're going to start with Jacqueline Blake. Kia ora Jacqueline. There you are, lovely. Jaqueline

[JAQUELINE] Sorry. My ancestors were voyagers. They explored the world by sea, navigating at night by the stars. Ngāti Konohi traditional oral history tells the tale of the journey of Paikea from Hawaiki to New Zealand on a whale. Paikea came to a place that resembled his home in Hawaiki and he named it Whāngārā Mai Tawhiti or Whāngārā at a distance. My people the descendants of Paikea, Ngāti Konohi settled in Whāngārā. Whāngārā is a small village found on the east coast of the North Island, a 20-minute drive from Turanganui a Kiwa, Gisborne made world famous by the movie "The Whale Rider". From time to time we gather at Whāngārā Marae to talk, and for celebrations of life or loss fill with stories, laughter, tears, song love and food. It is here that you will find the marine reserve, an area of about 2450 hectares. No marine life is to be removed. The entrance is at Pouawa.

In 1989 to 1998, discussions between Ngāti Konohi and the Department of Conservation began. Hone Taumanu, Jack Haapu and Rangi Paenga and other Ngāti Konohi elders were concerned about the noticeable decline of fish stocks. They saw the need to set aside an area for a nursery to allow fish stocks to replenish. They were also adamant that the authority or Mana Moana of Ngāti Konohi over the traditional seas be preserved. In 1999, the marine reserve was open following the joint application by Ngāti Konohi and the Department of Conservation. The Mana Moana of Ngāti Konohi has been recognised in two ways.

First in the decision-making. The Marine Reserve is comprised of a majority of Ngāti Konohi representatives, that are elected at the annual general meetings of our Marae. It also here's three community representatives, a representative from the Conservation Board and most notably a quorum in voting must be weighted in favour of Ngāti Konohi. The second way is through a generational review. Every 25 year, Ngāti Konohi will have a generational review of the Marine Reserve. No generation will bind the next.

We have faith that each generation will make the best decision for Ngāti Konohi. In 2011, Te Tapui Mātaitai O Hakihea Reserve was opened. This sets aside a four kilometre coastline from the end of the Marine Reserve at Waiomoko River, including the Island, and the bay for traditional fishing and The non-commercial customary fishing which is managed buy Ngāti Konohi. The Marine Reserve and the Mātaitai Reserve, together, have ensured that Ngāti Konohi are decision makers for a large portion of our coastline and bordering oceans. Ngāti Konohi also own all but a few sections of the land in the village that border this coastline. For generations, Ngāti Konohi have been kaitiaki of both sea and land. My name is Jacqueline Blake and I am the chairperson of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve and a proud member of Ngāti Konohi from Whāngārā. Back to you Elizabeth.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Jacqueline. And I think I was muted there. The joys of zoom seminars! So thank you very much Jacqueline and if I could please now ask Ludovic Burns Tuki, you from Rapa Nui Easter Island to speak to us. Kia ora Ludovic. Ludovic are you in there? Or out there? Rapa Nui? Ah, kia ora, kia orana.

[LUDOVIC]

[INTRODUCTION IN RAPANUI]

I am the executive director of the organisation Te Mau o Te Vaikava and as I have to present me. First, I have to present my ancestor, where I'm coming from. And so the main achievement here on Easter Island was the creation of the biggest marine protected area in South America. That was a large social process. But now we are very happy because it's where it allows only the ancestral fishing, the artisanal fishing, the sport fishing. And with a Council now who have the management with people of Rapa Nui. We can regulate all the industrial activity in all the marine protected area, that have 479 kilometres square near Easter Island and Motu Motiro.

[CLOSING IN RAPANUI]

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Ludo and now we turn to Associate Professor Kura Paul-Burke. Kia ora Kura.

[KURA] Tēnā koutou. Kia ora Elizabeth. Tēnā koutou katoa He mihi mahana tēnei ki a koutou rau rangatira mā kua tae mai nei Tēnā koutou He uri ahau nō Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whakahemo me Ngāti Mākino Kia ora Hi everyone, greetings. My name is Kura and I am an indigenous Māori woman from Aotearoa, New Zealand. My iwi or tribal entities are Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whakahemo and Ngāti Mākino, are all coastal people. All of my tribes have grown up, our ancestors right through to today, have grown up along the coast. And I am a Marine Researcher for the University of Waikato, as well as Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge.

Equally as important, I am also a kaitiaki. A kaitiaki is a guardian of our tribal reefs, islands, estuaries and harbours. As a kaitiaki and also a Māori Marine Ecologist because all my people come from the coast, all of our work all of our research and all of the work we do in the ocean includes Mātauranga Māori, alongside Western Science. Mātauranga Māori or marine knowledge systems includes the principles or practices and understandings of our marine species and spaces to assist us to make decisions and management capabilities for our marine spaces, for our oceans. When we think about indigenous knowledge such as here in Aotearoa, like Mātauranga Māori, some people see them as polar opposites. Like Mātauranga Māori, indigenous knowledge...My hand looks funny aye. It sits over here all by itself and my other hand my Western science hand, which looks really huge like there that, that they sit separate.

But there are times where Mātauranga Māori and Western Science can come together and these times when they can sit alongside each other. And you know what? It's okay, because they're different knowledge systems that are compatible at times and other times they need to sit in their own lane. But both approaches both Mātauranga Māori and Western Science or just Western Marine Science aim to better understand the world in which we live. Both approaches and perspectives, they're both well-established, they include teaching and learning techniques which are systemic and seek to solve and explain phenomena around our oceans. And both approaches highlight different ways to arrive at legitimate knowledge.

So for the work that I do as a kaitiaki and a Māori Marine Ecologist, we deem it imperative, it's so important that we work with our iwi or tribal members to position, prioritize and enable marine research and activities to come from the home people. The people who live on the coast, who are working in the water, who spend their times, who know and understand their marine spaces. Did you know that in 2014 the World Wildlife Foundation released a report that identified that areas in the world where indigenous language had been retained or spoken were also areas with the highest biodiversity. Cultural diversity is related to biodiversity. And both are important for sustaining and improving our World Ecological Systems. Ko au te moana, ko te moana ko au. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Kura. And now, I think we haven't got Verna from Alaska today. We have lost him, which is such a pity. But it means that now we're going to turn to Sheridan Waitai. Kia ora Sheridan.

[SHERIDAN]

[LAUGHING] I just un-muted myself. Kia ora koutou and thanks for the privilege of being able to be here today. So, my name is Sheridan Waitai. I hailed from the very far, far north of New Zealand. So, you can't go any further. Basically, where I live is 11 kilometres below Te Rerenga Wairua. So that is where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea join. So, I'm surrounded by ocean, surrounded by Islands and from one of the world's most pristine water places and also a biodiversity hotspot. So, in my rohe of Ngāti Kuri we have the most concentrated species and most endemic species in a particular area. So very different to other places of Aotearoa and in the world. So yeah, I currently work or currently on the trust board. But I work for my iwi and I facilitate a range of relationships. And one of the big aspirations we obviously have is around creating greater management and protection around real significant parts of our ocean spaces within our rohe. And we see that is a part of our contribution that we can make as kaitaki to the rest of the world. So yeah, that's me.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Sheridan and now we are going to hear from Te Atarangi Sayers. Kia ora Te Atarangi.

[TE ATARANGI] Kia ora koutou, kia ora. Ko Maungaroa te maunga Ko Wairere te awa Ko Tamatea ki te Huatahi te marae Ko Ngāti Takahanga te hapū o Mōtītī Ko Te Atarangi ahau Ko te kaimahi o Motiti Rohe Moana Trust Kia ora koutou, kia ora koutou katoa. My name is Te Atarangi and I have been the technical advisor for the Motiti Rohe Moana trust, which is a kaitiaki trust that was established in order to help address some of the chronic degradation that the Motu was facing. And so, we had established a rather colourful litigation history in developing processes around the Resource Management Act to interface more clearly with providing its functions, duties and responsibilities to our rohe. And one of those large degradations that we’re facing, as subsistent coastal people, or Island people is that we have been seeing the chronic loss of the character, or the natural character of our marine area. That enabled an opportunity to be able to work through the various processes in the coastal marine space and has subsequently allowed us to make declarations within the Environment Court, in order to establish the authorities and jurisdictions around the controlling of activities that are destroying our coastal marine area.

This also enables the Regional Policy Regional Coastal Environment Plans to be able to be used as a marine spatial planning process to inform the values based approach to marine protection, preservation and marine promotion of the natural resources. So, those values are based around the cultural landscapes, the natural characters, the biodiversity, the habitats and also the interconnection of our intrinsic relationship with them all in a holistic way. So, looking forward to the future in terms of the opportunities that this precedence provides, is it provides the chance to integrate an adaptive management model, using a life force indicator or the mauri appreciation and the Mātauranga values that are associated with it. And where this lends to is a future where we have a resilient ocean, that's supporting a resilient community. And, what we have, is we've confirmed that the scheme can provide all this. This is the resource management scheme and the interfaces that it has with various other Acts including the Fisheries Act can provide a means and a mechanism to be able to engage protective capacities that will enable scale and transfer ability to rohe by rohe, region by region or approach. And therefore, informing better decision-making into the future. Kia ora no tatou, kia ora no tatou katoa.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Te Atarangi. Thank you all so much for introducing yourselves. I am strongly suspecting that we haven't got Verner Wilson III. So unless somebody comes in that little door and tells me otherwise, we shall continue now with the actual panel discussion, which means it's question time. So, if I could please ask all of our speakers to turn on their videos and their audio that would be wonderful, thank you. Jacqueline...lovely. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start by asking everybody a question. And also, as discussed earlier with the panelists if one person is talking and somebody else says something they very much want to say, we're going to be going with this handy hand. Quite old-school, will make us feel like we're at school. But it works quite well when we're all in separate, not just rooms, but sometimes separate countries. Kia ora Ludovic there. So, I'm going to start with a question for Jacqueline Blake. And also too, do realize people who are watching this, the Q&A facility at the bottom of your screen. So if you click on the Q&A icon, you too can ask questions that you want to ask. So, starting with Jacqueline. Last year the marine reserved at Te Tapuwae o Rongokako celebrated its 20th anniversary. What benefits have you seen over the past 20 years? And, what do you hope to see in the next 20?

[JACQUELINE] Kia ora. Well you should see a beautiful scape behind me. We've got the our village over here in the islands and over this side we have the marine reserve, itself. And over here in our village and our island is the Mātaitai that I spoke about. And on this side is the Marine Reserve. As foreseen by our elders, the seafood and marine life have regenerated and the Marine Reserve and acted as a kohanga or nursery, in the 20 years since the opening of the Marine Reserve.

This is supported not only by scientific evidence, in the research that has been based in the marine reserve and outside the marine reserve. But also, in anecdotal evidence. It's become an educational resource for our children and that's been shown through our local school. Whāngārā primary school and other schools in Gisborne. They have been regularly visiting in the summertime as part of an Experiencing Marine Reserves program. Being able to observe kina, crayfish different types of fish and marine life, snorkeling and diving and a no-take marine protected area.

The Mātaitai beside the Marine Reserve has allowed for this overspill to enter into it and allow for our people to provide seafood and hosts guests, as we do in our traditional way, providing seafood. I believe that the Marine Reserve has produced the results that our elders desired. In terms of the next 20 years, our first generational review is in 2024. I'm confident that this generation will not only see the benefits. But, follow the guidance of our elders to continue the marine reserve. Although, it has been a sacrifice for Ngāti Konohi not to exercise the traditional fishing practices in the marine reserve, the benefits of it have been endless. This is a decision that Ngāti Konohi have made as kaitiaki for our moana, to ensure the sustainability of our resources for the benefit of future generations. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Jacqueline. And now, a question for Kura Paul-Burke. Can you explain more about how you have used Mātauranga Māori to restore Ōhiwa Harbour? And what value this is provided for the people and for your conservation efforts?

[KURA] Kia ora Elizabeth, yes, I can. Owhia Harbour is a very small harbour in the eastern Bay of Plenty, of the North Island. And there are four iwi or tribal entities, and three councils or government agencies, I suspect you might say. And all have a vested interest in this harbour. For many years the local iwi, or tribal entities have had serious concerns about the depletion of shellfish populations in the harbour. And most notably, Green Lipped Mussels, or Kuku, Kutai. So, what we did is using Mātauranga Māori principles or whanaungatanga, relationship building and kotahitanga, coming together as a collector, we have worked for the last twelve years together. No one is left behind.

All four of the iwi entities or tribal entities and the councils have come together. We make joint co-management decisions for the harbour, for the harbour. When you have so many players in one place, they have their own agendas because that's human. And so, what we have done is we've put the harbour at the heart of everything we do. In terms of restoration for our decline in mussel populations, they went from 112 million mussels in 2007 to less than in 58 thousand last year. So, we have lost a lot of our shellfish on the bottom. So, what we have done using Mātauranga Māori, we have created natural resource, mussel grow lines, they're called spat lines.

And in terms of restoration we are growing mussels from the harbour, in the harbour, for the harbour using natural resource plant materials like Harakeke, or Flax, Tī Kōuka or Cabbage tree fronds. Because our Mātauranga perspective is that mussels will attach to these lines and grow. If they're natural... If the lines have made out of natural resources, over time those lines will naturally dissipate and break down and they will fall to the bottom of the harbour. The mussels, mussels grow in a clump. They don't grow as individuals, they grow together as a whanau. So, when they fall to the bottom, they fall together as a whanau. And then, but equally as important, the natural resource lines will naturally biodegrade out. That means if we were to use traditional spat lines, aquaculture lines, they are heavily plastic based. So, natural resource lines prevent plastic pollution. They encourage positive, proactive, collaborative solutions for our harbour, less plastic in our ocean, less plastic in our kaimoana, or us shellfish, less plastic in ourselves. So Mātauranga Māori, using Māori traditional knowledge of Māori traditional resources to confront contemporary challenges of a degrading Harbor and restoring our mussels. It's fantastic! Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Kura, that's fascinating as well! I loved it! Sheridan you following the footsteps of your late grandmother, Saana Murray and you're currently leading the Waitangi tribunal claim for Wai 262. How have the actions of your ancestors influenced you in your life work?

[SHERIDAN] Probably, more around that intergenerational legacy. So, identity has been a real strong theme for us, with our grandmother in the Wai 262 and the realignment of ourselves going forward, using the Wai 262. We do a lot of mahi, building the next generation. And through building the next generation, it's about every single species or taonga has a voice. So it's about, how do we bring our children, our rangitahi, our kaumātua kuia to re-engage in that whanaungatanga with the environment.

Both on the land in on sea So, we run a lot of biological audits, because this is all about identity. So, our language, our reo comes from our natural environment. A bit like what Kura said not long ago. So really reinforcing that everything big, small has purpose. So, if it has a whakapapa it has a purpose. So, there's a whole lot of interconnections. And although, we might have some unique things about our rohe, it doesn't mean that we're not connected to wider rohe. So, when I talk about identity, again we have whakapapa with Tauranga Moana through Rangitāhua.

We have whakapapa to Kaipara. So there's all that, we don't just connect through bloodlines as humans, we actually connect through those taonga species, which essentially, we belong to. But I think the biggest thing, in terms of our Nan and where to for us as Ngāti Kuri is we've always known that our first breath comes from the ocean and our second breath from the land. And that both the land and sea is contiguous. You can't do marine protection without looking at the land. And you can't put rahui and protection on land without looking at the water. And so, I think there in terms of identity, that in terms of connection has probably been Nan's biggest legacy. And it's one that, you know, it's in our DNA as Ngāti Kuri. We just keep chipping away at it, really. Hope that answers it.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora, also what I really got was that no thing and nobody operates in isolation. In whether its, you know, nature or human beings. Kia ora for that. And now to Ludovic Burns Tuki in Rapa Nui. The Rapa Nui marine protected area is closed to industrial fishing and mining, but allows traditional fishing. Can you explain a little bit about how your community was involved in its designation and any obstacles you needed to overcome to achieve such a strong degree of community support? Ludovic.

[LUDOVIC] Yes, kia orana kōrua. Well it was a large social process that we made. And what is the principle thing is the Constitution. In 2010, Chile signed a Convention, that's called Convention 169, that recognised the indigenous people. And then each project, each big thing that you want to make in a place or in a territory where there is indigenous people, you have to make what we call the consultation. It is like a referendum. So, for us it was a large process, since 2014. And in the moment when we arrived at the consultation, that has four steps.

The first step is the time of planification. Where all the community is going to make a meeting, to decide how many times they are going to make the consultation. After that you have the second time. Which is the moment where you are going to give the information to each group, to each organisation, to each family. And this process is during two to three months. And after that you have the third step. Where they called a local meeting. Where there is no governments, only the Rapa Nui people. And then they decide to elect five people to negotiate it with our Commission of Development of Easter Island. And they have the negotiation with the states. And then we are going to the reference. But how we make it with the industrial activity is like this. You know, you cannot prevent economic activity. Industrial fishing and industrial mining is a kind of economic development. So, it's against the Constitution.

The Constitution protects the people who want to make personal development or enterprise. So when we were in the negotiation, we say okay we are not going to prevent all the industry activity. But what we want is that all the things that you want to take in our marine protected area, if they are not in our tradition and our knowledge and coming from our ancestors you cannot do it. So, I'm not prohibiting industrial activity. I tell you, if you want to make it, you have to respect that they are coming from our traditions. So, for us, the culture and legacy, an inherency that we have from our ancestor, where we have only the ancestral fishing, was a way to prohibit it all the industrial activity. So, it was a very, very good negotiation with the states. And now there is a decrease and it's recognized from all the country of Chile. It was like this.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora, and now a question for Te Atarangi. We have all these questions coming in now and it's getting quite, quite vibrant out there. Te Atarangi,

[BACKGROUND NOISE] What have been some of the challenges to achieving the Motiti Rohemoana trusts objectives for the Bay of Plenty? And, what action have you taken to overcome them?

[TE ATARANGI] Kia ora Elizabeth. So really, I suppose one of the fundamental challenges is just the realisation of the systemic disconnect, that the authorities within Aotearoa, are actually failing to provide for the preservation of our marine space. We weren't really that appreciative, a decade ago, when we started this journey, just how challenging the crown, regional authorities and regional councils would be in terms of their lack of appreciation of their duties and responsibilities in the coastal marine area. Subsequently, we overcame that by working across the community spectrum, by working with a kaupapa based focus and networking, through inspiring our story. That underpinned a belief that, what we we’re doing was providing a pathway for others to be able to follow it.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. So, one of the questions that's come from the top here is someone who's tuning in from Coast Salish lands, in the waters in western Washington USA. And the question is, is one of the challenges we face here within the Salish Sea region is that it's not only culturally an important place for many tribal communities, but also, a major economic thoroughfare for commerce cruisers and lots of vessel traffic. Do any of you have any advice on how to bring the collaborative indigenous solutions to the table? You all have shared so many incredible examples. I'd love to hear how you started pushing the boulder up the hill and keep the momentum. I love that question. Who feels that that is their area of expertise? Te Atarangi

[TE ATARANGI] I'll endeavor to. I don't know the specifics of this area. Though, I'd encourage a value based conversation. That fundamentally, across this landscape, or the marine scape, in this context. That there are varied associations and there are varied values that may provide for the informed decision-making that would enable marine protection and marine preservation. It's really quite challenging when you're working across the community spectrum because you quickly find out just how disconnected the community is, based around the interests that they may be trying to preserve, in terms of their economic stability, or various other... I suppose attributes, that they're trying to hold on to. But fundamentally, if we lose the marines, or a relationship with a living ocean and we lose the the values and qualities that are there associated with it, we will find ourselves in a precarious position, in terms have been able to hold on to our culture, and our relationship as a community with our Moana.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. Oh Kura!

