New Zealand once led the world in marine protection. Now our underwater ecosystems are bottoming out. Why is stopping fishing so politically fraught? How might our ideas about marine protection need to change? And why, when our seas are in such desperate need, is it taking us so long to learn to talk to each other?
After 23 years, we have made the first tangible step towards recovery of the Hauraki Gulf.
Evolution is an arms race writ large—nature red in tooth and claw. With each generation, predators and prey refine their aggressive weapons and defensive armour, while males wield increasingly strange appendages in their battles over mating rights.
In the North Pacific off the coast of California, ocean currents and winds concentrate humanity’s detritus in a plastic soup around six times the size of New Zealand. It’s called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In 2019, a French long-distance swimmer named Benoît Lecomte embarked on an 80-day, 300-nautical-mile swim through the patch. While he mostly ploughed through suspended specks of microplastic, Lecomte also encountered items such as toothbrushes, bottles and fishing nets littering the sea surface. We now suspect life was here well before the plastic arrived: new research suggests that tiny surface-floating organisms such as jelly-like blue buttons, violet sea snails and by-the-wind sailors have long been caught up in the same currents and winds that aggregate the rubbish. Known to wash up on New Zealand beaches, these creatures are called the ‘blue fleet’. Samples collected by Lecomte’s support team revealed that three blue fleet species were more abundant inside the patch than outside. They also found evidence the creatures are reproducing, which suggests the area may play an important role in their life cycles—even though the ecosystem is crowded with man-made obstacles. In another recent study, a different research team identified 484 species of marine invertebrates living—and breeding—on bits of plastic rubbish fished out of the patch in 2018 and 2019. Eighty per cent of the species identified—including crustaceans and sea anemones—usually live in coastal habitats, but had survived the journey, over thousands of miles, to the patch. The researchers suggest this constitutes a new ecological community. Both studies have implications for ocean clean-up efforts, which could disturb surface-dwelling fauna like the blue fleet. For example, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation deploys giant nets to scoop up plastic—and presumably ocean creatures, too.
Almost two centuries after its discovery, an enigmatic bell is bringing communities together.
You might spot them on their hands and knees, grid-searching their section for weeds. Spending their Saturday carving perfect stripes—or even diamonds—into their ‘outdoor carpet’. Most of all, you will know them by their works. Meet the lawn addicts.
Taxonomist Roberta D’Archino is finding and cataloguing our marine flora, one dive at a time.
Two people have been counting albatrosses on remote islands in the subantarctic for more than three decades. Their research shows that at least one species is en route to extinction. A few changes to the way we fish could save it.
Virginia Woolf documents our melting glaciers.
Vol-biv, or “fly-camping”, is a sport of contrasts. First comes the earthly grind: you have to lug your pack—and your wing—up a mountain. Then, when you’re high enough and the air feels good, you step into empty space. You fly.
Lines on a map have led to countless conflicts over the centuries. But in Chad, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an environmental activist and defender of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, is using maps to try and avoid conflicts that are being exacerbated by the impacts of climate change.
Feeling like 2023 has been one state of emergency after another? Us, too. Being nerds, we looked at the data from Civil Defence. Short answer: yes, there has been a convergence of emergencies. The graph shows the number of declared days of emergency—both local and national—over the last 21 years. While it doesn’t show the number of people or size of area affected, nor loss of life, it does show that declared States of Emergency are on the increase. Apart from earthquakes and the pandemic, climate and weather play a role in everything. For our peace of mind, and for yours, we chose not to extrapolate the trend line to work out when we’ll reach a permanent state of emergency, 365 days a year.
We have 2.5 million feral cats in New Zealand; on top of that, about 44 per cent of households have at least one moggie. Females can have up to 200 kittens in their lifespan. But US scientists have discovered what might prove a breakthrough: a single-dose contraceptive injection that suppresses ovulation, apparently with no adverse side effects. In the two-year study, six adult cats—all named after former US First Ladies—were injected with an anti-Müllerian hormone transgene that prevents ovulation follicles maturing. Despite spending long days with a fertile tom, and some of them mating multiple times (meow, get it, Dolly and Barbara!), none of these females conceived. The control group—three cats who were not given the injection—had 21 kittens over the course of the study.
Scientists fear that the world's coral reefs could disappear if we don't do enough to reduce our impact on the oceans. But Dr Emma Camp sees a glimmer of hope in super-resilient corals that are able to withstand higher temperatures, greater acidification and lower oxygen levels and her research has shown that they could play an important role in reef preservation.