[KURA] Kia ora, just to add onto that? For us it was a little bit different. Here it wasn't that the people were disconnected. They were completely connected to their harbour. And so, what happened there, like bringing the people together, was that everything was co-developed. There was no... Including the four iwi entities, as well as the three government agencies, it was all co-developed. But, while it was co-developed, it was led by the iwi or the tribal entities. So, all the decisions, all the management, restoration and monitoring work that we do as a collective, is led by the indigenous people or the iwi entities, Māori entities. And its co-developed. But equally as important, it's also co-implemented. So, you just don't have one body saying. "This is how we're going to do the science. This is how we're going to do that." And what that also, is co-innovated. So that we also have, its intergenerational. So, we have the elders, my age and the children also coming along, working together. So, there's connectivity there. You're not pushing the barrel up hill, you're all doing it together.

[ELISABETH] Thankyou Kura. and Jacqueline you had your... Yes Sheridan, I see you too. Jacqueline.

[JACQUELINE] Kia ora. I think one of the things that I like to address in your question is, "do any of you have any advice on how to bring the collaborative indigenous solutions to the table? In New Zealand, I suppose we lucky in that the governments over the years have supported the establishment of marine reserves. We're also lucky here in Gisborne, that we've had a really supportive Department of Conservation staff. So, the approach for the establishment of the marine reserve committee was actually from the New Zealand government, at the time, through the Department of Conservation. But in saying that, they did come to the table and our people did talk to them. And they put in place the examples, or the two in particular, which is that Ngāti Konohi would have the majority say, in terms of decision-making and the 25-year generational review. Other things that we put on the table was solutions on how we can ensure that we're in charge of decision making for the marine reserve. So, having the support of government at the time is probably a good way to start.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Jacqueline and Sheridan you have something to add.

[SHERIDAN] It was just around the 'how do you get people to collaborate?" So, I know from our experience, we have really good collaboration and mostly offshore and NGO's. When it comes to the legal entities, like with government, we haven't had nice collaboration. So there's been assumptions that you can have collaborative relationships with government. But in reality, it is sometimes better to look at where do you get pressure from the outside, to put pressure on inside? If that makes sense. And a lot of what we've done is stuck true, to act like you own it. So, we are owners and we did that recently with Te Rerenga Wairua.

So, it was a really good reminder to not just to New Zealand, but to the rest of the world, that there we actually allow people to use our space and we're happy to share it. But it's a privilege, not a right. Yeah, so, we've had to be really disruptive and at times quite grumpy to get some results. In the ideal world you want to have good relationships. But you've got to share both love and you got to share both pain. And if you're only sharing love, it's not a truthful relationship. Yeah so, that's what I've experienced through establishing the stuff we have for Ngāti Kuri and just like having your own visible presence. So, it's really important for our people, is that they can see themselves within it. So, we've done things like uruwhenua, traditional ... I suppose, kōhatu, rocks and brought forward a visual representation of ourselves both on the water and on the land, so that people can see that we're here, we've always been here and we still are here. But, you know, essentially you need to start acting like an owner, whether or not they’re commercial, government or whatever. If it's spiritually, culturally yours own it. Yeah... blow it up

[ELISABETH] I hope that answers our question for a friend from Western Washington. And you know if all else fails, I like that, get grumpy for the environment. You know, it's not all about polite and you know... Sometimes one has to speak up in a loud voice. And we have another question here. The climate crisis is the defining issue of our generation. Acidification of the oceans is causing dead zones globally. What would you like to see change? There's a huge question. Who feels that's their? Ludovic, over to you.

[LUDOVIC] Kia orana well for us, I think that to work against the climate change, I think we are working a lot with the education. Sometimes a lot of people, all around the world, they make think because they don't know. We all are like an Island. We live on the Island. We know the ocean. When we are going down the ocean we saw the fish, we saw all the beauty of the moana. But, there is something that we receive is it not okay.

[SOUND DISTORTED]

[ELISABETH] There was just a little bit of breaking up there. But you've come back and into strong voice again. Continue please.

[LUDOVIC] Ok, so, I was saying that against the climate change we need more education. And, why education? Because a lot of people in the world don't know what's happening in the ocean. You can not protect something that you don't know. We have a big problem. That is plastic pollution, that is coming all around the island of Rapa Nui and for this we make a lot of cleanup. But, the objective of the cleanup is not to clean the beach or the rocks, it is is to say to the people look at all the trash from the ocean, that is coming from your country. So the challenge is that what we need to change is the attitude of the people. You have to know that each time that you drink a bottle with water, each time this bottled plastic is coming to the ocean. So change! What we believe is that today we have to go very, very far for the education, so education with the children. But, all around the world to say you have the solution. The solution is in the person, not only the doing you have the solution. So for us the education is the key.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. One thing I'm curious about with the vast, and I know that Rapa Nui is, you know, drawing in such a lot of waste in the ocean and your recycling facilities might be limited. What do you do with the megatons of material that you collect?

[LUDOVIC] Well this is a new challenge that now we have. So, we think that all the ocean plastic is a only mistake of design. So today we have to grow up the capacity of resilience and then we need to to reduce these plastics. So this is a new challenge that we have here in Rapa nui. For the next five years because we think that with this trash, we have solution. And this is the importance of the scientists, to say to the normal people, what we can do.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. Oh, Te Atarangi.

[TE ATARANGI] Yeah, Kia ora. I just want to address this. Climate is probably one of our greatest threats, as a species. And that we aren't appreciating, that it's shifting the biological assemblages, right as we speak today. The weather extremes that are associated with climate, that we will be experiencing. And as indigenous people, that are tied to the subsistent relationship with the ocean, we will be disproportionately affected by the lack of action if we do not start to resolve the question which is, "how do we start to sequester vast amounts of carbon and utilize the natural restorative ecosystem that the ocean provides for us? Now that is something that we all have a challenge and how we actually rise to addressing this issue of climate. Kia ora.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. Kura?

[KURA] Yeah and just to add on to that when we're talking about ocean acidification in our ocean, we actually need to look at the activities that we do not need. Human activities on land flow into our oceans. We impact our seas, our species our reefs, our islands. All that activity, all our negative activity flowing into the ocean builds up over time. So, we have cumulative effects and stressors. It's us! We've got to be better. That's basically it.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Kura, and I think too, a lot of people look at the ocean and they see the surface, and they see the pretty blue, and the…You know, clouds scurrying across the sky. And there's a false sense of, 'oh everything's fine'. But then delving deeper, and no it's not. A question here for Te Atarangi. How's the Bay of Plenty Regional Council responded to the Court of Appeal decision? And, how well are they recognizing the kaitiaki of the rohe?

[TE ATARANGI] Kia ora, so happy oceans day and the court issued the final, final, final decision today, where he confirmed the wording that will be in the Regional Environment plan. And that has now confirmed that the three or the three rohe tapu that are within our rohe moana will now be preserved ,with the prohibition of the destruction of flora and fauna for the next ten years. While we address the wider concern, which is which is how do we restore our taonga moana a relationship as a community around Aotearoa.

The councils have, you know, by taking such an antagonistic approach to this and really exercising every vexatious opportunity in order to be able to, I suppose, mitigate their exposure to the responsibilities they have, has now been confirmed by the Court of Appeal that they have failed. They have failed for the last 16 years in order to provide for these protections for us as indigenous people, for us as a community, and for our environment. And this is now an opportunity for communities to work together around Aotearoa, in order to be able to preserve the natural characters that they have within their regional context. Kia ora tautou.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Te Atarangi. I've got two questions here for Jacqueline, and one of them is about whitebait and one of them is "do you think the generational review will be extended after 25 years?" And someone else wants to know "are anymore whitebait coming up the someone else wants to know are any more whitebait coming up the river since the river, since the reserve was established.

[JACQUELINE] Well the answer to the whitebait question as I don't know. I'm not a whitebaiter myself and even if I was, it's protected, well at least the river mouth is. And, there hasn't been any research, particularly in the area of whitebaiting. Nobody's taken that up. But if there's any researchers out there that are online at the moment and if you've got a passion for whitebait please come to our area and have a look.

In terms of the generational review, that was a matter that our leaders of the time of Ngāti Konohi had as a must have, in terms of our agreement to the marine reserve. So that will continue every 25 years, Ngāti Konohi will continue to meet, and see, and gauge things. Whether or not, the marine reserve is the best thing for our people. And, I think it's a really important thing for our people, to be able to not bind future generations. But in saying that, like I said, when we hear our review in a short four years from now, I'm confident that we're going to support the continuation of the marine reserve.

[ELIZABETH] Kia ora, and we have a question. Why are we not acting like we own it, to the whole EEZ here in Aotearoa? That's a complicated question, in our Exclusive Economic Zone. Nope, no one naturally. Oh Te Atarangi.

[TE ATARANGI] Yeah, just not to let a moment go by. The...I.... Look, the Economic Zone is obviously to the 200 nautical miles. It was actually established due to the first layer of marine spatial planning that was applied because of the conflicts between our Alaskan whanaunga and in the Russians and the Japanese. And now what we've got is that, we now have an opportunity to start to inform those significant values. And we have seen in recent years, here in Aotearoa, all the implementation of type 2 marine protection areas. Particularly, in relation to benthic sea mounts and trying to eliminate some of the inappropriate activities that have obviously destroyed...

For example, the orange roughy, which is a popular species. In terms of the Exclusive Economic Zone, it's a vast area. Though, I think there is far more potential for the space in between in te moana nui a kiwa, where the high seas... Or addressing the high seas treaty and promoting the advocacy for the protections of our high seas as an intrinsic relationship, with us as a community needs to be enabled, through those conversations. Across from our whanaungas there, and Polynesia, all the way across the Ring of Fire, that surrounds te moana a nui. And, I think if we start to actually appreciate that there are those intrinsic values and identities, we will start to be able to find ways of being able to recognise the relationships, that we as people have with the ecosystem services, that are provided by the environment and our oceans.

[ELISABETH] I mean do you see that there's a way to put marine ecosystem health at the heart of marine management for the EEZ in Aotearoa? Someone's asked.

[TE ATARANGI] Yeah, look it's got to be that the mauri of the moana needs to be at the heart of our conversations, It should be very much part of the value basis that we're trying to preserve going forward. We can't think of things as being departmentalised, the way in which it has historically been managed. And we need to start to transition towards a more integrated management approach.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. And here we have a question about the difference between City and more Rural areas. Do you think there is a difference an attitude of councils between cities? E.g. Auckland is a growing city, with a focus on more development and expansion. So this person assumes it would be more difficult, opposed to a place like Tarawhiti, Gisborne. Do you think that that's an issue? Oh Sheridan.

[SHERIDAN] I think fundamentally they were born out of the same legislation. So, it doesn't matter where you live. You're still going to have the same or similar challenges, because those laws created and local government were not set for Māori. They weren't set at all for our worldview, they weren't set to respond. So essentially, we've continued to be asked to fit into someone else's box. So when any of us go, we put the mauri of the ocean first, well I've got to then talk DOC, then I've got to talk to NRC, then I've got to talk to MPI being on I've got to talk.... And the list goes on and on and on, around who's got responsibilities, who has jurisdiction when it crosses over, when it doesn't. I mean, the bottom line is that we don't have an oceans policy. so we have, the government...Well I think I've gone, I can't see.

[ELIZABETH] Just ignore that

[SHERIDAN] Yes, something just flashed up on the screen. So, we don't actually have an oceans policy, for this government to guide it at all. So all we have is fragmentation, content fragmentation. So if ever there was a time for as iwi, as whanau, as hapū it, would be. what does there collaboration look like, to lead and design what it could look like. Cause we've got a list about this legislation at a local level. It's just painful. Yeah, doesn't really answer your question, but that was my rant.

[ELISABETH] No but made some very good points and that's actually why you're here. It's to get some of your points across. Here's a question that's quite broad and is to all of you. We've heard amazing stories about how you're able to work within your communities using traditional knowledge and practice. What do you think others can learn from this? And how can we build upon your knowledge and experience to rapidly step up our conservation efforts? And I think the important word there is rapidly. Who is? Oh Kura.

[KURA] Can you sorry, I forgot. Can you read it again, sorry.

[ELISABETH] Totally! What do you think others can learn from the wonderful things that you've been doing? And how we build upon your knowledge and experience to rapidly step up our conservation efforts?

[KURA] I think to rapidly step up any conservation efforts, sometimes it may mean that other people have to step aside. And if we're... I'm talking from a Mātauranga Māori space. And so, that means I'm saying let Māori lead, let us do it. We're pretty good. We know our space. We have intergenerational knowledge that is passed down through consecutive generations, which is born from people who have been... Who have learned in the same place for generations, cumulating that knowledge down and passing it through the line. We are here today as a ... Globally we are all part of a global pandemic. There are global protests around the important black lives matters. Let step a... maybe, what needs to happen is it some people need to step aside just for a second... Actually not step aside, but allow, move, create space for indigenous voices, knowledge, experience and observations to come. Living and working, trying to work... Let me start again. trying to better understand our oceans and manage them into the future needs more than just one perspective. We need to be able to come together to collaborate as humans and not as separate entities. I don't know how clear, I was but I'll stop now. Kia Ora

[ELISABETH] That was it was very clear. Presumably some of you have actually tried to do that. What feel like the obstacles to taking their power? Te Atarangi

[TE ATARANGI] I might just be blunt, seeing as Kura kindly shared the recent just discomfort that's happening around the around the planet. And that is really, institutional racism still exists. And we experience it every day as Māori. And you know, it was... I just wanted to really make that point because this morning I listened to the breakfast show and and someone wrote in and shared their experience of coming through high school in Aotearoa and the sense of normalisation of bullying that that occurs.

And this is what has happened to Tanhata wheuna around the rohe. It is that we have been marginalised through this process. And we tend not to be able to provide those insights because they tend to be put in such a place that is out of sight, out of mind, like we don't have to deal with this. But the reality is Papatūānuku, Rangi they are coming and they're coming to reconcile the degradation and the behavior of tangata, tauiwi, that has come to this rohe. And we need to start to embrace that we need to change in order to be able to facilitate a productive future for all communities, that share this planet with us.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora, can I ask each of you to think about... to paint a picture of what you'd like to see the change to be? You know, be as specific or as general as you want. What's on your wish list? Ludovic?

[LUDOVIC] Well surely that we were part of work that gives Island voices. And there is one message that I think that it's very, very beautiful. They say one ocean, one people, a future for all. That's the vision that we have to share with the world, entire world. Something that we have in the legacy of our Polynesian triangle. But something that we need to share with the rest of the world. Share the solution to the people. And for protecting the ocean, we need to arrive to the people and say to the people, "that we need to protect.” This is something that we are linked with Sheridan, with a lot of small people from around the Pacific But this vision is something that now we need to say to all the world. One ocean, one people, a future for all.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Ludovic. Somebody has a very I think pertinent question to where we're at. With education being so important, how can we get all our tamariki and rangatahi access to indigenous knowledge and experience in a way that does not place and you undue burden on indigenous communities? Sheridan. I'll come to all of you

[SHERIDAN] So that's my passion space. So I don't have time to learn and transition. I know a lot of stuff. But I don't know everything. So one of the things I've done has just created a space where rangatahi can come and go. We are clear about the principles. So all it is, is they need to spend time on their land. Whether it be hunting, fishing, killing walking, tripping. Those aren't things that are a burden. You just need to let them go and set them free. So when I say that, I haven't had time to transition is I have a small team of rangatahi that have leads significant Island trips and they've led science teams and they're in their mid-twenties. Because all you need to do is trust them. They know who they are. They know how special their place is. They don't need to know everything because they're young. But the more responsibility you give them the more and more they step up. But there's probably four key conditions if you want to get hybrid vigor and you want to get sharp real quickly with your young people. The ingredients is fast, fail. You've got to create spaces for them to experiment and failsafe and learn as they go.

You've got to have high levels of empathy. So, they've got to come to a space where, you know, you have high levels of empathy. You create an environment with them and they own those principles of their environment. And the third would be emergent. So as their testing and training, how do you quickly dock on those emergent issues that they've learnt and powered them up to do something else? To do something else with their new formed knowledge. And I think, what it's cost me and our people as time. It actually hasn't cost a lot of money. But, the reason why it doesn't cost a lot of money is everybody brings something. So, it's living you'll principles. But you've got to throw the kids in at it. You've got to throw them in it and watch them stand up, and if they start to sink you just jump in and pull them out. But, unless they actually see, touch and smell, they won't own it. They won't fully appreciate what's been given to them and in what's been handed down by their ancestors. So, we do that a lot. And we've just done four island trips, not long ago. By boat and by helicopter. The kids do all the biosecurity work and they need all those missions. Ans it's all mahi aroaha. It's all based on living who they are, yeah.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Sheridan. Kura?

[KURA] I just want to add on to what Sheridan is saying. We also need to put responsibility on our education system. We don't know...I'm not even talking about the history of Aotearoa. But just Mātauranga Māori should be normalised. It is normal. It's real. It's relevant and it's appropriate. So our education system needs to take responsibility for that as well. We have many people living here. But our treaty partners are Māori and non-Māori. So that's one thing. The next one is access. We currently run, similar to Sheridan, we have a group of taiohi, or youth, aged between 14 and 18 and they're called Taiohi Moana or Ocean youth. I don't know how to translate that any better and they are all qualified free divers now. And they are now assisting our iwi of Ngātia awa in Whakatane as marine cultural monitors. Doing Species ID in water. Because when we think of the ocean a lot of people think we just look at the surface. But we need to connect with Tangaroa and Hine-Moana, our Guardians. And so, our taiohi are in there doing species ID, collecting data. And we've only just started now mapping Kina barrens using free diving and other tools. They are amazing! All we have to do is give them access. I think that's what Sheridan ...I'm agreeing with you big time. Give them access, give them a lot of love, a long rope and they will just recreate the world and bring so much innovation. Education super important! Kia ora

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. Jacqueline? Two words: come home. I mean at the end of the day come home to our marae, come home to home. As part of our 20-year celebrations last year, my cousin Jay Love took people up to the top of a Pā site near the marine reserve and gave cultural history. You learn by listening to the speeches on our marae, you learn by being a part of manaaki or care for our guests. And part of that caring at times is ifishing in the sea in and looking out there. And there are great opportunities here in Gisborne for our rangitahi to learn. But yeah, come home.

[ELISABETH] Ludovic have you got anything to say about your tamariki in Rapa Nui. How do you keep them...

[LUDOVIC] Well as I said before education is key. So, for four years we have a program calling ***unknown***, where we complete the education in the school, with the practice in the ocean. So, when they finish on Friday, we go to see something. For example, the coral or one fish especially. And then on the Saturday we go to sit on the ocean. And it's very amazing because four years after, that the first generation. Today we have one who have studied oceanography, two who have study biology, one in ---------- and environment. So, we believe that the seeds that you put in the children, coming from Rapa Nui or not that's the same because we are the same community who live in the same Island and it's amazing that after all this year today when we go to the to the classroom, five years Ludo we've done with the trust, the plastic is bad for the turtle, you know.

Something just like this, just to remember that if you want to protect something, you have to know it. So, it's our role to lead that. And there is something else that it's important too. The education is not only when you make the program, the education is your person. First, if you want to educate, you have to be this good person, that make the thing that you say. So, you have to be ethical with what you do. So for example, I love spearfishing. But since I am in the protection. I take only what I need. Before we love to show that you're a good spear fisherman, you have big fish etc. But with time you understand, take only what you need. Not more that you cannot eat.

[ELISABETH] If only everybody lived by that... otherwise. Actually, that is all. Even with our extended dance mixed, with an extra 15 minutes today, we have come to the end of our session. You have given me so much to fill not just my brain but my heart. I am so grateful to all of you for sharing your thoughts and your knowledge and your experience. And thank you to all the people with the questions. Please note that there will be no webinar this coming Wednesday. But next week our schedule will return to normal, and join us next Wednesday June 17th at 3:30 p.m. New Zealand time for our sixth session of Changing Tides, Tai Tōrua. Don't forget to register using the Eventbrite booking system. Next Wednesday's webinar is Designing Marine Protected Areas to Benefit People and Nature, which will see us joined by Dr Alison Green in Australia, who will share her extensive knowledge and experience developing MPA design guidelines. And discuss how community participation and leadership is vital to achieve conservation aspirations. Thank you so much for joining us today, to the people at home, to the people behind the scenes, and our panelists. And if you have any other questions, comments or want to say anything do please email your thoughts and queries to marine@DOC.govt.nz. Ka kite ano te whanau. And to close today on World Oceans Day we asked Kura Paul-Burke for a karakia.

[KURA] Me inoi tātou
Kia ora tātou Maiea te tipua Maiea te tawhito
Maiea te kāhui o ngā ariki
Maiea tāwhiwhi atu ki a Rongo
Ka whakamaua kia tina
Tina!
Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e

[ELISABETH] Kia ora mai tatou
Nau mai, whakatau mai ki tenei korero
Ko Marine Protected Areas te Kaupapa o te wa
Ka nui te mihi ki tenei Kaupapa, ki a koutou hoki.

Hello everyone, welcome to this discussion. Today we will be talking about marine protected areas. And we ask people to be respectful of our kaupapa and to each other.

We'll open with a karakia:

Whakataka te hau ki te uru,
Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.

Kia mākinakina ki uta,
Kia mātaratara ki tai.

E hī ake ana te atākura he tio,
he huka, he hauhunga.

Haumi e! Hui e! Tāiki e!

And to translate that karakia:

Get ready for the westerly
and be prepared for the southerly.

It will be icy cold in land
and icy cold on the shore.

May the dawn rise,
red-tipped on ice, on snow, on frost.

Join, gather, intertwine.

Welcome and thank you so much for joining us for our 6th session of Changing Tides, Tai Tōrua. The web series that takes a deep look at the issues that affect our moana, the ocean. To those of you joining us for the first time it's a pleasure to have you with us. I'm going to turn off the machine, that just started making a noise. And to those of you who are new to us, welcome. It's lovely to see you. Tai Tōrua is brought to you by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation.

Thank you to those organizations for making this series possible. And to the team behind the scenes who work so hard to ensure these sessions run smoothly, even if I can't run an air conditioning machine. I'm your host Elizabeth Easther and as a Journalist, I have been told on occasion by editors in the 21st century that there has been too much conservation in some of my stories. I'm confident that anyone joining a seminar on marine protection will be as astonished to hear that as I was. And I don't usually make a fuss when dealing with my superiors, aligning myself with zooplankton on the workplace food chain. But I replied to one editor relatively forcefully and said something along the lines of "there will be no need for travel journalism there's no planet for people to travel around."

So, one of the many things I'm enjoying about these sessions is no one will ever complain that there is too much conservation. And before I introduce our brilliant speaker Dr Alison Green, we have a few housekeeping matter, which those of you who have joined us before will be very familiar with. But please bear with me. Chat: a chat window will be open for the next 10 minutes. If you're having any technical questions the aforementioned team behind the scenes will help you out with that. QA: there is a QA icon at the bottom of your screen. If you click on that, a box will pop up and you can type in your question. Although questions will be filtered to avoid duplication and any that are off topic will be removed. Bearing in mind we have just one hour today, we may not get to answer every question but you can also email marine@DOC.govt.nz.

Voting: if a question pops up that you'd quite like to ask, instead of asking it again give it a little thumbs up and then that question will slowly rise to the top of the heap. And we will endeavor to answer the votes with the most thumbs up first. Recording, the session like all of the others is being recorded and will be loaded on YouTube. This one will be loaded up tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand Channel tomorrow around noon. And you'll also find all the other sessions if you'd like to see any you missed. People's Choice: as also mentioned last week we are offering an 8th session of this series to be held in July. And being People’s Choice, we need you, the people to tell us what you'd like to hear more of, people or subjects. So again, send your suggestions to their email address marine@DOC.govt.nz.

Finally, to reiterate our kaupapa, our guiding philosophy is simply one of respect. Kia ora, now to the exciting stuff today. We are delighted to have Dr Alison Green joining us from Brisbane. Alison is currently a research scientist at the Red Sea Research Centre, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Alison received her doctorate degree in marine biology from James Cook University in North Queensland. And during her PhD was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and a Lizard Island Doctoral Fellowship that allowed her to study coral reef fish ecology on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Caribbean. Alison's areas of expertise include designing networks of marine managed areas which include marine reserves and fisheries replenishment zones.

Alison has provided scientific advice and leadership for designing MMA's in more than 20 countries worldwide, from the Pacific Islands to Southeast Asia, the West Indian Ocean to Latin America. and the Caribbean. She has also provided training in MMA network designed for field practitioners from more than 70 countries. And she's conducted coral reef surveys and long-term monitoring in Australia, American Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Mozambique, the Caribbean, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. Prior to joining the Red Sea research center, Alison was a senior marine scientist with the Nature Conservancy in Australia and the director of Science and Technology the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia, which is an impressive list of accomplishments.

And more often than not when Allison uses her allotted annual leave instead of lying around relaxing, she's more likely to be found volunteering her time and knowledge to various marine projects, conducting surveys on reefs where there is need for comprehensive monitoring and sometimes in countries where there is unrest and even piracy. And as a result, Alison has found herself in some very sticky situations where guns have even been brandished and that is dedication. Today Alison is going to talk about designing MPAs to benefit people and nature. Particularly, with regard to biophysical and socio-economic and cultural design criteria. and then provide examples of how these can be used to work traditional cultures and local communities to improve MPA design and marine resource management.

Following Allison's talk we will head straight to the QA. And that's quite enough from me. Thank you so much Alison for joining us today. Welcome to Tai Tōrua.

[ALISON] Well, thank you very much for this opportunity to speak with you today, regarding how to design marine protected areas to benefit both people in nature. So first of all, I'll start with why do we want to do this? Well the main reason we want to do this, is that marine protected areas can be powerful tools for conservation and management. They can be really good tools for helping us protect biodiversity and adapt to climate change. But they also can be very powerful tools for marine resource management. Particularly, to maintain or enhance fisheries, manage tourism and to support the livelihoods and culture of the local communities. But they only work if they're well designed and effectively managed.

So, of all the MPA's, there are many different types. One of which are no-take marine reserves and many of the design criteria we have related to these no-take marine reserves because they provide the most ecological benefits. For a start when you close an area fishing and other extractive uses, in marine reserves you get an increase in the diversity, density, biomass, body size, and reproductive potential of many species, particularly fisheries species. And then also, you get benefits outside the reserve, through the export of eggs larvae and adults to both other marine reserves and fished areas. What I'd like to do now is give you a short animation that shows you how this work and why marine reserves are such powerful tools for managing and enhancing fisheries. We're going to use an example of coral trout on the Great Barrier Reef.

Now a few years ago, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority rezoned the Great Barrier Reef, which John will talk about next week. And what they did is they went to an area, where there was a lot of areas open to fishing. They left some of the areas, the blue areas, open to fishing and closed the others in no-take marine reserves. And what happens, when you do that is, you're very quickly get a buildup of fishery species inside the reserves. A lot more bigger individuals and fish don't like to be crowded. So, they move outside, where of course the fishermen can catch them. And fishermen know this about marine reserves. You will often see them fishing the boundaries of the marine reserves because they catch more fish there.

But what we're hearing now, that's even more exciting is that you also get a lot more larvae coming from the marine reserves because there's a lot more fish inside. Now the reason I like to use this example from the Great Barrier Reef is that they've actually quantified this effect and that they found that within a few years they had twice reproductive biomass within the reserves and more importantly even though less than 30% of the reefs in the area were no-take marine reserves, they were providing nearly 60% of all the juveniles to support the fishery, up to 30 kilometres away. So, you can see these are really fisheries replenishment zones, where they build up the stock to support the fishery outside.

So yes, marine protected areas can be powerful tools for conservation and management, particularly, these no-take marine reserves. But they only work if they're well designed and effectively managed. A few years ago, we realized that this wasn't the case and we wanted to give them our advice to practitioners on how to design the marine reserve so they'll work. We did a lot of global reviews to help provide design criteria to better design marine reserves for the multiple objectives, such as fisheries management, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation. And these are just three examples of the reviews that we've done, which have been adapted and refined for many different places around the world.

Now we realize that many people don't read scientific papers, so we've also provided this advice for different audiences in different ways. For example, we have a policy brief for Senior Government Officials. We have a Practitioner Guide, a little booklet that just provides general advice on how to do this and why. And then we have a guide for working with local communities, which has a series of posters and speaking notes, so we can discuss these issues with the coastal communities. I'm going to use a lot of those posters in this talk. So, this isn't just an academic exercise. We actually have used and applied this information in many places worldwide.

All these orange countries, the places where we trade practitioners on how to design marine protected areas and all of these stars are places where I've worked to help apply these criteria that improve design of marine protected areas. When, for example, the green stars are where we've helped multiple countries work together to design marine protected areas, such as a Coral Triangle or the Mesoamerican Reef in the Caribbean. We've supported National Marine gap-analyses of Papua New Guinea, Pohnpei, the Bahamas. We've supported a lot of planning at the provincial and state level in the Pacific and Indonesia. And we've also work those pink dots.

In a lot of places where we supported a local communities improve the design of their marine managed areas. So, what I'm going to do in the talk today, is I'm going to share with you the design criteria that have been developed and applied to pre the design of MPA's in many places around the world. And then I'm going to come back and give you some examples on how we use these to work with local communities to improve the design at the local level. And next week others will talk about MPI design at a larger scale.

Okay, so what are design criteria? Let's start with the definition. These are guidelines that provide specific advice on how to design either individual marine protected areas or networks of marine protected areas to achieve their goals. Now we tend to have two types of these design criteria. We have biophysical criteria which are aimed at achieving the ecological goals of the MPAs and we have social economic and cultural criteria which are about making sure we need to meet the needs and interests of the people. So, what I'm going to do now is go through and give you some examples of each of these.

Now these principles need to be adapted and refined wherever we're working to suit the local situation. So, I'll just give you some examples of each. And what I'd like to encourage you to do is to think about whether these are the sorts of things that might be useful for you to use in New Zealand? And if so, how you would need to adapt them so they suit your situation. Let's start with the biophysical design criteria. So... I will just here... Biophysical design criteria aim to achieve the ecological goals of the MPA's by taking into account biological and physical processes of the area. What I'd like to do now is give you example of what some of these are and what they mean. One of the most important ones is the need to represent replica habitats in the design. Now we all know that different species use different habitats. For example, here you can see different species on the reefs versus the ones on the seagrass or the sandy areas.

So, what this means is that if we want to protect the full range of species, for all the fishery species for biodiversity or fisheries management. We need to protect examples of each of the major habitats in the MPA network and we need to protect more than one example of each, in case one example gets wiped out by some sort of disturbance, like a ship grounding or a major storm. And that way they can help each other recover. One of the key issues in MPA design is how much of each habitat to include. This really depends on your situation. Such as how much fishing pressure there is and how well fisheries are managed. Scientists tend to recommend between 20 to 30 percent of each major habitat in marine reserves, provides of the best benefits. We also want to make sure that we protect critical special and unique areas. And there are two types of these. The first one is that we need to protect areas that are important for maintaining or enhancing fisheries, such as the spawning or nursery areas for the main fisheries areas.

We also want to protect critical special unique areas for protecting biodiversity. And they might be critical areas for rare and threatened species such as migratory corridors for whales, or turtle nesting areas. And also, areas that might be particularly important, for example for, high biodiversity, endemic species which of course only occur in those areas. They might have unique communities or high productivity. One of the most important things we need to think about is the need to incorporate connectivity in the design. Now biological connectivity is how populations are connected through the movement of adults, juveniles, and larvae of the species we're trying to protect. And we take this into account in MPA design in two different ways. First of all, we'll talk about the movement of adults and juveniles. Now these are the life history stages that are usually targeted by the fishery. So, what we recommend is that the marine reserves should be larger than the average movement of the adults and juveniles. So, they stay protected within the reserve, where they can get big and fat and can make lots of babies to support the fishery outside. And, you actually apply that. But one of the things we did was a global review of how far coral reefs and coastal projects fish move and what that means for MPA design. And then, we put this in posters for communities and different locations.

Here's an example from the Coral Triangle and these are the species that the communities are interested in protecting. And what you can see here is that different species move different distances. Giant clams of course, don't move at all. Some species only move a few hundred metres. Some might move on a daily basis one to five kilometres. Some we fish to move up to 10 kilometres a day and then you have others that move tens, hundreds or thousands of kilometres. So, what we like to do is to ask people what species they want to protect, think about how far they move and then make sure the marine reserves are big enough to protect those species. Now let's think about larval dispersal. Now larvae are tiny and they can generally move in and outside the reserves without being caught and they are very important in terms of sustaining populations. So, we use the patterns of lower dispersal in a different way. First way is that if possible, we try and make sure that marine reserves are large enough to be self-sustaining for the focal species.

So, for example, they're big enough and fisheries species, population to sustain itself in that one reserve. But they often tend to have to be quite big to do that, or remote areas like this Atoll. So, another approach is that we want to design networks of marine reserves that are connected by larval dispersal, for two reasons. First, we want to make sure that our marine reserves have good connection by larval dispersal, so they form of mutually replenishing networks and what that means is if one area is damaged larvae can come from somewhere else to help it replenish. But we also recognize that a lot of places are too small to be self-replenishing. For example, these reefs on the right here and so you need to protect enough of the habitat of the focal species, maybe in a number of different places to have healthy sustain populations. Another thing we want to think about is we need to allow time to recovery in the reserves. So that's because some species are more vulnerable to fishing pressure and take longer to recover than others. For example, the species on the left are less vulnerable to fishing pressure, they recover quite quickly when they're protected in marine reserves. Maybe one or a couple of years, because they grow and reproduce quite quickly. That is octopus or some small fish. On the other hand, the fish on the right are much more vulnerable to fishing pressure. And the populations take much longer to recover: 20, 30,40 years in some cases. And that's because they grow and reproduce more slowly. So, what this means for marine reserve design is that we really need the reserves to be in place for the long term, preferably permanently, to allow for all of the fishery species to recover their populations and start producing larvae to support the fishery outside.

That doesn't mean there's a role for short term reserves. But I think we need to remember that they're probably only gonna provide limited benefits for a few species in the short term. So, these should be used in addition to, not instead of long-term or permanent reserves. We also want to make sure that we protect healthy areas and avoid local threats if we can. And that's because of course, when you're setting up as though that you protect an area that's already healthy, the ecosystems and species are in good condition and it's already provided good ecosystem benefits to people in terms of food supplies, tourism and so forth. And that if you protect other areas, where there's a lot of threats and the reefs are in poor condition and they're not providing many ecosystem services then it's a problem. And if the threats in that areas of one you can't manage then it's not going to provide many benefits. On the other hand, if there are areas where there might be good choices to protect because they're special in some way and you can manage those threats they might be good choices for rehabilitation. The last biophysical characteristic I want to mention is the need to adapt to changes in climate and ocean chemistry. We all know that the word's changing and we're already seeing big changes in the marine environment due to changes in climate and ocean chemistry. And need to take that into account Marine Reserve design, there's actually, quite a lot of criteria related to this. But I'm just going to mention too.

One common recommendation is that we should identify and protect climate refugia in marine reserves. And what this means is that, if for some reason we think some habitats are... Some examples of habitats are going to do better than others then we would prioritise protecting those. For example, in this picture here you can see coastal habitats such as mangroves. It might be better to protect mangroves that have some room to move up the slope as the sea levels rise, rather than against a rock wall where there's nowhere to go. In terms of, for example, on coral reefs I'm sure, you've heard a lot of that coral bleaching. There maybe some areas that actually, better than others in bleaching events. And if that's the case then what are we better to protect. We also need to address uncertainty. And that is just recognizing that there is a lot of uncertainty in how things are going to change and we can't be sure. So we want to apply those principles of habitat representation and spread, to spread the chances that hopefully will protect some areas that may be better than others. We also, might want to add a climate change buffer to our level of protection. For example, if you on average will protect 20% of each habitat under normal situations you might want to increase that to 25 or 30 to take into account the effects of climate might have on those habitats. Okay so let's talk about the socio-economic and cultural criteria now. And these are criteria that aim to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs for local communities and sustainable industries. Now these actually vary a lot around the world, because there's a lot of variables in social, economic and cultural situations.

Once again, I'm just going to give you some examples and I'd like you to think about whether these might be appropriate for use in New Zealand or how you would need to adapt or refine them there. The first thing is they need to promote fair governance and decision-making processes. So, when you're designing the MPA care networks. This might include involving stakeholders, through opening balanced and transparent processes and making sure that these stakeholders each haven't the resources and the capacity they need to be able to effectively engage in the process. We might need to... Well of course, we need to recognize respect and incorporate traditional culture, knowledge, values and sustainable management practices in the marine protected areas. Now in some situations that might mean we need to understand and consider the needs of the people and build them in. But in many places that I work such as here in West Papua or Papua New Guinea, or even in Hawaii, the community have marine tenure and indigenous management rights and they're actually the decision-makers. And so, our role is not so much as to do a scientific analysis thinking of them, it's for us to support their marine resource management activities as best we can. We also need to protect areas with cultural and social values. For example, in Hawaii there are many traditionally the important areas. For example, fishponds, and here's an example from Bali where there is no tourism zones, next to the temples, where they might disrupt the religious ceremonies. We also want to protect marine heritage sites. For example, this might be ship or airplane wrecks from World War II. Not, only in terms of their marine heritage value, but also these are often good places where communities can have ecotourism activities. Now of course we want to make sure that our marine reserves are ecologically effective and that's what the biophysical design criteria are all about. But this is also what the communities and the traditional owners tell us they want to make sure that these areas are going to work ecologically. But at the same time, they need to be designed in a way that's socially acceptable. This means that we have to think about how to make sure that we continue to have sustainable use of marine resources and support, the social well-being of the communities. For example, they need food security, sustainable livelihoods, coastal protection.

Now I've talked a lot so far in the talk about no-take marine reserves because they provide the greatest ecological benefits, that lead on to the best benefits for people as well. But we need to remember that there are many sustainable uses, that also need to be accommodated within marine protected areas. So, we often have zoning plans. Basically, we have different signs for different sorts of uses. For example, for fishing, or for mariculture and tourism. When we're designing these zoning plans we need to make sure that we set up the zones. So that, the different uses are compatible or the same zones and uses that are not compatible in different sites. For example, dive tourism divers like to see lots of big fish. So, a better place for them to be are in the no-take marine reserve, set up as fisheries replenishment zones. Rather than the fishing zone where of course the fishermen will be catching fish. Another thing we want to do is make sure we share the costs and the benefits among the communities if we can and consider social equity issues. For example, we want to make sure communities have access to and use of the marine resources that they need, and that they all share in the benefits of the reserves, in terms of food and livelihoods, often related to fisheries and tourism. One of the things we're doing a lot in the last few years, is trying to work out specifically where to place the marine reserves, where they will provide the greatest benefits for their communities. For example, in terms of supporting with fisheries or ecotourism activities. In doing a lot of this, we also want to make sure that we use the best available information. And that is a combination of scientific information and also the traditional and local knowledge. And, we found that the most successful MPAs tend to be where the science and community priorities overlap. Areas where the science tell us that will work ecologically. And the communities, through their traditional knowledge, also believe they will work most effectively and that the communities will support these areas.

The last design criteria I want to talk about is the need to facilitate effective governance and management. This is just making sure that if you go to all the trouble to set this thing up, that it's going to work. One of the most important things is, we need to make sure that the public understand and accept the marine reserves and support them. This will lead to user compliance, and this means that the stakeholders are involved in the right decision making processes in the beginning. And there's good communication processes happening. The second thing we want to do is make sure, that we consider opportunities for co-management. This might be co-management among government and communities, or traditional owners. In many of the places I work, the communities actually do a lot of the management, such as compliance enforcement monitoring or tourism ecotourism activities. And the last thing is we need to recognise that marine protected areas aren't the Silver Bullet. They can't do everything. But they are much more effective if you can integrate them with them broader planning and management regimes. For example, integrating them with integrated coastal zone management to address threats that might come from land. And they need to be integrated within broader fisheries management placings. So that gives you a bit of an outline of where we are in terms of some of the guiding principles for designing we protected areas. What I'd like to do now is to give some examples of how we use this science and best practices for designing marine protected areas to support local communities in better managing their marine resources. And I'm going to give you three examples that worked in different ways. Let me start with an example from Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, up here.