It was only a matter of time. In May, kaitiaki Rana Rewha (Ngāti Kuta) found 10 small clumps of fluffy green algae on the beach at Omakiwi Cove in the Bay of Islands, and raised the alarm. The clusters were exotic caulerpa—the invasive tropical seaweed first discovered at Aotea/Great Barrier in 2021, now detected on the mainland. Divers searched the waters nearby and soon found swathes of it at a dozen sites, the 16-hectare infestation suggesting the underwater weed had been quietly trespassing for several years already. Later, extensive surveillance dives discovered 200 hectares in the Bay of Islands had been infiltrated to varying degrees. This month, Biosecurity New Zealand and mana whenua declared a Controlled Area Notice and rāhui over Te Rāwhiti, banning fishing and anchoring in an effort to stop the spread. “But no one’s rocking up there today, with big salt bags, big tarpaulins, big suction dredges—there is no mechanism in place to get rid of it,” says Craig Thorburn from the Waiheke Marine Project. Previously, caulerpa response director John Walsh has said that eradication is untenable with current tools, and containment the only realistic option. But unrest is growing over the government response to the crisis. Seven North Island councils are calling for more money and support for both surveillance and eradication efforts. Mussel-restoration group Revive Our Gulf told ministers caulerpa should be treated like an oil spill or mycoplasma bovis—and funded accordingly. Lessons from overseas offer both foreboding and hope, Thorburn says. In Monaco, one tiny caulerpa patch spread to six Mediterranean countries and after 16 years carpeted 131 square kilometres—nearly half the size of Aotea. After just six years, fish stock dropped by half. But authorities in Newport, California, have successfully eradicated small outbreaks three times. When the latest was detected, a team was in the water eradicating within 17 days. We need a national rapid-response strategy here too, Thorburn says, ready to swing into action wherever caulerpa arrives next—imagine what it could do to the marine reserve at Poor Knights. Biosecurity New Zealand says it’s researching caulerpa’s impacts and sending a handful of experts and mana whenua to Newport to learn more about the vacuum dredge used there. In the meantime, communities are stepping up. Thorburn’s group got hold of a remotely operated vehicle—a kind of underwater drone—and is surveying the main anchorages on Waiheke three times a year, in the hope members will catch any infestations early enough to destroy them.
The Earth has always had a dynamic climate, but it has never changed as fast as it is changing now. In this series, created in partnership with Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative, we examine the forces driving environmental change and those devising solutions.
Researchers have discovered a potential antidote to death cap mushroom poisoning.
Fish are cold-blooded, meaning they rely on their surroundings to regulate their body temperature. So how do hammerhead sharks—which frequently dive deep to hunt—maintain a constant body temperature when they’re in the frigid depths? Turns out scalloped hammerheads hold their breath. Scientists tracking seven of the sharks off Hawai’i found that the predators likely close their gill slits on deep dives to preserve body heat—the first time this behaviour has been observed in fish. The discovery was “a complete surprise”, according to the study’s lead author, Mark Royer. “Although it is obvious that air-breathing marine mammals hold their breath while diving, we did not expect to see sharks exhibiting similar behaviour.” Across more than 100 deep dives, ranging from 418 to 825 metres beneath the surface, a device similar to a Fitbit recorded what each shark was doing. After a gradual descent, the sharks sharply and swiftly dive down. During that plunge, they can experience an ambient temperature drop of about 20 degrees Celsius. They remain at depth for about four minutes, hunting, before steeply ascending again. Throughout each dive, the shark’s temperature remains constant until part-way through the ascent. Computer modelling suggests that the sharks manage this by closing their gill slits, which are a major source of heat loss—an explanation supported by video footage of a hammerhead swimming at about one kilometre deep with its gills shut.
New Zealand Geographic is partnering with Rolex to bring readers a new series of solutions-based journalism. Publisher James Frankham explains more.
In the moment, says oceans photographer Richard Robinson, you’re thinking about the light, the water clarity, the framing. Getting the shot in the bag. But as he documented Antipodean albatrosses and marine reserves, certain scenes snagged in his mind. Eight months ago, Robinson and publisher James Frankham sailed to the subantarctic islands. The albatross colony on Antipodes Island was a flurry of big, loud, life. Dozens of chicks were scattered across a plateau. At about seven months old they were still babies, covered in fluff, but they were “ginormous”, Robinson says—standing as high as your hip. “It’s quite surreal, the size of them... And they’re just constantly calling for their parents. They’re sitting on their nests hungry, and they’re crying out for their parents to come back from the sea.” It takes two adults to raise a chick—one bird alone simply can’t provide enough food. And increasingly, the mother birds, which tend to forage differently from the males, are dying on longlines. So when Robinson and Frankham found a chick dead in its nest, its baby fluff a splotch of white against the moss, they had a fair idea what had happened. “The death of that chick would have been horrible,” Robinson says. He thought about it all through the three-day sail back to Bluff, and he still thinks of it now. “That bird just starved to death. And when you hear them calling... it wouldn’t have been nice, you know. That’s something that really quite affected me.” At the Poor Knights four months earlier, it was the rise of the long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) that left him stunned. Robinson loves the Knights—he’s been diving there for decades—but COVID-19 disruptions kept him away for a couple of years. He quite likes the urchin, too—he’d come across it now and then, and found it pretty to photograph. But on this dive he saw masses of the purple urchins, endlessly chewing. The species, though native, is exploding in number in our warming seas, and rationally Robinson knew the Knights wouldn’t be immune. Still, he’d hoped the area’s status as a marine reserve would help it withstand the onslaught. “I was shocked to see the numbers, the barrens of them there,” he says. “It just shook me.” We’ve already officially protected the Poor Knights and the Antipodes Islands, Robinson points out. “That’s not enough.”