The reason I've chosen Kimbe Bay is not because it's the best examples, just a very simple and clear example of an approach that I think might actually work quite well through New Zealand, where we combine a scientific analysis that points us to certain areas where it would be good to have marine protected areas, and then what happens in those areas is actually determined with the traditional owners. So, let's start with a little bit of information about Kimbe Bay. So, it's a fantastic place what we have here is a large Bay. It's about 200 kilometres across, around the edge you have a coastal shelf, about 200 metres and then it plunges down into the deep ocean depths, thousands of metres deep close to shore. So, you have all these amazing marine ecosystems in close proximity, coral reefs, sea mouths and so forth. Now Kimbe bay is in the Coral Triangle. So, it's some of the highest marine diversity on earth. It's a high-end dive tourist destination and it's got these five active volcanoes around the outside. So, it's really a spectacular place, a high priority for conservation. More importantly over a hundred thousand people live around the coast of Kimbe Bay and these people have traditional marine tenure which means they own and manage their own marine resources and they have a long history of these Tambu or no-take marine reserves, because they know they really work. So, what we wanted to do in Kimbe is do two things. First of all we wanted to help conserve marine biodiversity and natural resources in perpetuity, in the long term and we wanted to help the communities better address their local marine resource management needs. So, what we did is we started with the design criteria I've already described and we went through and we specifically adapted them to suit the biophysical , socio-economic and cultural aspects of Kimbe Bay. We then define what the planning area was and we started with... So, what we did is we started with the coast here, highest astronomic tide and we extended the boundary offshore to include some of those deep and shallow water habitats. So, it's about a hundred kilometres offshore and about 200 kilometres wide. And we extended it a little bit further to the east and west because it made sense to the communities to include more of their villages.

We then went and we got the best available science and information that we could, data layers that we could use to apply the design criteria. For example, I'll give you just a few examples of this. Here's an example of where each of the different types of coral reef communities are in the bay. Each of those colours have different communities of fish and coral. So, this is what we needed to apply the principle of habitat representation and replication. We also have similar data for mangroves and seagrass. So, you also got to gather as much information as we could on pretty, cool, special marine areas. Here's one example, which is turtle nesting areas. We also brought together a lot of information on the socio-economic and cultural side. This was one of the most important data layers we used. This just shows us community interests in conservation and management. And those dark green and mint green areas or where the communities are most keen to set up more locally managed marine areas for conservation and management. So everything being equal, that's where we want to support the communities because we think it will work the best. But we also need to recommend that communities has already had some existing protected areas and we need to take that into account. And there are also some areas we needed to avoid, places like the major towns, industry or shipping where there are other uses or pollution that we need to avoid with the marine areas. So, what we did is we used all the information in best practices to use marine reserve design software such as Marxan and what Marxan is, it's a computer program where you say, we want to we want to design a marine protected area network to achieve these objectives by protecting 20% of each habitat in these critical unique areas, and putting the reserves in places that will be best for people, where we know they support having them and where we will reduce the impacts on the fishing and so forth. And MARXAN goes away and it comes up with a solution and in fact it comes up with many solutions.

We ran the analysis a hundred times and again it gave us a hundred different solutions for how you could design a network. This is just one of them and when you can see here is all those black dots, Marxan says if we have a network that includes all those black dots we will achieve our objectives. But if you look at another one of the 100 solutions you'll see there's another way to do it and in fact there's a hundred different ways to do it. But if you go back and forth between them you'll see that some areas are in every design and some move around. and that tells us that we have a lot of room to move. So, there's no need to go to the communities with an exact design because there's a lot of choices to be made and they should be the ones making choices. So, what we did is we use what we call the Sum result where we took the solutions from 100 and outputs and we said okay which areas are selected the most? And what this tells us, the red areas were in everyone of those 100 designs. So, they're special unique we really need to have them in the design. But these green and yellow ones come up sometimes or not. So, it tells us where there's the red areas, we really need to try and have them. But where these green areas there's a lot of room to move in deciding which areas. So, this of course are the decisions the community should be making.

So, what we did is we drew these boxes around these areas. The analysis tells us that if we have able to support the community setting up locally managed marine areas in each of these areas of interest we would achieve the goals of the MPA network. So that's what we did. These are areas that... You can see some of them are funny shape, that's because they are the marine tenure areas of the communities. So then, the people on the ground took the science to the communities and discussed this with them and worked with the communities in each of these areas of interest, which are on the dotted lines now. And community subsequently went ahead and set up many locally managed marine areas in these areas of interests that the science identified. For example, here in Cape Hoskins, they set up locally managed marine areas with different zones, where the blue is their fishing zones, the green are the no-take zones and the yellow are the conservation zones. So, what we have here is a design that will go a long way to achieving our objectives. Now it's not perfect, nothing ever is. But I wanted to share this example with you because I think this is an approach that works well in a lot of places, and maybe even in New Zealand. But we can use the slides to point us to particular areas. And then when we go to those areas to work with the traditional owners and other stakeholders to make the decisions about exactly what should happen in those places, to build a network for the whole area. Okay, so what do I do now, is just give you two more shorter examples of how you can use this sort of approach to support communities in their marine natural resource management. The next example I want to give you is from Kenya this is Pate Island in Lamu County off the coast of Kenya.

Pate island's about 20 kilometers long and there's about 10 villages there. The communities that live in these villages lead a very subsistence life and rely heavily on the marine resources which are overfished. Now the National Fisheries Department in Kenya used to be responsible for managing fisheries and they realize they just didn't have the capacity to do it. So, what they did is they set up home management with the local fishermen and they asked the fishermen to come up with a plan to better manage their marine resources. And this is what the fishermen came up with. These purple areas are no-take zones and they were only very short term, six months no- take zones. And one area, this blue area where those improved methods. Now this of course was probably not going to have a lot of benefits to their main objectives which is to support fisheries management. And the purple one here, is they where they were hoping to lure tourists to go diving and snorkeling there.

But rather than saying that wasn't going to work. What they did was they asked us to come in and just talk with them about these design criteria, and what the science recommends, and to hear their local knowledge, and understanding, to see if we could come up with a better plan. So, we went there and went through our design criteria, then we sat down with the communities in the villages and forums and talked with them to understand exactly what it is they are trying to achieve, which was primarily fisheries management? What species they wanted to benefit? And then we asked them to tell us what they knew about those species? Where they live? How long do they think they take to recover when you protect them? how far do they they move? And what that should mean for their zoning plan? And we did this with everyone from the villages, right up to... In this picture here, you can see some of these people are the fishermen from the village and these are the national and provincial directors of fisheries in the country.

So what happened then is the fishermen themselves went back and revisited the design. Now here the fishermen have probably a great three formal education. But they know their fish and their resources. And they went back, and they looked at what they had, and they said, "well we knew this other information before. But we hadn't thought about how to use it.' What they did is they came up with a much better zoning plan for managing their resources. What they have now is these green areas are longer term no-take areas. I think they settled on 15 years. The purple areas are seasonal closures. For example, for spawning times. And the other colours are improved fisheries management methods. It's not perfect, if these things never are. But is a lot better than what they were originally planning. So, one point I wanted to make here is that these design guidelines there a lot and you can never do them all because there inevitably going to be trade-offs between what will give you the best ecological outcomes and what people are willing to do. But if you have those guidelines then you know what the tradeoffs are.

For example, you know that if you only have some small areas then you are providing benefits for less species. So, what I want to do now, which is the last example. Which is just an example of how some communities use of fish movement to better improve the design of their marine reserve. Now this was done in Pohnpei, the Federated States of Micronesia. Pohnpei is a beautiful island and it has a lot of coral reef around the outside. Inshore reefs, patch reefs, barrier reefs, reef channels, lots of mangroves and sea grass. The communities there also have marine tenure sites and manage their own resources. But they, then get these signed off by the State Government. And so, what they had me doing is developing a network of protected areas around the island. That's about 30km across here and what you can see the green and the brown is the island. The light blue are all the reefs around the island. And the dark blue is where they already had some protected areas. And they were a bit frustrated for some of the protected areas they had set up weren't working very well. Probably because some of them were either in the wrong place, or were too small, or not in place long enough. So, they were interested in setting up new areas in some of these catch places. Particularly this one up here at Palikir Pass. And they asked our help with doing it.

So once again we worked through all those design criteria. But the ones that resonated with them the most was the need to think about fish movement and what that meant for a design. So what we did was use the results of this big global review that we did on fish movement and implications for marine reserve design. What we did in that paper is we used all the empirical on fish movement from around the world. From coral reef to coastal and pelagic fish And you can see here, as I said before, some species don't move very far. a couple of hundred metre or kilometres. Others move 10s, 100s or even 1000s of kilometres. So, what we did So, what happened in Pohnpei is the communities they thought about this area. They wanted to set up new Marine Reserve and if you look at the bottom here you can see all these colours, are different habitats different sorts of reef habitats, mangroves, seagrasses. The green is the island. And they have proposed a new Marine Reserve to go from land out to pass the outer barrier to include lots of habitats, in a big area, five kilometers across. And the state said, "oh that's a big area! Why don't you just do this channel? And they thought about it. They thought about one of the species they want to protect, where they live, how far they move. They realised that if they only did that blue box, they'd only benefit one of the species. But they wanted to benefit a lot more and if they went back to their original plan to protect a range of habitats, including spawning nursery areas and a bigger area they would protect all the species they wanted to. So that's just a good example of how science and community knowledge supported each other for a better marine protected area design. So that's in my presentation. I'm sorry that you couldn't hear me very well before. But I hope that's giving you a good understanding of all the work, hard work has gone into thinking about how to better design marine protected areas to benefit people in nature. And how the science and best practices can be used together with traditional owners, and local communities to have better outcomes MPAs. Thank you.

[ELISABETH] Wonderful, thank you so much Alison. That was technical difficulties aside, that was fascinating and we have got some wonderful questions coming up. So also, too, so people know I'm not naming the questioners because this is going on YouTube when you haven't given permission, that's why we're not saying who you are. One question, the one that's come to the top. Interested to hear how well you think climate change adaptation measures in place or being developed in various world regions are currently factoring in provision for coastal ecology move into including spillover from marine reserves?

[ALISON] Well one of the interesting things... I mean there's so many different facets about that. But one of the one of the examples I'd like to give you is people are thinking a lot about how things like changing temperatures going to affect the ecology of species. Such as how long the larvae take to develop, which might mean if they growing faster because itw warmer, they may not be going this far. And so the spillover from the larvae and how far the distance between marine reserves... So they're connected by larval dispersal might be need to be less than it was before. So that's just one example of how thinking there's... Usually when I do this talk, there's a lot of stuff in there about thinking about how climates that's going to change the ecology of the species and what that means. We also did a study in the Gulf of California showing how the patterns of Sargassum I'm going to change around the Gulf. This is in Mexico and that's going to have big impacts on the distribution of one of the main fishery species, that use those it's nursery habitat. So, there's a lot of thinking going into this. A lot of good examples. In the Bahamas we looked at thermal regimes and predictions for coral bleaching and tried to select areas that you thought might do the best. So, I'm not sure that I covered that completely, because it was a pretty big question. But I hope I've given you some useful examples.

[ELISABETH] Excellent and the next question. I find that many talks on MPA do not focus much on activities and the catchments above the targeted areas for MPAs. Would you have specific examples of failures due to lack of considerations of current or consented activities mining or forestry, that sort of thing up the valleys and the streams that flow into the coastal environment?

[ALISON] Yes, we have a lot of examples of that, unfortunately. And while we're doing the marine reserves one of the things we think most about in that category of truly healthy areas and avoiding threats, is we think about adjacent patterns of land use and we try not _____marine life. For example, in Indonesia, we try to avoid putting MPAs where there were mining areas or deforestation. So, we take that into account, whether existing uses that are causing problems or where they're predicted to be in the future and try and avoid them. Because, yes there are many, many places where marine protected areas have problems from land that they can't manage, that basically mean they don't achieve their objectives. IT's a pretty hard one actually, because I've also been in the situation where communities have wanted to set up marine reserves but the fact that there's so much sediment coming off from the upland area probably will limit how much they will actually, benefit from them. So yeah, there's a lot of examples and so we just trying to take that into account in the design. But also, as I said at the end there, trying to have integrated land, sea management, integrating the MPAS in broader management regimes, integrated coastal zone management is a good way to go. Some places like Indonesia, we had one place where we prioritize coastal zone management in areas adjacent to high priority marine reserve. It can go both ways.

[ELISABETH] Thank you. And why ... This is a very New Zealand specific one. Why aren't there marine protected areas interspersed regularly along the coastline of New Zealand so that the larvae can disperse into the fishing areas? And would this work?

[ALISON] Well I think that's a very good question. I think one of the most important things in designing networks of marine protected areas, is to think about the size of spacing of marine reserves. In terms of larval transport and thinking about what we know about how far larvae move and the directions that they move and designing that you have to take that into account. So, you not only have usually replenishing networks with steppingstones around the country. That is a very good question and that if you are moving towards doing network of marine protected areas, that I think would have to be one of the most important things you should do.

[ELISABETH] One this I would like to ask because I know that most people attending a seminar like this are on the conservation side of the fence and it would be wonderful if these talks could be heard by you know people who maybe, go you can't, you know, no one should stop me fishing. I must fish. It is who I am. Presumably in all these wonderful locations where you have been setting up MMA's and MPAs you have struck resistance from locals who feel that it might impact on their fishing. How have you dealt in various communities, with those people? Because you've clearly done you know you've made them see that their reserves are good.

[ALISON] Well there's always going to be that tension there. Between fishermen who feel that they're going to be losing something, by the setting up of the marine reserves. And I think that what we try and do is a couple of things. First of all we call the marine reserves and one of the most powerful fisheries management tools that we have. And calling them marine reserves often puts people off because it sounds like a conservation tool. So, what we've done in some places like Mexico, for example. We design a fisheries replenishment, which just shows that the emphasis is actually, on providing benefits for the fisheries, so that be better off rather than worse off with those areas. But we also find that one of the most important things is to have champions among the fishing community. Like for example, in the example I had in Kenya, I had a photo on the front page of the man I call mr. chairman, who was the head of the beach management. And he was this wonderful man who was passionate about better management of Fisheries, who truly believed as the science tells us that more marine reserves is going to benefit them and that was more important than foregoing some areas of fishing. So even if you had 20% marine reserves, you could still fish an 80 percent. But you'd get more fish in that 80 percent because you have the marine reserves. So, what you need, I believe is good champions among the fishermen and they can discuss it themselves. And just as a little side issue there, the people in Kenya told us that towards the end of this process there was actually a lot more harmony within the community, because this process gave them a way to talk about it in a less emotive way. So instead of people yelling, we don't want this and other people saying we want this. What they got... What they did is they talk about first. What are the fish needs? And that was a way for them to have a conversation in a more proactive way. And so, in some situations, it's actually helped lead to a little bit more harmony. But there'll always be some people who oppose, just on principle and it’s a matter of you know trying to make sure that you are taking into account their needs and interests as much as possible. But still doing what you need so it will work ecologically. But those local champions, they’re the ones

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Alison, that is sadly all we've got time for today. But I will be taking away from this what do the fish need? That's what I will be asking myself. Thank you so much. Please join us next Wednesday June, the 24th at 3:30 New Zealand time, for our 7th session of Changing Tides, Tai Tōrua. Register using the Eventbrite booking system as usual and next week seminar is Going Global, Marine Protection around the World, where we will hear from international leaders about their experiences and marine protection including Alfred Ralifo, manager of the Fiji Great Sea Reef Program, WWF Fiji, Leanne Fernandes, Assistant Director Marine Park Policy Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and John Tanzer, Ocean Lead WWF International and they will discuss their roles leading significant conservation initiatives, including the rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and protection of the Great Sea Reef and Fiji. I'm so glad you could join us today. Thank you so much Alison for sharing your knowledge and your patience as well with our various technical difficulties. And the behind-the-scenes team, you really have been amazing today because when things like this happen knowing you there is very comforting. And to all of you for watching, thank you so much in asking such salient questions. For additional queries or comments please email marine@DOC.govt.nz.

Kia ora nga mihi mo o koutou Manaaki
tautoko ki te Kaupapa i te ra nei
Kua mutu te hui

and we will close with a karakia:

Kia whakairia te tapu
Kia watea ai te ara
Kia turuki whakataha ai
Kia turuki whakataha ai
Haumi e, hui e, taiki e

[ELISABETH]: Kia ora mai tatou, nau mai,
whakatau mai ki tēnei kōrero.
Ko marine protection around the world te kaupapa o te wā.
Ka nui te mihi ki tēnei kaupapa, ki a koutou hoki.

Hello everybody, welcome. To today's discussion today we will be talking about marine protection around the world. So please be respectful of our kaupapa and also respectful to each other. We will open with a karakia:

Whakataka te hau ki te uru,
Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.

Kia mākinakina ki uta,
Kia mātaratara ki tai.

E hī ake ana te atākura he tio,
he huka, he hauhunga.

Haumi e! Hui e! Tāiki e!

And to try and translate that karakia:

Get ready for the westerly and be
prepared for the southerly. It will be

icy cold in land and icy cold on the
shore May the dawn rise red-tipped on
ice, on snow, on frost.

Join, gather, intertwine.

Welcome and thank you so much for joining us for today's Changing Tides, Tai Tōrua the webseries that takes a deep look at the issues that affect our moana, the ocean. Tai Tōrua is brought to you by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation. Thank you to those organisations for making this series possible. And also, to the people behind the scenes, who have already today done an awful amount of work. So, thank you very much. And also, to all of you for being here.

I'm your host Elizabeth Easther and it has been my pleasure over the last two months to have been a part of these seminars. And today, our seventh session, we will hear from three international leaders in marine protection: Alfred Ralifo, Program Manager Fiji Great Sea Relief Reef Program, Dr Leanne Fernandes, Assistant Director Marine Park Policy, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australia and John Tanzer, Oceans Leader WWF International. And they will talk about their experiences leading significant conservation initiatives, including rezoning the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and conservation of the Great Sea Reef in Fiji. For those of you watching outside of Aotearoa, New Zealand and wondering what Tai Tōrua means.

It is from the Māori language, Te reo Māori. Tai refers to the sea and the coast, and also, the tide. While Tōrua refers to an alteration and direction, im wind or current, and it also refers to a process in weaving, to do things in twos or double strength. And the aim of Tai Tōrua, this webinar series is to make the wisdom of experts from Aotearoa and around the world accessible, as we discuss the issues impacting the health of the ocean and the impacts of climate change on marine environments. Before I properly introduce our three speakers a few housekeeping measures, which many of you will be very familiar with now, so please bear with me. Chat: a chat window will be open for the next ten minutes. If you're having any technical problems the aforementioned behind the scenes team will assist you. Q&A: there is a Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen. If you click on that a box will pop up and you can type any questions into that box. Although, questions will be filtered to avoid duplication and any that are off topic will be deleted. Bearing in mind we do have just one hour today. We may not get to answer all your questions.

But do please know if you have a burning query and we don't get to it please email marine@DOC.govt.nz. Voting: if a question appears that you wanted to ask, rather than ask it again, give it the old thumbs up and that will move it to the top of the list. And I will endeavour to ask the questions with the most thumbs up first. Recording: the session as with all the others, is being recorded and will be put on YouTube. Today's session will be uploaded at midday tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand channel, where you'll also find all the other sessions. And today, a different moment, at the end is the People's Choice seminar. As mentioned over the last few weeks, we are offering an eight session of Tai Tōrua to be held in July. Being called People's Choice, we have been soliciting your thought about topics you'd like to hear more about or speakers you'd like to hear more from. And we have refined your suggestions.

So today in the last five minutes of the session a poll will appear on your screen. When that happens we'll give you a minute, half a minute to tick the topic that most appeals to you. And there have been some really great suggestions. So, thank you to those who took the time to send ideas our way. Finally, our kaupapa, our guiding philosophy: whatever you say today and comments or questions please be respectful. Kia ora Now to our speakers. Today we are delighted to have with us Alfred Ralifo, Dr Leanne Fernandes and John Tanzer. Our first speaker is Alfred Ralifo, WWF Pacific's Program Manager for the Fiji Great Sea Reef Program. Originally from Suva, then raised on the Island of Rotuma, he returned to Suva where he obtained a science degree majoring in biology and chemistry. Before spending 13 years teaching high school science and maths. While teaching Alfred also did a fair bit of environmental volunteer work, which helped develop his passion for conservation. Alfred consequently joined WWF Pacific, in 2010, as their Policy Coordinator and has worked closely with WWF Global Policy team to develop and advocate for various multilateral environmental agreements. Bula vinaka, Alfred.

[ALFRED] Bula vinaka and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure for me to be here this afternoon and join this a very very important conversation, to share my experiences with WWF here in Fiji and our work with the indigenous communities here on Fiji's Great Sea Reef Program. I will start by sharing my screen. So, bear with me while I try to share my screen. So, Fiji's Great Sea reef is the third longest reef system in the world. The great sea reef, land and seascape covers about 50 percent of the land area, of the two larger islands, and they extend towards the outer reef system and beyond, About 42% of Fiji's population, entirely depends on the reef system for survival especially for food security, but also, economic security as well. Apart from being the most diverse reef system ... Sorry... Apart from being the third longest reef system in the world, the Great Sea Reef is also the most diverse reef system here in Fiji. And it supplies about 70% of the fish that is consumed in urban centres, in the domestic market. And of this very, very important Great Sea Reef System, there's about a total of 28,181 square kilometres of terrestrial and marine areas. And also, on this reef system as well we have the Qoliqoli Cokovata ramstar site.

A recently designated wetland of international importance and I'll talk more about this later on in my presentation. Now apart from being a very, very diverse and having a great ecological significance, the Great Reef System also provides and contributes quite heavily to Fiji's economy, annually, in terms of the tourism sector also the offshore fisheries sector and the inshore fisheries sector. And not forgetting the ecosystem services that the reef system provides. And also, quite importantly the cultural and spiritual significance of this reef system to the people of Fiji. This right over here, is actually quite important. Because it tells us the different types of reef systems here in Fiji. And if you look at the coloured religions of the map here, the orange and the yellow regions actually shows you the level of resiliency of these reefs to the impacts of climate change. So yellow and orange denotes a very, very high resilience of the reef towards impacts of climate change. Whereas the red and the purplish colour shows that the reefs are actually quite vulnerable. And if you look at the map over here, these are the areas where you have a very high resilient reef system. And it is also a pleasure to note that in Qoliqoli Cokovata which is the Ramsar side, is one of those areas which has a very very high resilient reef system.

So, Fiji reefs alone, accounts for over five percent of the world's total reef regeneration capacity. It's a hugely outsized share compared to our landmass and population. So, Fiji's reef system is part of the 50 topmost resilient reefs in the world. And Qoliqoli Cokovata the Ramsar site is also one of these resilient reefs. So, WWF's Coral Reef Rescue Initiative is a program which actually gives us a rescue strategy to try and work and focus our our efforts into this resilient reefs. And it is believed that if we try to protect and look after these resilient reef systems, then these reef systems can actually regenerate and recover very quickly, during climatic events. And then provide seed to actually repopulate other reef systems that are affected by climate change. I'm going to talk a little bit about WWFs engagement with the Great Sea Reef since 1998. And this slide actually shows us the different types of milestones that were achieved, since our first engagement with the Great Sea Reef Community, in 1998. You see WWF was first invited to work in the communities within the Great Sea Reef by the late Tui Macuata who is the paramount chief of the province of Macuata. And I will not go into much detail. But I just wanted to note that in 2004 upon indication by the late Tui Macuata, WWF facilitated the first Great Sea Reef marine biological survey. And in 2005, the Fijian government announced that 30% of its marine areas will be put under effective protection and management.

By 2020 and this is Fiji governments our commitment towards the Convention on Biological Diversity. So, our since the Marine Biological study in 2004, WFF working together very closely with the communities of Macuata province were able to use traditional knowledge and practices, together with the scientific data and information to develop the communities locally managed marine area and protected areas network. And since then WWF has been facilitating a national campaign to create awareness on this very, very important reef system. By 2011 onwards, a regional and an international campaign started for the Great Sea Reef Program. And 2012, the Fiji government actually nominated the Great Sea reef program as a Ramsar site. So, a lot of the important international investors, I would like to also highlight was that the world PAC Conference 2014, in Sydney.

Also, the UN Oceans Conference, in 2017, together with CoP23 and CoP25. Also, last year the Great Sea Reef, was actually mentioned very promptly in these international events. In 2018, after working together with the Fijian government and the communities of the Great Sea Reef program Qoliqoli Cokovata was formally designated as a Ramsar site. And it was also, quite important because we were also able to launch the International Year of the Coral Reefs, together with the communities of Qoliqoli Cokovata on the Great Sea Reef, at the same time. In 2019, at CoP25 the future government actually, endorsed and supported WWF's Coral Reef Rescue Initiative because of the importance of Fiji's reef systems, as part of this initiative. And since 2017, WWF the global network, together with the Fiji government, and our officer in Fiji, and the the local communities through many levels of consultations, and through many discussions, and paranal sessions, we were able to come up with a new Great Sea Reef program, which will be implemented for the next ten years. And it is called the Great Sea Reef Resilience Program.

This slide is actually quite important because it's how it shows us the various types of traditional, or customary fishing grounds that are here in the in the in Fiji's EEZ. You see the EEZ is divided into the inshore and the offshore area and the communities own the customary fishing rights of the inshore areas. So each of the areas of the fishing ground are actually marked with boundaries. And so, there are different types of traditional fishing grounds in terms of the size. The size of the fishing grounds are actually quite different and it doesn't actually correlate with the size of a population that is entirely dependent on these fishing grounds. However, it is actually, related to the prominence and the influence of the traditional leaders in the olden days.

So, if you can see over here, the cream-colored fishing grounds are all the fishing grounds that are currently under the locally managed marine area network. Whereas, the blue ones are the ones that are not yet a part of the local managed marine areas network. The red boundaries, actually highlights and showcase the various types of protected areas, that a part of the locally managed marine areas network. These are traditional fishing grounds and reserves that are part of the... That the communities have come up with as part of their management plans. So, for the next ten years WWF will be working within the Great Reef seascape to try and include all other communities, which are not yet part of the locally managed marine areas, to ensure that all the communities and the fishing grounds within the Great Sea Reef land and sea scape are part of the local managed marine areas network.

And I'd also like to highlight that the Fiji government has also committed that by 2030 the entire EEZ of Fiji will be under a hundred percent sustainable management and protection. So, this would be contributing towards that target by 2030. This is some of the Qoliqoli Cokovata of the Great Sea reef. And it's actually, quite important because since 2004 WWF engagement with the communities are of Qoliqoli Cokovata we have managed to be able to work with the communities using traditional knowledge and sciences, to actually, identify areas for protection. And also identify management measures for the areas that are outside of the MPAs to ensure the entire Qoliqoli Cokovata is under 100% management.

So MPAs are actually quite an important tool in the entire management of the marine area. So, you see over here the different colours actually duplicate the different types of management measures. So, you can see that the pink areas shows that those are MPAs that actually are protected for five years and after five years, then it will be opened for communities to be able to access that. And then within a few weeks, it will be closed again for the next five years. And then you have areas which are green in colour which are delegated as permanent protection, and there is no fishing activities at all.

Outside of these MPAs you have... Our communities have come up with their own sustainable fisheries management plans and also other management measures which they feel are very very important. Now for the next 10 years, are based on the lessons learned and building on the current legis... Sorry, I forgot to mention that in the last slide that Fiji's legislation actually, recognises the the customary rights and the role of our indigenous communities in participating in the governance and the management of their marine protected area, of their marine areas, or their fishing grounds. And this is actually quite important, because it allows the community to work together with the Fiji government, and other government partners to identify management measures.

However, there are still a lot of gaps that exist with the current legislation and policies in place, to be able to to support the efforts of the local communities, in terms of managing the marine resources in a sustainable way. And so, some of the challenges, such as poaching, the impacts of climate change. These are issues that... We need to try and address the gaps in the legislations and policies and ensure that there is stronger partnership between the enforcement agencies and the communities in terms of ensuring compliance towards the communities marine managed areas and management rules. And in this slide over here, we have just completed some very very important scientific surveys within the Great Sea Reef Region and we are now in the process of developing.... Of using this information, presenting it back to the local communities. And trying to see how we can use the information to update their existing management plans and ensuring that they are also able to address the gaps that we have experienced, working with these communities in the last 10 to 15 years.

So, this community... So we have together with the WWF Global Network, support from our various partners, and together with the Fiji government, and the local communities along the entire Great Sea Reef Region through many levels of consultations and sessions we have come up with a 10-year program. It will be Fiji's Great Sea Reef Resilience Program, which aims at reducing anthropogenic pressures and regenerating the Great Sea Reef, which is one of the world's most resilient reefs, through a sustainable and resilient blue economy model. This will be the first of its kind, I believe, for Fiji and the Pacific. And we're hoping that the lessons generated from this pilot will be replicated in our WWF Solomon Islands and also our WWF PNG office. But we also want to ensure that it is replicated, to the entire Pacific and also, other parts of the world. So, you can see that using the multiple threats, this actually... This new program is going to address all the multiple threats in terms of priority for the next ten years. But at the same time, it ensures that we are going to change the way business is carried out in this region and transform these businesses into sustainable regenerative businesses.

That will address the huge threats associated with over extraction and poaching, and ensuring that the best knowledge, management, monitoring, evaluation and sharing of lessons, integrating it back into the the program. But, sharing it with other communities. This slide here actually shows us the various types of partners that we work with, in terms that we will be working with for the next ten years, the type of funding streams that we will be tapping into. You'll notice that we have about 14 million grant based program and this will be sourced through multilateral and funding. And we also have impact investments in place, and also, international investors and donors. So, this is going to be a partnership between the local communities, the Fijian Government, development partners, donor agencies, the financial institutions, as well as the private sector. That is all I have for you now and I look forward to your discussion at the end of this session. Thank you very much and vinaka vaka levu.

[ELIZABETH] Vinaka vaka levu Alfred. And for anyone who's wondering, the screen behind Alfred, those paintings were painted by Alfred himself. And now we welcome Dr Leanne Fernandes. Dr Fernandes holds master’s degrees in both tropical ecology and economics. While her PhD in geography incorporated natural and Social Sciences into an integrated decision support system for coral reef management.

Over the last decade Leanne has applied her knowledge to address marine resource management problems in the islands of Hawaii, the Maldives, Caribbean, the North Sea and Coastal Australia and has worked with five Pacific Island Governments, supporting their efforts towards national scale integrated ocean management. Dr Fernandez was manager of the representative areas program, involving collaborations with over 70 communities and traditional owner groups, over 10 government agencies and more than 20 different stakeholder groups. That program led to the establishment of over one-third of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park being made into no-take protected areas. Leanne now works at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, as well as running her own consulting company. Kia ora Dr Fernandez, Leanne.

[LEANNE] Kia ora, thank you very much for having me here I'm going to share my screen with you, if all goes well. I'm going to rely quite a bit of work that I did when at IUNC at the Oceania Regional office there.  And I think it's possible, I saw a couple of my ex-colleagues might be on the webinar, which would be fun. If they are hello. But Alfred knows those guys very well, as well as I do. So, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the Great Barrier Reef Sea Country. Particularly, the traditional owners of the land where I am at the moment the Wulgurukaba and the Bindal people. I'd like to acknowledge their elders, past, present and emerging. And their ongoing connections with the sea country of the Great Barrier Reef. So, I'm going to talk about three main things through my talk. Just clarify understanding.

There are many different people are looking at marine spatial planning and marine protected areas, just to talk about what that is, a process for getting there. And then also pick out a couple of the key steps in that process to highlight and discuss with you all. So marine spatial planning is a process it's not an outcome. It can contribute and facilitate integrated ocean and coastal management. The output or outcome can be a Marine Spatial Plan or it might be a network of Marine Protected Areas or it could be both. One within the other range. A Marine Spatial Plan can deliver different conservation zones and some of those might be Marine Protected Areas.

The discussion that I'm going to be having with you guys is very much drawing upon of the the work that I did when I was with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority managing the rezoning of Marine Park. John Tanzer who will be speaking next will go into more depths about some of those lessons learned. But then also, the transferability of some of the experience I had to the Pacific, which then, I think has a broader implication, that the lessons are transferable to the Pacific. Some of them may be transferable to other jurisdictions as well. So, in working with Tonga, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu in particular, we crystallised the process for... Each of those governments were interested in doing national scale Marine Spatial Planning.

So, over a five to six-year period, we supported those government efforts. And in that we undertook processes that were tailored and technical support that was tailored to each other governments and the countries. But there was also some commonality there as well. So, we crystallized all of that into what the marine team at IUCN called a toolkit. And it described ten steps to a national Marine Spatial Plan. So there again, I'd like to acknowledge Hans Wendt and the marine team at IUCN ORO.

We did build upon the really good MSP guide that UNESCO published that Charles Ehler and Fanny Douvere prepared in 2009. That was about hundred pages long and it was really detailed. So, we tried to tailor our toolkit a little bit more to the Pacific. And we tried to simplify it somewhat, so it's not quite as huge a document. And it really focused on just the marine spatial planning itself, rather than the implementation of a Marine Spatial Plan, which is very important. But we just tried to make it a bit simpler. I just like to say that these steps are not steps that are rigid. They'll be...You'll be going back and forth between some of them. One of the steps like consultation, actually, in many ways starts at step one. And some of those steps are actually a compilation of a number of different tasks. But presenting the process in this way, we found was helpful for not just ourselves. But also, for sharing the way that we move forward.

Now I'm going to focus on step one, step seven and step nine in this presentation. I understand Allie Green who presented in the last webinar last week would have covered off on some of the more technical aspects. I won't repeat those. I think it's really important to be crystal clear about whether you need Marine Spatial Planning or Marine Protected Areas. And if you as the instigator or initiator of the process have 100% clarity that there is a problem with the marine resource management as it stands, and that these tools might help. Then you will need to share the logic and the evidence and the justification that led you to that place with others that you will need to be working with.

You can't assume that there's an agreed base of understanding across all the parties. And so, I think that that needs to be conversations that happen at the very beginning. To share your knowledge and your position broadly, a way forward. And then through that process you can also start to identify those that also acknowledge a problem. Both in terms of the groups of people that acknowledge that there is a problem, and that this might be part of the solution as a way forward and then also, specific individuals who may have positions of influence, or simply are influential in their own right. I think that's a very important part of the process. So that they can be also contributing to delivery of the solution.

It's important to foster and support these influences. So that they know at every step where things are going, and what's working, what's not working and the impediments that are coming. So that they can continue to support what you are trying to do to in an informed manner. Who needs to be involved in the process, more generally? So that will include some of the people identified in B. But that'll be a bigger group of people. So, it will include those that have the technical knowledge, and that have the knowledge about the values, and the culture, and the uses, and the biodiversity, and also those that are already involved in the governance systems around marine resource management, where that's relevant. In general, what I suggest is doing a kind of a simple stakeholder analysis. So that you correctly identify, which people or groups of people can be classified as high or low in terms of their power and influence; or higher or low in terms of the degree of impact or interest. Impact the they might bear from this kind of project or the interest they have in this kind of project.

Some people might fall in multiple groups. But that will help also tailor, your conversations and later also your consultation plan. And even at this early stage you can have a mini consultation coordination plan, so that the relevant people can be kept informed and involved from the very start, including thing to define the specific aims of your Marine Spatial Planning or MPA project. And this this step should also have an eye towards steps the seven, which is the institutional arrangements for the Marine Spatial Planning and MPA planning, because some of those say people will inevitably be involved in the future or the governance of the development, or the governance of the implementation and they need to be factored into this step, as someone that needs to need to be involved. So, I'm going to skip right through to establishing the legal and institutional basis for Marine Spatial Planning.

Just a few notes here. It may be that there are already quite a number of legal and institutional basis for Marine Spatial Planning or MPA planning and management in the location where you are working. They may be adequate, or they may not be adequate. They must at least be assessed and considered as to their adequacy, in terms of if you're trying to do...For example, this talk is very much focused on national scale Marine Spatial Planning and national scale networks of Marine Protected areas. Is the basis adequate or not? And I think it's useful to have a non-vested interest consider this question. Because it's very easy if you're in charge of some piece of this puzzle, to feel like the whole puzzle should belong to you. Where, a disinterested party can perhaps look at it a bit more objectively. It's also true that, you may have an eye on the legal institutional framework that needs to be in place for implementing and managing your network of Marine Protected Areas or your Marine Spatial Plan and that might not be in place or it might be awhile to get that in place.

It doesn't mean that the planning and the development can't happen under a different legal and institutional basis. They don't have to be the same but they need to talk to each other and they need to obviously dovetail well. But I do think significant effort should be applied well before implementation... As I mentioned this what's the best legal initial framework for implementation. And that has to include traditional systems of management and power, as well as formal systems of management. That reference their gives you a link to documents including the 10 step process. Which as I said, there's not really the 10 step process... But it talks about all of this stuff in a lot more detail. And then i'll skip to step 9, which is also very important. I think you need to have a consultation plan. This does not have to be a 200-page document. It can be 6 pages or 10 or 20 pages.

There needs to be some clarity about before... Not just for yourself, but for everyone that you're working with and that you're bringing on the journey with you. Hopefully, from the first step one... About why you're doing the consultation. And the purpose of the consultation might be very different at the different phases. So, for example, the purpose of the consultation in phase one might be to let people know that there's going to be a change and an improvement in marine resource management, and to invite input to that process. The Phase two might be, requesting input on a draft of a national Marine Spatial Plan or a draft network of Marine Protected Areas and provide input into that. And that's obviously a very different purpose than the first phase And the final phase might just be, letting people know that the final network of Marine Protected Areas or Spatial plan has now coming into effect and they need to comply with access requirements.

You're going to have different audiences and they're going to bring different viewpoints and opinions to the table. It's important to acknowledge this and also, tailor your presentations, your discussions, and your key messages to acknowledge those differences between the different people that you are talking with or communicating with. For each of the different phases you'll have key messages. Again, that might be influenced by the audience. And then it's important to think about the best communication tools that you can use. And there's a huge variety of tools, often people start with the tools. I think that should come after you're clear about why you're consulting and what your key messages are and so on. You know there's obviously, things like newsletters or web, website, social media. Face-to-face meetings are often highly preferable. But hugely expensive in terms of people's time, and also trouble. So that needs to be judiciously managed with regard to the budget and the resources you have. So the budget of the resources needs to intersect with your comms plan. So that your comms plan is doable. And you also need to consider the timelines. The timelines need to factor in certain events. So, for example, elections can be very important in timelines and may need to be factored in.

So, I was trying to focus this talk on some things that in some way sound really boring. I mean I personally love doing the technical stuff better. If I'm honest. You know describing the marine biodiversity, design principles, all that kind of stuff. But well, I think that's a necessary part of the whole planning processes. It is necessary, but it is no way sufficient. So my take home messages are really three. Don't assume people agree or understand that there's a problem that needs to be fixed. Don't assume that people know how something like a MPA network or a Marine Spatial Plan might be part of the solution to fix the problem. Acknowledge and factor in the politics. So, I think about big 'P' politics which is your whole landscape of elected or otherwise formally acknowledged and chosen representatives. And talk to people from all the different strands and strains of big "P" politics be multi partisan in that regard.