For nearly a century, Rolex has supported some of the world’s greatest pioneers, explorers and scientists. Its founder Hans Wilsdorf actively collaborated with those who ventured to unexplored and often hostile places, scaled new heights, plunged to new depths or increased our understanding of the world and Rolex has continued his legacy through its Perpetual Planet Initiative.
Down in southern Te Waipounamu where I’m from, before European contact the fishing grounds had names. Tau-o-te-kāeaea, a reef where rays congregated. Hāpuka, off Ōraka where, well, hāpuka were caught. We fished from waka and earned mana serving abundant catches. Access was managed via whānau and hapū rights; in some areas these wakawaka, or allocations, stand today. We told stories about fishing, and at times fought wars over fishing rights. Later generations went to sea in sealing and whaling boats. Parties traversed Fiordland in ‘Maori boats’—big enough to pull up the beach and sleep under. From the 1940s, Ōtākou Fisheries ran 50 boats out of every port from Tīmaru to Jackson’s Bay. We were there in the southern crayfish boom of the 50s and 60s. My cousins ran cray boats in Fiordland more recently. Customary harvests overlapped with commercial activities throughout. This unbroken whakapapa of fishing only exists thanks to endless fights to preserve small scraps of the exclusive and undisturbed access to fisheries all iwi were promised under the Treaty. It’s a shadow of the rich fishing that should have been guaranteed. But the fishing grounds still have their names. The biggest recent fight was the Māori Fisheries Settlement. Local rights mutated into something more abstract: tribal entities ended up owning quota atomised across all of Aotearoa’s waters—though the end goal of providing for the people remains the same. Proceeds help capitalise other iwi businesses, and fund programmes promoting health, wellbeing and culture. That’s the kai that fisheries put on Māori tables today. So, when proposals for marine sanctuaries arrive that bear no resemblance to Māori concepts, or undermine connections to place, or are announced unilaterally at the UN to score political points, or seen as further eroding Treaty rights, or walking back previous commitments, it’s not surprising they’re rejected by iwi. That’s what just happened to the latest Government offer for a Kermadecs Ocean Sanctuary—a complex story we explore. But that isn’t the end of the conversation. It can’t be. There is overwhelming evidence that our oceans are in serious decline, that environmental disasters disproportionately affect indigenous communities, and that marine protection works—scientifically. What’s needed is to figure out how it can work culturally, and be co-designed in a way that doesn’t further dispossess indigenous peoples. From what we can understand from the outside, the iwi representatives who rejected the Crown’s Kermadecs proposal didn’t see it as an ending either. There was general support for marine protection, and another hui is in the works to begin figuring out what that might look like, starting from Māori first principles. We can only guess at some of the ideas that will be on the table, but they could include concepts of Papatūānuku or Tangaroa rather than ‘the environment’. It could include restraining fishing using time-based, reviewable rāhui rather than perpetual closures, or buying out and retiring quota to honour the Fisheries Settlement. It could mean prioritising rangatiratanga and connection to place, customary harvesting, or whānau involvement in monitoring and ranger jobs. It could involve scientific research and partnerships, and make use of decades of hard-won knowledge about what’s worked elsewhere—including the fact that protected areas boost overall fish stocks and catch rates. Whatever form this takes, it has to enhance the mana of our oceans, and all peoples. It also has to be done urgently. While no new rāhui or protected areas are implemented, oceans remain in freefall. We hope the Māori fisheries representatives who gathered in Wellington in June use their rangatiratanga to drive this forward, take on the best science, and figure it out.
Women And Photography In Aotearoa New Zealand 1860–1960. Lissa Mitchell, Te Papa Press, $75.00
A Future Forecast for New Zealand. James Renwick, HarperCollins, $39.99
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