Show no favor in making sure the information is shared, because if you're doing something on a national scale chances are they will be here changing in the flavor of the month in terms of the big "P" politics and who is the elected representatives. So, you want them all to be briefed as far as possible and informed in as far as possible, on side. The little "p" politics. It's more about what's behind the scenes of the power players, the influencers and also bringing them on the journey as far as possible. I think that's important to choose your battles in terms of the politics. If it doesn't matter to achieve in the outcome give away those wins. It's on the big issues...Try and conduct, negotiations and conversations in such a way that people don't feel impelled to state their point of view you in a public forum of such that they can never deviate again from that without losing face. Even if down the track they maybe do want to change their point of view. But they've already publicly said X and now they can't say why, because it looks bad. So, try and avoid that as much as possible. And then the consultations have to be thorough and genuine.

You know, communicate with all the interested parties and stakeholders as possible given the resource constraints. I understand you can't do it all. But also in those communications, be clear about what people can and cannot expect from the planning processes. Don't promise even little things. Don't promise little things if you can't deliver them. And also feel comfortable that consensus it not going to be achieved at all. That's just not how people work. And ensure all the bosses up the line knows this. And also give them the information and the knowledge. So that when people who are not happy with the outcomes have those discussions they know that those people are going to come. And have the information and knowledge to have a discussion with them. So that they are forewarned and forearmed. And I think it's also useful to gather information. You know doesn't work in all countries.

But I think in for example, New Zealand, Australia it would work to get information about what the people of the country want with regard to their marine resources. Because mostly... Not exclusively... But mostly a lot of government is trying to manage marine resources on behalf of the people of the nation and their views should matter and influence. And you know... Just quietly those who happen to be the voters, so, politicians are interested in that. We were very surprised during the rezoning, when we did the polling. And over... I think was over 88% of well... over 90% of people in Brisbane and Sydney and were happy to have reduced access to the Great Barrier Reef to ensure its future. What was more surprising is people along the Great Barrier Reef coast, more than 88% them also agree that a reduction in access to the marine resources was worthwhile, to try and improve the protection of those marine resources. So, I think that's all I really wanted to say. I do want to acknowledge that we have had terrible coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. But the data are showing that the no-take areas, the network of no-take areas in the Great Barrier Reef seems to recover better from coral bleaching, seems to be more resistant to Crown Thorn Starfish impacts and is in generally better condition and hopefully will provide a basis for the rebound of the system more broadly. So, I think that's it from me. Thank you so much.

[ELIZABETH] Kia ora Leanne, that was very riveting. In fact, it was so riveting I took a couple pictures of some of your slides so that I could read them, more fully later. And our third speaker is John Tanzer, who is Oceans Leader for WWF International. And after John's talk we are going to go to Q&A. So, do please, if you have a couple of questions pop them in the box below. Although, we will only have time for a couple. So, John Tanzer was the Inaugural Chair and Chief Executive of Queensland's Fisheries Management Authority when it was first established in 1994.

In 1998, John was appointed Executive Director of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority the Australian Federal Government Agency responsible for management of the Great Barrier Reef. He served in this position and as acting chairman for 10 years. From 2001 onwards, John was the executive director responsible for the oversight of the spatial rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park based on the Representative Areas Program which resulted in highly protected area increased from around 5% to over 33% of the 350,000 square kilometre park. In February 2012, John joined WWF international as the Director Global Marine Program and was subsequently appointed leader of the WWF Oceans Practice in late 2016. His responsibilities include development and implementation of a new Global Ocean Strategy that supports the effective implementation of the the sustainable development goals. Kia ora John.

[JOHN] Thanks very much Elizabeth. And very pleased to be here! And what a great initiative from WWF New Zealand and the Department of Conservation. This series has turned out to be "Changing tides". It's it's a real privilege to be able to join you. I'm going to share my screen, hopefully. And yes, that worked. Just as I'm doing that I also want to acknowledge the traditional owners the Sea Country people of the Great Barrier Reef, in particular. And the place where I'm sitting today the Wulgurukaba and the Bindal people. Now what I'm going to do... What I've been asked to do... So, I hope I'm well behaved in that regard, is I'm going to talk about the rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef, which included the Representative Areas Program. But really focusing on the lessons and the learnings that I took away from that and then some of the broader implications for elsewhere.

Now I want to stress is that I'm not in any way talking on behalf, or can I talk on behalf of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, anymore. Those days are well behind me and these ideas of my own. And I'm also not going to go into a great deal of detail about the technical side of it or even the chronology of how it played out. I've got a couple of background papers there. One by Dr Fernandes, who we just heard from and other authors. And then also, John Day who was heavily involved. I assume Elizabeth that these slides are available for people afterwards. I was hoping so. So, if you want to go into the detail you can. But just very quickly, I think as Leanne said, the rezoning led to an increase in the area of highly protected from less than five percent, which was heavily focused on coral reef and mainly offshore, to over 33 percent being highly protected. And importantly 20% in each of the bio regions being represented.

But I also want to stress and I always, always do this. That even though the Representative Areas Program, the network of highly protected areas is really the foundation for the spatial management of the Great Barrier Reef today. The rezoning actually incorporated changes across all zones and there's some really significant outcomes in that. I’ll just draw attention to the habitat protection, which is essentially the area that's closed to trawling and that increased this part of the process quite significantly with nearly 78 percent open to trawling prior to it. After the rezoning nearly 34 percent was left open. So significant conservation gains from the broader changes to the zoning. The zoning plan that resulted and the zones within it were actually quite important in the negotiation process that that went on. It was controversial process. I'm not sure that everyone followed it. It absorbed our lives in terms of the authority and a number of others outside the authority for pretty much the period from 2000 to 2005. And beyond there was lots of public comment lots of emotion.

And then at the end of it it was applauded as a really significant step forward in ocean conservation marine conservation and received a large number of international awards. This is not to say the controversy around it disappeared. Well I am gonna mention quickly the science basis. Now Leanne was heavily involved in this with colleagues. But the reason I'm going to emphasize it is because it gave what followed the integrity and the guardrails or the guidelines which kept us on track as the political waves crashed about us. And so, it really you gives you the neutral ground and as it turned out it also gave us the political ammunition that was quite useful. And one thing I'll mention about it was that we didn't try and do it ourselves in terms of the of the science we made available. We made best use of available scientists and experts and there was a large number of those who were involved. So, we basically picked the brains of the best reef scientists that were around and it resulted in the establishment, or the the definition, of seventy different habitat types, that we call bioregions. And that's a very important basis to what followed.

It also established the biophysical principles, I think there was 11 of those. And then four socio-economic principles. Very important basis to what followed and that's a that's a slide there shows, the bio regions that were were identified through that process. So I just have to keep moving my little screen across. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about what I see as the key ingredients and Leanne has already spoken about some of this. We should have coordinated a little bit better, perhaps. But it's worthwhile emphasizing and repeating. You need to be very clear about what needs protection and repair. Why are you embarking on this exercise? Why are you putting people through this? Why are you saying to people they need to constrain their activities, at least in the short term? What is the problem that you're trying to fix?

Now that sounds so obvious, I know. But so often, I see these exercises get well down the track, where they're technically advanced and they haven't really been very clear with the with the broader public with the communities about what the problems are. And the rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef I'd have to say was first and foremost a political exercise, as most planning exercises are. This was particularly intense. The iconic stature of the Great Barrier Reef always ensured that, that would be the case. The need to increase the level of protection substantially also saw that. And so, you have to come at this, and we realize this from the outset I think, or at least once we got a little bit into it, you have to strategize with that in mind. With all the issues that Leanne's presentation raised there, tease it out. We were lucky I suppose and blessed to have as the chairperson of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority at the time a recently retired politician, who had been a Minister for Tourism and a Minister for Education in the New South Wales Government. Virginia Chadwick, who has unfortunately passed away now.

But certainly, had one of the one of the best political minds for strategy that I've come across. And she certainly saw this exercise in terms of a battle, or a contest to achieve the public interest. And said about showing us the way, guiding us through that and indeed, being heavily involved itself. So that was that is one of the key ingredients of the success. The other one is that the community consultation. Particularly the communities along the coast was extremely thorough. And in fact, we did an additional round beyond what was required in the Act, of community consultation. So, a thousand, over a thousand meetings, 35,000 submissions, I think therein or there abouts. Over 30,000 submissions, an enormous amount of consultation. We also set out to make sure that we gave people a voice when we spoke to them. And we deliberately set up community meetings. So that they're in local Scout Halls, or local Theatre Clubs or local fishing clubs, so that we could talk directly. And they were more about information exchange and us listening rather than big public meetings. We had to have big public meetings as well.

The politics determined that they were largely a waste of time in terms of advancing the debate and the issue. Because they were more about trying to set up a confrontation than actually exchanging information. So empowering and listening to people, particularly the quiet ones. Never, ever leaving those meetings with people feeling, they were taken for granted. If I ever got feedback that that was the case, we would go back and do it again and sit down with those people again. And we communicated in advance and we gave feedback afterwards. In terms of the organisational management, I think this was quite critical and something that's often underestimated. I spoke a little bit about Virginia's leadership.

But leadership overall and that doesn't just mean the highest executives in the organisation, but leadership throughout the organisation. Teamwork, pulling together a team that's dedicated to the outcome was essential. It would not have happened if we'd stayed with our old structural organisational arrangements. Having a dedicated task force that had the focus, and was charged, and empowered and had delegated decision-making, was was absolutely essential. And then I think having within the authority, a high level of Fisheries expertise and access to fishing data was quite critical. And the final key ingredient of success that stands out to me is that we put a lot of emphasis on making the economic case for the rezoning. So, it wasn't just about the biology of the reef, or the biophysical principles. It was also about showing why this was a good investment, this was a good investment in the future of the Great Barrier Reef. And the 6.5 billion, or thereabouts, amount of economic value that it generates. It’s an investment in the natural capital, that is the Great Barrier Reef. I do want to just talk very briefly about some of the missed opportunities. It was very political, as I said. And there was some unfortunate seeking of retribution that followed on from this, from sectors that... A sector in particular that felt aggrieved, or that it hadn't achieved what it wanted to. And so, there was a major review and I think that setback the authority. But it also, setback the implementation.

But, a few points. I do think that got in the way of us doing something, which was going to be very valuable. And maybe it's been addressed now. So, I'm talking from my experience, not from what the situation necessarily is now. But we had the opportunity, having built relationships with communities along the coast, deep relationships, levels of trust, high levels of understanding. We could have moved that to a situation of much more collaborative management. And I always used to say to the team that, when when the folks at the caravan park at Caroline Beach are coming to us in North Queensland and saying to us, "you need to expand the green zones. Well you need to shift the green zones. You're not covering the right places: then our work is largely advanced and done. Compliance and enforcement, absolutely critical that when you put a new arrangement, a dramatic shift in the level of protection like this in place, that you do plan well and implement a strong system of compliance and enforcement.

Particularly, in the early stages, but then ongoing as well. And probably one of the biggest issues that we dropped the ball on. And I'm not being critical of GBRMPA in this. I think it came about from other issues. But was the monitoring of the performance of the zoning plan, and doing that in a way that was communicated quite widely back to community groups, back to industry groups, and to politicians, and decision-makers as well. The other one is, I think you know, the protection of key spawning and nursery areas for commercial and recreationally important species. We were not allowed to do that because of institutional tension, I guess, between Fisheries Departments and and Sectors. And we did, I think, manage to because of the size of the of the no-take areas get protection in place for key areas. But it would have been better if it was much more systematically done. I've just noted a few issues here that I think of a broader relevance. And coming on from that last point, we need to be much more upfront confident and talk about the science that's there, in terms of the role that no-take areas have in fisheries sustainability. It needs to be recognized and not hidden. And it needs to be incorporated upfront, as I was saying, in this planning exercise.

Similarly, the importance of fish, beyond that as food. Their importance in ecosystem functioning and resilience must be properly valued, both in the economic sense, the science sense and the policy sense. I'd argue strongly that the need for more data is acting as a holding pattern, which is stopping marine protection, the establishment marine protected areas effectively enough. And and we need to, I think be much more bold in moving forward and not not seeking perfect information. Zoning of course is a tool, it's only as effective as the broader management framework. It's not a substitute for good effective fisheries management. It should be complimentary with that. It can't deal with water quality. But it can build resilience in terms of climate change. But you do need a broader management framework of course, beyond zoning. And, my final point is that as we go forward in seeking to better conserve our oceans and particularly, our coastal areas, we need much less sectoral and institutional warfare, which is often based on self-interest. Unfortunately often based on egos and patch protection and we need a much more integrated approach, where we deal with the important interest. Because no one's winning. The oceans are losing and so, to our future generations. Thanks very much.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora John, that really resonated with me, about there looking at fish... You know beyond their role as food, and also being bold and the egos. I'm going to take a lot of that home and percolate. Now we are getting close to time. But we don't want to not have any Q&As. Before we go to a Q&A, we're going to go a little bit over, so please do stay with us if you can. We're going to quickly pop the poll up on screen, which is going to determine what the People's Choice webinar will be. So, if you could just take 20 seconds. I'm gonna make it less than a minute now, less than 30 seconds. It will pop up on screen now. If you could please pick which thing you would like for the webinar in July, the People's Choice webinar.

You now have 15 seconds starting from now and then we'll ask a couple of questions. Do hope the poll has popped up for people as my poll hasn't popped up. So, you've got five seconds now, five seconds, four. Sorry, I'm not helping make decisions, am I? Nobody likes pressure. It's an election this year, so it's also very good practice for ticking boxes in New Zealand at least. So, I do hope people have had a chance to take the poll. Now we've got a couple of questions that seem quite pertinent to ask. Some of them are quite long answered questions, so we probably will have to leave them for another day. But one of them is has the success of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park helped inspire further Marine Protection elsewhere in Australia? And if so where?   Who'd like to take that. Leanne, John?

[JOHN] Look, I think not to the extent that I that I'd hoped. And it should do. I think because it was so controversial that actually it led and there was unfortunately, a deal of retribution that was dealt out afterwards for crass political reasons, I would argue. And that did bring about a shyness or a hesitancy in other jurisdictions to be as bold. But it certainly has informed, I think, what's required to put in place an effective network of MPAs. And probably, in other jurisdictions outside of Australia we seen more carriage of that, where coastal communities are more empowered and wanting to get on with the job.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. And we have a question here that I think people will use to actually do things. How can individuals help in the creation of Marine Conservation Parks in New Zealand? Particularly you've been asked about the Bay of Plenty and Hauraki Gulf, but just anywhere. What can people do? Who'd like to take that?

[LEANNA] I can have a go. I think the avenues for input... I think there's some similarities between Australia and New Zealand. The avenues for input to really formal government implementation of marine particular areas. The door needs to be opened by the government there. But if there are marine protected areas or areas that people think should be protected. And if for example the Department of Conservation has a mechanism, whereby you can share that information, like if you know that there's non-compliance to existing marine protected areas or you know this area is important for spawning or for other reasons that should have a level of protection. As long as that doors open for that information to be received, that kind of information can be very, very useful to governments in making the case to do more. And in fact, a lot of the consultations, for example, that have happened in Pacific Island countries, but also it happened in the case of the Great Barrier Reef gave us a lot of that information about things that needed a change to better protect the marine environment. But I think it's really important to open the door to that kind of information. If you have any decision-making power.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. And Alfred a very quick answer question. I think you said in 2012, the Fijian government determined that 30% of your waters would be in protection by 2020. Did you achieve that? Did the government achieve that?

[ALFRED] So, we are actually currently working behind the scenes together with a Fiji government and other stakeholders such as IUCN Oceania and WCS Conservation International and the traditional leaders and owners of the marine resources to actually come up with... To achieve this target by the end of this year. So, there's a lot of consultations that are ongoing right now to ensure that we protect that 30 percent of our marine areas. And if you'll notice that the inshore areaof Fiji waters is make up only about 2% of the EEZ. So, a lot of these marine protected areas has to come from the offshore area. So there's a lot of work are going on now to achieve that by the end of this year.

[ELISABETH] Congratulations, I wish we could adopt some of those policies. Yeah, 30% sounds marvelous. Now I'm going to ask one question and if all three of you could tell us what your based on your experiences, what would the panel members suggest is the single most important piece of advice that they could give to managers wanting to build support for marine protected areas. You go first Alfred, your right there.

[ALFRED] Momentum is growing in terms of people who have access to marine resources, to put their marine resources under sustainable? management protection. There's a lot of lessons being learned from communities that are doing that very well and I think there's the growing momentum towards our heading in a direction. And I think organisations such as WWF and other our development partners, together with champions from the government, and also from local communities can help to promote and act as conveners, facilitators to try and make this happen. Connecting to the various donors, science, scientific information and also scientists and anybody who's willing to participate. So I would say put yourself out there, and ask around, and hope that... There's definitely a lot of people that is going to respond, to provide that support and make that happen.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora. John have you got something to add to that?

[JOHN] I think we've got to be getting much better at talking about the benefits that MPAs bring. I mean I always say that MPAs can pay their way and MPAs are natural assets that generate goods, services and benefits for people. We're probably not as good at communicating that as what we need to be. We tend to take a more technical perspective. But really MPAs are for people, they're about people and and we need to just make that point whenever we can. Thanks.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora John. And Leanne.

[LEANNE] I think as managers you need to be persistent thats the main thing. Be persistent and get the politics right. And getting the politics... And know... You need to know if you’re the right one to know whether the politics is right or not. And if you're not the right one find the right one that helps you to get the politics right. That's it from me.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Leanne. That is all we have time for today. Thank you so much to our speakers Alfred Ralifo, Leanne Fernandez and John Tanzer and to the behind the team a scenes team, you did a lot of work today, and all of you for joining us and asking such salient questions. I'm sorry we're very rarely have time for all of them because some of them are big. And we should just come back and do this again. And you've done the poll. And we will email all previous attendees with details of the People's Choice webinar, when it will occur, what it will be about and who will be speaking. We'll also be sending out a short evaluation form for this webinar series and would appreciate you taking a few minutes to complete it. And, you can also email any comments or thoughts to marine@DOC.govt.nz. And if people could just put their egos aside in favor of marine protection and the planet wouldn't that be nice. So... hmm. Yes, although I'm probably speaking to the converted.

We will close with a karakia:

Kia ora mai tatou
Kia whakairia te tapu
Kia watea ai te ara
Kia turuki whakataha ai
Kia turuki whakataha ai
Haumi e, hui e, taiki e

[ELISABETH] Kia ora mai tatou
Nau mai, whakatau mai ki tenei korero
Ko Marine Protection in Aotearoa te Kaupapa o te wa
Ka nui te mihi ki tenei Kaupapa, ki a koutou hoki.

And now i'll ask Harry Burkhart to give us a karakia for starters Harry.

[HARRY] Kia ora tātou, kei nui tatou
Whakataka te hau ki te uru, Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.
Kia mākinakina ki uta,
Kia mātaratara ki tai.
E hī ake ana te atākura
he tio, he huka, he hauhu
Tīhei mauri ora

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Harry. Hello everybody and welcome to this discussion, today we will be talking about how we can achieve marine protection in Aotearoa and we ask people to be respectful of our kaupapa and to each other. Thank you so much for joining us today for our eighth session of changing tides tai tōrua, the web series that takes a deep look at the issues that affect our moana the ocean.

Thank you for joining us today. Tai tōrua is brought to you by WWF New Zealand and Te Papa Atawhai the Department of Conservation and thank you to those organizations for making this series possible and also to the team behind the scenes. I'm your host Elisabeth Easther and with five panelists today I vote we get straight down to business and make the most of this 75 minute session.

Throughout the course of this webinar series we heard calls for faster and more effective marine protection in our waters but we also heard that there is a need to address some of the issues that typically slow down or delay protection of our underwater environment. Ideally we need to find out how we can address these issues and what needs to change to be able to be more effective in the processes that facilitate protection of our precious marine environment. So today's webinar people's choice and the topic is as voted by you protecting our marine environment in Aotearoa what are the challenges issues and opportunities but before I introduce our speakers a small handful of housekeeping matters which those of you who have joined us before will be very familiar with.

Chat. A chat window will be open for the next 10 minutes if you're having technical problems the behind the scenes team will assist you. Q and a. There is a q and a icon at the bottom of your screen if you click on that a box will pop up and you can type in your question although questions will be filtered to avoid duplication and any that are off topic will be removed. Bearing in mind we have just one hour and fifteen minutes we may not get to answer every question but you can also email marine@doc.govt.nz and voting if a question appears that you wanted to ask and rather than ask it again give it the thumbs up and that will move it to the top of the list and I will endeavour to ask the questions with the most votes first. Recording. This session is being recorded and will be put on youtube today's session will be uploaded tomorrow on the WWF New Zealand channel where you'll also find all our other sessions. Finally to reiterate, our kaupapa our guiding philosophy it's very simple whatever you say today and comments or questions please be respectful.

Kia ora. Now to the exciting stuff. Today we are delighted to have joining us through the magic of zoom Moana Tamaariki-Pohe, Dr Peter Longdill, Peter Burkhardt, Professor John Montgomery and Barry Torkington and we also have Katherine Short joining us using her years of relevant experience in this space to help delve into some of these complex issues during the q and a. And I’ll start now by introducing each of our panellists will have three to five minutes each to introduce themselves and their relationships to the topic our first panellist is Harry Burkhardt. Harry has served on the board of Ngāti Kurī since 2008 he's now leading his iwi through Te Ara Whanui or the many pathways a thousand-year intergenerational plan that focuses on restoring relationships and responsibility to Ranginui and Papatūānuku Kia ora Harry.

[HARRY] Kia ora. Well let me just start off by thanking those who have made this possible for us to have this conversation and as we walk through today my task is to frame a conversation that we can actually understand probably the pathology and the psychology of where we're going with a singular problem. It's complex and needs significant responses to change paradigms so just by way of an introduction you'll notice my surname Burkhardt is a long Māori name. No it's not. My father's swiss and my mother's Māori. What's interesting around my whakapapa is I have line of sight to 40 generations before when the first waka the Kurahaupō landed in top of the north island then I’ve also got line of sight to 25 more generations that were part of the kupe sailing Ruatamore who's a Ariki of us and the waka Taikoria.

Now before you all take your calculator and go 40 by 25 and 20 by 5 by 25, whakapapa is a really important way of building connectivity and particularly connectivity to whenua and moana. So the ways i'd like to kind of frame the conversation is using three waypoints and i'll try not to be provocative on the way through. So the three way points that I’m thinking about, and you'll all be familiar with these by the way, so these are not new conversations so my sense everybody in the room is in the room because they're looking for a solution or the solutions or be part of the solutions so let me unpack what I think those three waypoints are as a reflection. If people remember Leonardo Dicaprio's movie the 11th hour there were two bits at the back of it that just really hit me front center. One of them was a comment by southern baptist that the things that we were seeing around our global issues was a spiritual malaise and then the last comment was made by first nation indian who said when man is not here the earth will heal itself.

And I found those two thoughts really compelling because they were speaking to the pathology and the psychology of humankind at a deep level so then you go back to Rachel Carson mother of global environmental movement so we're all familiar with these stuff and we understand though the pathways or the way points on these journeys that we're on. I want to take you back to what I think even though those messages are kind of writings on the wall let me speak to you what I think the wall is. So when you go back to Māori creation stories around Rangi and Papatūānuku the western paradigm sees them as allegories. For Māoridom they're real and in those stories that define us and refine us they talk about responsibility reciprocity being part of an ecosystem.

There's a bit of lexicon that's sneaking in from a new world and how do we find our place in those relationships. From a Māori epistemology those are real for us because they speak about our connectedness to a spiritual world and a reciprocity around uh Rangi and Papatūānuku. Now what's interesting about those processes is when we come up hard against science and I really mean hard against science is if you accept my view that science is a doctrine and an ideology uh fundamentally when we introduce those things those paradigms that are important to us we come hard up against the hegemony and my sense is until we understand that and acknowledge that we're not going to be staring these solutions down in a principled in a moral way.

So if I can share with you from a Ngāti Kurī perspective what we think the solutions are uh there's probably three points one is build understanding the second one is build understanding and the third one is build understanding.

And what that's code for is the ability for us to share with a western paradigm the power of our epistemology how we see the world and what we've been privileged with is working with the science community up in the top of New Zealand because it's a hugely uh unique place both in the land and in the sea around letting them know how we see our world and letting them share with us how they see our world and what joins us is the passion of understanding so we call that mōhiotanga deep understanding. And the deep understanding allows us to have insights beyond in my view what a science um fraternity and of what a science doctrine doesn't bring to this table.

Now you're not scared of science you know we're part of that but what that does it allows us to create a whole different set of tools to stare down the challenges that are real to all of us. My sense even how we use lexicon and uh lexicon to unpick that place case in point is uh we're all wedded to a concept of marine protected area we've got a different view there we call those concepts puna ora places to heal for the ocean to heal itself. That's where Rangi and Papatūānuku bring those relationships together for the betterment of the earth. So there's a sovereignty component that's has got to be allowed to connect itself the second bit of that process is when you use those concepts that are part of us like dynamic rāhui then you start to get an understanding how you deal with the reality uh that we're in an environment and it's this is not about locking things up and throwing the key away it's about how do we manage those resources in an appropriate and responsible in a reciprocal way which is fundamentally our responsibilities using our framework.

So on that point I just want to close with a comment. I heard Peter Garrett say a couple of years ago and he said the modern zeitgeist is cynical of political processes and disdains its small victories and what I believe that Māori posit is the zeitgeist is not modern and yes I agree with them politics will not get us there. So Kia ora everyone.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Harry. I like what you said and I think building understanding and perhaps um circumnavigating politics uh um really salient.

And our second panelist we're hearing from is Dr Peter LongDill general manager sustainability at Sanford's, one of New Zealand's oldest fishing companies established by Albert Sanford in 1865. The Hauraki Gulf and Peter's not been around quite so long but he does have 20 years experience in marine environmental science and management here and abroad including time spent consulting to the UN and various governments here and abroad around aquaculture development. Kia ora Peter.

[PETER] Kia ora thank you and I guess i'll start off also by thanking WWF for putting on this series of webinars and also my fellow panellists today so it's very nice to see you here and look forward to a conversation later on in the webinar.

So my connection if you like with the ocean has been a lifelong connection I’ve developed it in the Bay of Plenty where I sort of spent my formative years. And the ocean for me has become a place of you know recreation and enjoyment is where I really started there. I've basically tried my hand at each and every ocean-based water sports there is and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. That interest if you like led me to a lot of studies in my work environment that I’m in now.

A lot of my research over the years has focused on the sustainable use of coastal and marine resources and in particular coastal infrastructure and aquaculture. One real focus area for me has been offshore aquaculture and its potential as a low impact uh sustainable food production system. And I’m certainly working on that aspect in my current role as general manager sustainability at Sanford.

So I guess my personal view when I stand back and look to the ocean I see the oceans as a place of nature a space for recreation uh a space for spiritual connections um a space for food gathering and sustenance a space for commerce and a space to create livelihoods. It's a real well-being space each one of those functions of course is very important and it's a challenge to balance their demands where there are competing uses and certainly, I think that's sort of one topic that we'll traverse today in terms of protection.

So in terms of that space in particular my personal interest in relation to the ocean's potential as a food production system when i step back and look at the global population the forecast if for approximately 10 billion people by the year 2050. So we need a food system at a global scale that can provide for those people within planetary boundaries. We don't really have that system at the moment. A lot of the current operating systems you know there's side effects and negative consequences that scaling up the existing systems is not suitable. So at a global level we really need to look to how that can take place how we can provide nutrition for people in a sustainable way protecting the things we need to protect and providing nutrition.

That as I see the oceans have a huge part to play in terms of potential aquaculture. Different species growth obviously there's limited scope to increase volumes in terms of fisheries wild harvest so I think we need to look beyond our traditional land-based systems more to the oceans and to how we can better use those resources.

So that's my brief introduction back over to you Elisabeth.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Peter I really appreciate you coming because you know there is a lot of clash between recreational commercial and fishing in these discussions this is where it gets really robust so we're really grateful to have you here thank you.

And just quickly before I introduce Moana we'd like to apologize. We believe some people were struggling to get on with the link quite a lot of people so if you know someone who was meant to be here and they're telling you they can't get on we've put the link onto the social media channels. So welcome to those of you who arrived late we do apologize and yes welcome and you can catch what you missed on YouTube because this will be loaded on YouTube tomorrow on the WWF channel.

So now to welcome Moana Tamaariki-Pohe. Moana is a member of the ministerial advisory committee sea change tai timu tai pari and the marine spatial plan as well as having seen the been the former deputy chair of the Hauraki Gulf forum Moana is also co-founder and president of the Ōrākei water sports club an iwi based community focused waka organisation among many other things.

Kia ora Moana.

[MOANA] Kia ora Elisabeth. Tēnā tātou katoa and thank you to WWF and Te Papa Atawhai for this amazing opportunity.

Kia ora. Ko Tāmaki Makaurau tōku tūrangawaewae
Ko Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, NgāI Tai, Waiohua nga iwi
Ko Moana Tamaariki-Pohe tōku ingoa

Hi I’m Moana true blue born and bred in Tāmaki Makaurau otherwise known as Auckland. I was born in Ōrākei and raised in Mangere. I say I have one foot in the Waitematā and one in the Manukau and I’m from everywhere in between. My passion for and my commitment to the environment in particular the Waitematā, Hauraki Gulf came from my father and to him from his father.

My father always said if you love something you have to take care of it. I love Okahu bay I love the Waitematā and I love the ocean across the world. I've swum with whales stingrays sharks and manta rays.

I along with my dad and my sister Donna and a group of friends started a waka-ama organization Ōrākei water sports in 1999. I say organization because the sport and the rec side is as a very small part of what we do. We use our waka as a vehicle to communicate wider issues such as the degradation of our marine environment. I was very fortunate to be involved in the mussel restoration project at Okahu bay led by Richelle Kahui-McConnell and Brendan Dunphy. We're now seeing the benefits. Tasting the benefits will come a little later.

Another project I’m really extremely proud of is the removal of the moorings in Okahu bay. Two weeks following the removal of the last mooring and the boat we were delighted to share the bay with a pod of dolphins and if anybody knew Okahu bay prior to that i think it was a dream that was far out of reach for a lot of people.

I was a former member of the Hauraki Gulf forum including deputy chair and acting chair before resigning in February this year. Through the forum I got to meet and work alongside some amazing people including the Neureuter family who are working hard to get some form of marine protection around the noises islands and the Hauraki Gulf. I'm currently a member of the ministerial advisory committee for sea change Tai Timu Tai Pari alongside some amazing other members my expertise is 50 years plus lived experience.

Mātauranga Māori. Māori knowledge that has been handed down through the generations I’ve seen the decline in the health of our environment and I’m committed to being a part of the solution. I'd love to encourage and empower the everyday person to come and get their butts wet and make a difference.

Martin Luther King said if you can't do great things do small things in a great way we can all do small things in a great way.

Nō reira tēnā koutou katoa.

[ELISABETH] That put a little lump in my throat. Thank you. I utterly agree yes we can do all of our small things that will turn to great things that's so true Kia ora.

So Kia ora now to Barry Torkington. Barry is an advisor to both the New Zealand sport fishing council and legasea with a background in commercial fishing and aquaculture. Chair of the New Zealand fisheries symposium in 2016 Barry has also served as director of Leigh fisheries and has been deeply involved in many aspects of New Zealand fisheries for over 30 years. Barry thank you.

[BARRY] Good afternoon and again thank you to those who have put this forum together. It's my first time involved in one of these so we're all learning as we go I guess.

But I come to this from a quite a long journey not far from where I’m sitting right now which is on the shores of the Whangateau harbour my father was a commercial fisherman as was his father before the war. I didn't ever meet my grandfather he died when I was very young so I grew up in amongst the shellfish and the fish and the scales and the wounds and the highs and lows of fishing. And I have my earliest memories are sort of the 50s the late 50s as a child with my father and his brother crayfishing out of here and they were the first ones that began crayfishing. So I had some strong memories of those and then fishing myself in the 60s on.

So I’ve had a lifelong interest in the ocean and in fisheries in particular. I have no particular qualifications except 70 years of experience and curiosity and a willingness to investigate be inquisitive. So the first point i'd like to make is that we're stuck in a little bit of a bind as we're seeking marine protection and we're seeking marine protection and the call for it is becoming more and more strident and wider. And it seems to me anyway that it's this driving force this this loudest voice is getting louder and louder as the general conditions of our nearshore fisheries decline so the worst state of nature becomes as people experience it the more they look for solutions the one solution that is getting more and more acceptance is marine protection.

And I can understand that I can see that I think in some ways it's misguided in that just as important or more important than marine protection is marine conservation in general and that you must have governance and management settings in place that are able to both conserve and protect and keep the nearshore ecosystems thriving and the food chain intact and keep all of those natural systems and functions operating or marine protection on its own becomes a little bit of a short-term gain. And we kind of saw a little bit of that at goat island where there a lot of the initial gains and restoration there was a blip as the surrounding state of the fisheries declined it also eventually affected the conditions inside the reserve as well I mean not to the same extent but they weren't divorced from one another.

And I think that my view is that we should look much wider. We should look at all the fisheries all the space all the inshore space and figure out management and governance settings to restore all of that to an abundant and diverse nature and so we're not so driven to find these little areas that we want to set up as MPAs as sort of a defence against all the other sins that are occurring out there. So that's the first point I think that marine protection without effective governance and management is risky very risky.

And the other thing is the second point I’d like to make is that with most of western capitalism now that we're trapped in this sort of short-term view where by what's most important is what happens next year and if we can get a benefit for next year even if it's at a long term cost we tend to take it. And western society has become more and more structured where your rewards are for short-term for delivering short-term benefits that's what you're rewarded for even if there is a long-term cost to what you're doing. And it's becoming more and more and more sort of ingrained and accepted and it's sort of known short-termism.

I think we've got to be careful that we don't fall into that same trap where we see marine protection and small areas locked up as a short-term gain but it's not the long game it's not going to get deliver us the benefits in the long game.

So that would be my two sort of opening bids and uh back to you Elisabeth.

[ELISABETH] …who hasn't uh done a zoom seminar before to have come up with that beautiful picture in the back of the Faroe islands and the salmon farm behind you in the traditional Scottish vessel. I'm very impressed because I actually still don't know how to do my own tiles at home. And also I did want to say that one of the things that we're talking about here marine protection is little areas yes that would be not as useful as giant areas. And I know that 30 percent is what's being recommended so I still feel quite strongly that 30 percent. Little areas no big areas yes.

And now we're going to ask our final panellist to introduce himself Professor John Montgomery. John is on the ministerial advisory committee a sea change tai timu tai pari marine spatial plan where he uses his expertise around fish sensory ecology both freshwater and marine in 1989. John was elected a fellow of the royal society of New Zealand and he's held numerous leadership and governance positions including director at NIWA and director of the institute of marine science at the University of Auckland. Kia ora John.

[JOHN] Kia ora tēnā koutou katoa. Greetings to everybody to my fellow panellists the audience and to our hosts thank you.

So just to give you a little bit of background in terms of my own connection to the marine environment. I grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau in Auckland on the north shore. I've always kind of been on the beach or offshore in one form or another. And I think the schools that I was at looked out over the Hauraki Gulf and I can still kind of recall as a primary school kind of looking out over there and just that's where I wanted to be essentially. I felt in prison at school I wanted to be out of there and out on the on the ocean. So i should have become a mariner but instead I stuck it out.

I was kind of heading down an engineering track had a 20 minute conversation on castle bay beach with John Morton who was professor of zoology at Auckland at that time. He flicked me over into the biology track which I currently took but you'll see there's still a bit of an engineering gene in me in terms of where my science has gone.

So I went to Otago university and then did a PhD at the marine laboratory in Plymouth in the UK came back to a job in Auckland and then got quite involved in the Antarctic program which was a fantastic opportunity to spend kind of most of 20 years at least in the early part of the summers down in Antarctica looking at the at a kind of completely I know green fields is the wrong metaphor but um ecosystem down there that I mean hadn't effectively been studied and try to understand the basics of that.

My kind of research from there is and partly inspired by the Antarctic situation and looking at the way in which the fish were able to survive Antarctic winters was looking at sensory systems and particularly non-visual sensory systems and trying to get a sense of how animals sense their world which is obviously totally different from what mammals and what we do. And there's a really extraordinary range of non-visual sensory systems in fish in general so the mechanosensory systems that detect very fine water movement the electrosensory system in sharks and one of the things that we've studied extensively over that period is how sharks actually process their sensory information to distinguish between what's happening in the environment that they need to know about and what's happening as a consequence of their own movements and their own activities. And that kind of takes me back to my kind of engineering side I guess one.

Of the main themes in what I’ve done is really interesting complex systems and the way in which modelling can capture what we know and what we don't know about those systems and I think it's fair to say that my research kind of history hasn't been in the area of marine protection it's been more on that. But I’ve become a real advocate of the modelling side of things and I guess one of the waypoints if you like for me was I was asked to give the opening talk at a international meeting in Oslo on globalization of the oceans. And my task was to look at the last 30 years of marine science and look at the progress that was made and what struck me most was that in the physical side of things there's just been enormous progress and if you like and it relates to climate change the reasons that we are looking at climate change now in the way that we are is that we have the models that predict how the future looks like. And when I compare that with the biology side of things the biology was still kind of really primitive. We're still in the business of kind of counting species and looking at that so adding the biology into the system is really complex but that's where I would like to see things go.

And we are making progress in that direction and I think if we can have predictive models that it does kind of resonate a bit with what Harry was saying but probably coming at it from a very different point of view understanding is would be my go-to as well. And for me that represents understanding complex systems in a way that we can actually make predictions that we can understand if we're making interventions what the consequences of those and could and would be.

So in terms of linking what I’ve done in my interests and my experience into marine protection. I retired from the university at least mostly a couple of years ago and things have kind of broadened out for me I’ve been working as the science advisor for the GIFT foundation which is part of foundation north looking at restoring the mauri of the Hauraki Gulf and that's kind of made me think much more widely about some of the local issues and what the potential interventions are. And then like Moana I’ve been part of the ministry of advisory committee which is implementing the sea change plan for the Hauraki Gulf and again that has kind of really opened up my kind of spectrum on what the issues are and perhaps what the solutions might be. So I’ll leave it there thanks.

[ELISABETH] …the old mute-y thing sorry about that. Kia ora John that was great.

And now we are getting to the q and a the panel discussion. So you will notice at the bottom of your screen we have a little q and a icon that is where you can add your questions and if you like the question that somebody else has already written thumbs up will help lift it to the top of the list. And joining us for the q and a is Katherine Short.

Katherine has worked in the marine space here and abroad for close to two decades and as well as being a partner in Terra Moana an organization that seeks to find sustainable solutions to marine protection issues Katherine is also a WWF New Zealand board director in training so welcome Katherine.

And to make life simple in this zoom environment I will be addressing questions as posed by the audience to individual panellists but if panellists are keen to answer a specific question or want to add something to someone else's answer we're using very old school classroom etiquette the raised hand so that's how we will be um communicating as we're all in different rooms. And also Katherine as well when you want to you know make your points if you can also raise your hands and I will come to you.

So just to start with a question for Moana. Based on what you have observed in your local marine area in terms of degradation and depletion what do you see as some as some of the solutions to turn things around?

[MOANA] I think really this one of the things that we've really concentrated on is getting that engagement with the wider community as well and addressing the hearts and minds of people. And that's what made the mussel restoration project Okahu so successful is the number of people that were engaged interested and therefore had a vested interest in the success of the program.

I like to think of Okahu as being kind of a little petri dish that we've done this experiment in and that then demonstrates that we can go from bay to bay to bay and my wish is that everybody experiences a pod of dolphins in their little bay.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Moana and Barry how well designed are our policy settings to your way of thinking in terms of underpinning effective management to ensure a resilient and productive ocean in Aotearoa?

[BARRY] oh big question. I don't think they're particularly well set at all. There's a number of statutes which all overlap in the marine space and all try to deal with the issues of marine management they don't fit together particularly well they tend to clash um and we end up with the latest one of the which is the regional councils being uh asked to intervene in the territorial sea in terms of marine biodiversity so it's a very messy and uh space legislatory and for policy.

The thing with policy is that there's never a silver bullet policy isn't that you go from a to b and everything's fine. It's not a set and forget. Policy is about making a difference about shifting making something better and that better can always be improved upon later on. So it's policy development a series of steps so I don't feel persuaded to wait until all the answers are in and all the questions are solved I think policy settings can be moved to make things better and for me that's good enough. But we don't sort of have a very good framework at the moment for allowing that to happen either through the RMA the fisheries act the marine reserves act or wildlife act or any of them none of them fit together particularly well.

[ELISABETH] is there a reason for that I mean when you know are approaching government organizations what does the result of a meeting?

[BARRY] I think that a lot of it's historical a lot of these pieces of legislation are old. Technology is developing very quickly and to jump off John's shoulder the modelling the ability of the capability of modelling natural systems is improving rapidly and all of these sort of tools and understandings are available now that would allow policy settings to change incrementally to improve to make things better. But we're trapped in a lot of 30 and 40 year old legislation which that was never anticipated and they require huge amounts of effort to move anything within these old statutes and yet the world seems to be completely there on you know in so many quarters.

[ELISABETH] and now actually I’m going to go back to Moana as we’ve had a lovely question come in um about the mauri of the Hauraki Gulf and my silly thingy is not um moving the question up. So we are asking how do you measure the mauri particularly and this is particularly asked about the Hauraki Gulf but what are the metrics used to kind of understand change? how do you measure um really it is about um when we when we used to talk about?

[MOANA] Okahu bay we would say it didn't feel good it didn't taste good it didn't smell good it didn't feel good to be there. And I’m happy to say that the mauri of that that bay has is much different now than it was two years ago. It's a felt experience you know when something's not right and that really is about the measure of the mauri if you're in an area. The Neureuter family out in the noises they've seen the degradation of that area over the years. I was there one year and went back over a period of time but four years later could see the difference one of them being there were no longer scallops there. So you know there are visual indicators and other as John says sensory indicators to suggest whether the health of an environment is good or not or has mauri or not.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora and I also apologize for that question answer I was trying to remember what it had been in the computer wasn't moving up to it. So I was and one of the other thing that the person did ask now I can see the bottom of the question was about the cultural health index.

[MOANA] A cultural health index I remember one of the reports that were written a number of years ago by Richelle. A cultural health index was how many bums in the air can we count collecting kaimoana and you know I can count on my nose how many people I see collecting shellfish around the bays and Tāmaki Makaurau. So to one day be able to go out there and see like I did my grandparents with all bums in the air and their kete they're collecting kaimoana that would be a cultural indicator I would say.

[ELISABETH] I like that we shall look for bums counting bums. And now a question for Harry. Harry we know you've done a lot of thinking around marine protection how do you think we can do things differently and what sort of outcomes do you think your solutions might achieve?

[HARRY} Big question. Yeah so in terms of uh our responses to our challenges from a Ngāti Kurī perspective is we've always seen the land and sea is contiguous so we don't have the natural divisions that maybe you're thinking through your lens. And then we know what wellbeing looks like is when there's abundance and the ability for one of the practices we do in our rōhe is we always collect kaimoana for our kaumatua kuia because not only is it kai but it's got a mauri in it.

And so we're looking for how do we amplify abundance and the current paradigm is to lock up big chunks of the ocean to reflect that approach and uh chile has done it and around rapanui Papahānaumokuākea one million square kilometers is another reflection of that as a concept. We think that's totally appropriate and then how might you in that context ensure that you're feeding your communities well so that's out of the abundance conversation and then the um the juxtaposition of that is how do we talk to say the packhorse cray fraternity about not fishing in our areas during breeding or how do we keep the commercial interests out while the snapper of parengarenga are in breeding mode so those are conversations they're tools to build abundance.

Our concern is fundamentally they become transactional tools as opposed to fully understanding that until papa uh mother earth has restored its sovereignty and we reciprocate to her first uh that these conversations will be transactional and they won't be sustainable.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Harry um also if I could please ask for Ravi to come in here I’ve lost my screen. I have a question now for Peter. In what ways can the commercial seafood sector work to promote inclusive marine environmental protection and sustainable resource use?

[Peter] Yeah um thanks um look in terms of what can the commercial seafood sector do I would say yeah a number of things. First of all let's say on the science and research side obviously promote and fund research into the marine environment. And I’m talking there not only into fish stocks and things which is already obviously happening to a significant level but beyond that into the wider ecosystem that supports those fisheries their spawning behaviour the nursery areas and even into these koopal biological and physical models uh that we heard John talking about earlier to really try and essentially just enhance and widen understanding around those things so that you know protected areas can be planned with a great degree of knowledge.

The other sort of things that the commercial sector can do I think would be to use the sustainable development goals. So those are 17 global goals that were set down by the united nations in 2015 crossing across all of society. And then in doing so and working towards those goals it really helps the helps business. It doesn't need to be seafood or fisheries business it could be any business really work towards these long term transitional changes that that really need to be made for society as a whole. And that partly is getting not passed but considering in other non-financial type measures of performance for business as well so putting a high level of emphasis on those and really including those into decision making.

The other thing I think that the sector could do is really promote and embrace innovation both in terms of operational innovation on the fisheries side species type innovation and purpose innovation on the aquaculture side towards regenerative solutions we we've heard about the mussel project in Okahu bay. And you know activities like that can could be supported and expanded. And I think also really being open to dialogue um internally and externally I think that's a really big one where we see you know different levels of engagement across the industry and I think that's a would be a very positive thing to do thanks.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Peter. Off the back of that and this can be answered by anybody but it is about the fisheries act. The fisheries act provides for environmental measures but fails in application to control damaging fishing methods, this is from one of our audience members, there is no effective benthic protection and that is by this is probably not chance but a reflection of the power of the trawling oligarchs how do we tackle the huge political influence of the four to five big companies and the unhealthy influence on what does and does not get researched and measures for environmental protection that are not adopted?

[PETER] I'll have a first go Elisabeth. I think first of all look that you know in some ways yes the fisheries act deals with one part of you know the marine environment and there's a whole range of other you know regulatory acts and tools and government ministries and departments that deal with other aspects of it. And yeah that sort of segregation causes a little bit of discomfort in some areas for sure. But certainly there are benthic protected areas that are you know well known and observed. So that part of things you know let's say of course there can be a wide debate about whether they should be expanded or extended but you know there are areas that are defined that's I guess the first part but certainly I think the the idea of you know for the benefit of ocean management and coastal sea management combining a lot of these different policy instruments that are distributed across government various ministries and departments could be certainly something to think about and at the right time have a dialogue about.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora and Barry your hand went up at the beginning of that question.

[BARRY] Yes thank you yes and that is a big question as well and it's got a number of facets to it and one is that those provisions are in the fisheries act and it was always intended that the fisheries act would be used to mitigate and remedy the environmental effects of fishing. It wouldn't require an additional act but for one reason or another they have never really been developed. And I think the juries well and truly in on the damage that occurs from mobile fishing gear on the bottom to benthic habitats and that it's pretty much accepted that there may be there may be in places where the damage is not so great on sandy bottoms.

But a lot of the a lot of the area now that's been trawled what happens is that the fine sediments are re-suspended and come up into the water column and slowly settle again and those disturbances over time really change that what the species assemblages on the bottom and that has a effect on productivity. And there are lots of areas along the coast here particularly the northeast coast where locals could readily identify areas where there shouldn't be any bottom contact. They know that there's sort of semi-foul ground and fragile communities living there or in a lot of cases now have been living there in the past aren't there in the future. But there are still very strong calls up north for stronger protection on the bottom and I think that's a very interesting question on why the fisheries act has not been used to further do that.

And that's the short answer to it is that the fisheries act and one that we've got now relies on what they call a rights-based system so you give the fishing community the right to catch a certain amount of fish and then you want to keep out of their way and let them do that how they choose the most efficient way they can or whatever. And that sort of that sense of entitlement and right that comes with that extractive right of fishing that has sort of developed a lot of power in its own right and and worked against any kind of interference or intervention from government department.

I think it's a big question I think it's up in the air and it's way overdue for being addressed being squared up to properly and having a conversation around where it might be okay and where it may not and for those communities who really do not want to see it out in front of their place they should they should have some way of having those needs met.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Katherine I saw your hand go oh and Harry i'll come to you in a second Harry Katherine you had something to add.

[KATHERINE] Thanks. Kia ora koutou thank you all very much for the opportunity to be here and to WWF and DOC for hosting this. And this this goes to the nub of my confusion. Been home in New Zealand now for nine years and I spent the first five six years asking questions about section 9c of the fisheries act habitats of significance particular significance for fisheries management. Really we haven't defined that? So my question to the panel to discuss in a bit more depth is why has that piece of the fisheries act not been unpacked and implemented and surely the RMA intervention as you call it Barry in in the bay of plenty is actually an opportunity for coastal marine health restoration at least with the current tools that we have who would like to have a go at that?

[BARRY] I'll have a first crack at that thanks Katherine. Yes I agree that the bay of plenty experience and it's happening in the northern regional council as well it has really shone the light on this deficiency that there are these principles within the fisheries act that are designed to mitigate the effects of fishing and they have just remained virtually unused not even acknowledged. And I’m sort of hopeful and I think in a broader sense that front end of the fisheries act is actually unfit for purpose now one of the reasons that we end up in this environment that we're in now is that the purpose of the act the principles of the act they are not serving us and in the part three are not no longer fit for purpose. And it may well be that the forthcoming rewriting of the RMA that will have to I would think would have to occur alongside a reform of the fisheries act as well it would be inconsistent to do one without the other because there is such an overlay. As Harry says this contiguous nature of fisheries and land you can't really it's illogical in my view to try and have these keep them separate as if one is one is is blind to the other. And uh I think the whole front end of the fisheries act is unfit for purpose now it needs to be rewritten.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora John can we go John and then Harry will come back to you on this Harry actually Harry Harry was next sorry John I have to be fair in here Harry.

[HARRY] You'd make a good school teacher well done. So the bit I wanted to kind of think through is from an iwi perspective we have fisheries allocation and so we can be seen as part of the problem point one. Point two is as I was part of the futures of our fisheries piece of work led out by Rob Rob Fenwick and what was really interesting for me is there was no trust in the room from anybody and how they reflected that was using legislation to draw lines in the conversation. And to your point Barry we all recognize that the legislation's not fit for purpose but it needs a both political will and political courage to take it to the next level now.

We're sitting we've been holding the pen I mean I’m talking about Ngāti Kurī been holding the pen around redrafting the Rangitāhua ocean sanctuary bill to reflect those aspirations we have from our corner. And the conversation I have that is from their corner is when is the right time to go with this because it's highly politicized and my that's my frustration with the process and that was why I use that last comment in my rollout is we fundamentally can't rely on legislation to reflect our moral purposes because it's always behind the curveball. So we've got to lead from the front and maybe you go first Barry and break the law and we'll see you in jail maybe that's probably the approach yeah we'll send you we'll visit yeah yeah yeah we'll visit you.

[ELISABETH] Thank you very much and John.

[JOHN] Kia ora so I think we're looking at issues opportunities and solutions so I guess from a science point of view I was just thinking that there are some opportunities here. I mean one of the reasons that ecosystems based management and the environmental impacts of fishing I don't think have been taken account is that we don't have very good ways of actually seeing those directly. So and this is a global problem it's not unique to New Zealand. So if we could come up with a means of doing that through I know there's been a lot of progress in precision harvesting which you could use for stock assessment and various methods of fishing and just in various methods of actually observing and seeing what those impacts are then those technologies would have a global market. So I’m just saying that there are some opportunities here if we can sort this we may be able to generate um an additional kind of commercial dimension to what's currently happening.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora John and now there's a question here that's coming that I’m really interested in it's again it's really massive but it's so pertinent um population increase is inevitable most presented premises seem to be ongoing back in time to when we had more marine resources for less people we are more people for less resources how you deal with that conundrum how do you deal with that conundrum without restricting access to the resources? who wants to take that on?

[BARRY] Oh I’ll have I’ll just say that yeah I’ll go to jail I think it's obvious that there is a need to restrict access to the resource and the more demand there is for it probably the more restrictions are required. And you know picking up from Harry whether they're voluntary amongst ourselves as civilized people or if they're in legislation whatever but there's a sort of an inevitability about that as more people go I’d just like to bounce back from on to what John just said about ecosystem-based management and you know what we might do about it. Well I’ve asked quite a lot of people around the world uh professional scientists modelers about it and the one of the suggestions is recommendations is that don't get too hung up on understanding all the ecosystem inputs and outputs and all the functions and how they might all be measured and described and indexed and used in the first instance make a broad allowance from for them so instead of we can do a model make a model which will give us a maximum sustainable yield at a stock size of 40 per cent of the original for example.

I say that's all very well but you're not allowing very much ecosystem services so what you do is you build the buffer on top of that so you say okay well let's make it 50. So if we don't reduce stocks to below 50 percent of their original unfished size or their current unfished size we are making a huge improvement on the current state of nature yields will be higher the ecosystem functions will be stronger the food web will be far more resilient. And we don't have to be able to describe that in all this detailed way is that we can use that reset policy this is what I mean by resetting policy to make things better not necessarily perfect they can all be improved upon later on. But we can change policy settings quite simply and quickly to make things substantially better. To do it we're going to have to make an investment because we're all going to have to go and forgo catch for a while to rebuild stocks but there will be a long-term dividend for us and those who are following us which is just unquestionable and I’d like to see those sorts of conversations taking place where we have some quite simple tools available to us to make a considerable long-term difference. And it's not a panacea it doesn't fix everything or anything like that but it's just an example of how you can move make a substantial movement for the better state of nature without having to go through a lot of tortured route to get there.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Barry

[KATHERINE] Sorry had to find the unmute um thank you Barry um I mean yes New Zealand is discovering EBM now. It's been in practice around the world for a good 20 years in different contexts and there's a lot of really good thinking going on here which is which is great and well due. That forego catch point for a while um so often the finger gets pointed at the commercials who are the ones who should forego catch. It would be really interesting to hear uh Moana and Harry from your own local perspectives customary perspectives and commercial insights you may have as well as Peter commercial and Barry recreational would everybody be prepared to forego catch for a while in the nature of people coming together to enable that uh recovery or at least the intention of recovery to occur?

[HARRY] From our perspective we'd love not to fish at a commercial level but you've got to fully understand the trickle down of that. So there's a whole lot of businesses that sitting behind it that have those have certain repercussions. Even better if someone paid us not to fish think about that model. That'll be so cool yeah then there's another component in that as you drill down through those opportunities we've just got to be careful about I was going to say catastrophizing but it's probably not the right word. Yes we do have an opportunity to feed 40 million and yes we should be chasing it. I met with 30 primary sector council primary sector leaders week before last and to say if we want to do that we need to feed our own first so there is a moral responsibility to ourselves before we can go offshore. So how might we do that in the nexus of feeding ourselves properly as well as feeding many.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Harry. Moana did you want to add something to that?

[MOANA] Yeah while the conversation was going I was thinking of I’m fortunate to have been raised by a dad who lived by the maramataka. He never said that that's what it was so when this word started coming up I’m thinking oh okay but my dad lived by the maramataka. We took what we needed we didn't take any more than we needed. You know there were always conversations in the house about what size fish was best to take and what species of fish was best to take when and I think really if we start communicating I don't want to say educating because that's just so but if we start communicating with people about the why we need to do what we need to do that might encourage and empower them to take a stand for themselves. I think in New Zealand and probably around the world our wastage of food is just it's just disgusting so how much are we wasting how much are we taking that we don't need to be taking so if we put the onus back on ourselves as individuals and be responsible for what's happening in the environment. And I think it comes with good clear communications um information and knowledge is key.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora oh that reminds me of a lovely story that Sue Neureuter tells of her dad when they were growing up on the noises or having their holidays on the noises and if they caught too much fish if the kids you know went and just were fishing for fun their dad would make them stay at the table until they'd finished eating the fish that they had over fished and you don't do that more than once. I mean even a kid's going to learn that lesson and I think maybe if we made people eat you know fast… oh Peter?

[PETER] I was just going to say as little as sort of following on a little bit from what Katherine said that often the sort of the attention focuses towards the commercial sector here and you know really I think that conversations to date it's the different you know commercial sector recreational sector customary that positions become entrenched very very quickly. And then the discussion sort of gets to a certain point and sort of it more or less stops but you know look the time you know perhaps is coming and I think there are there's a lot of things that all parties in this discussion can agree on and if we try and work to start the conversation based on what we all agree on which is healthy oceans that can provide you know a great food source a source of livelihoods and well-being and then sort of try and work from there before getting too quickly into these entrenched positions you know pointing towards a different sector absolutely.

[ELISABETH] And we do have to wind up now which is a terrible thing but I am going to ask one very quick question to each of you for a very off-the-cuff brief answer we are approaching an election and I’m going to extrapolate from one of the questions we've got here that and I’m going to change it a little bit what is the most important question to communicate it says to public and organizations and government? But I’m going to say we're all going to be knocked on the doors of if COVID allows by politicians and rung what is the one thing that you think in order to enhance marine protection people can say to that politician or that representative that you want to see happen so if I could just go around the group from the order that I’ve got Barry what would you get somebody to say to their local politician?

[BARRY] I would ask them to support the New Zealand sport fishing councils do they support the New Zealand sport fishing council's fisheries reform package rescue fish. And you know they probably have a blank look on their face and never heard of it. So start reading brother and tell me where you stand.

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Moana what would you tell a politician or ask people to share with their representative.

[MOANA] I'd ask a politician whether they were prepared to put the mauri before the money

[ELISABETH] I like it and Katherine what would you tell your government representative

[KATHERINE] habitats habitats habitats habitats and habitats

[ELISABETH] Kia ora John oh John unmute yourself sorry I do that all the time too

[JOHN] Yeah yeah no it might be quite a long conversation but just basing on what Moana said i think actually putting some of the money into restoring the mauri

[ELISABETH] Kia ora Peter

[PETER] I would ask what is your ocean's policy and listen to what they say or don't say or the expression on their face and take that as a guide

[ELISABETH] Kia ora and Harry to the politician

[HARRY] Yeah deliver on Rangitāhua Ocean Sanctuary component because that’s our beacon of hope

[ELISABETH] Kia ora and so sad that that is all we've got time for because we were just getting stuck into the you know the nitty-gritty of things so thank you all so much for taking the time to join us today it has been an amazing session I have taken an awful lot away from it.

We do have an evaluation survey that we're sharing a link in the chat box and we would love for you to please copy that link into your browser and after the closing karakia spend a couple of minutes completing our evaluation for this webinar this information is super useful to us as you never know we may decide to plan more of these webinars and we want to make them as effective and helpful as we can. I'm so glad you could join us today thank you so much to our panellists Moana Peter Harry John and Barry and of course thank you Katherine we deeply appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and thank you also Katherine for the extra incisive questions to the behind the scenes team for making things run so smoothly even when my screen goes blank you rock. And to all of you for watching and asking such salient questions we are very grateful for additional queries or comments please email marine@doc.govt.nz and to close now I’ll hand to Moana Tamaariki-Pohe for a karakia.

[MOANA] Kia ora tēnā no ra tātou Kia hora te marino,
kia whakapapa pounamu te moana,
Hei haurahi mā tātou I te rangi nei
Aroha atu, aroha mai
Tātou I a tātou katoa

May peace be widespread may the sea be like greenstone a pathway for all this day give love receive love let us show respect to each other mauri ora.