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waterworld
Dotted about the
country are marine
reserves just as
spectacular as our
above-sea national
parks. Air New
Zealand and DOC
are working hard
to make sure they
stay that way.
Clockwise from above: Sunlight filters through the kelp and the water in the Marlborough Sounds; kayakers set out at Cathedral Cove; a fur
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D
ebbie Freeman was a lucky 12-year-old. Her
father taught her to scuba dive and Christmas
holidays meant hitting the road from Havelock
North, Hawke’s Bay, to dunk themselves in the
world-renowned diving drawcard that is New Zealand’s Far
North. One day at Doubtless Bay – a walk-in diving beach
– out of the blue came a whirl of golden snapper. She was
surrounded, their goldfish-orange jackets spinning a metallic
wall of colour all around her.
“Goldies” are not true snapper. They’re essentially a
coastal orange roughy: nocturnal fish that like a bit of
depth, they’re seldom seen schooling up at diveable
depths. Proof that it’s not just the sexy megafauna –
dolphins, penguins, whales – that leave a lasting impression,
today Dr Freeman is a marine biologist, working for the
Department of Conservation (DOC) as a science advisor on
marine ecosystems.
Her work typically sees her engrossed in what’s going
on in our marine reserves. New Zealand has 34 of these
“underwater national parks” and they are extraordinarily
diverse – from the subtropical splendour of the Kermadec
Islands to the frigid and fragile ecosystems that cling to our
subantarctic islands.
Besides being a popular ecotourism destination – and
the best known of our reserves – the Poor Knights is one
of New Zealand’s oldest safeguarded zones, with zero
commercial fishing across 2400ha of seascape since 1981
and no recreational fishing since 1998.
“When that total fishing ban was enacted, we saw
species recover dramatically – much faster than anyone
had expected,” recounts Freeman. “The number of snapper
“Everything that rolls
up on the beach or
grows on the rocks
is really important
to sustaining
everything on land,
from spiders up.”
increased 300 percent in the first
year, then to eight times the density
of fished sites, to the point where our
northern marine reserves are today
renowned for the abundance and
size of the fish you see when you go
diving. There are hundreds of snapper
that are up to 80cm in length – that’s as big as a child!”
And yes, you’ll actually get to see them. Fish are smarter
than we give them credit for: snapper learned to be wary of
humans in the days when encounters with speargun-wielding
primates tended to lead to a fish fry-up.
At the Leigh Marine Laboratory (overlooking one of the
seal in the Tonga Island Marine Reserve; a diver encounters an octopus in the Taputeranga Marine Reserve.
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details
world’s first marine reserves,
Goat Island, on the upper
corner of Auckland’s Hauraki
Gulf), scientists were initially
puzzled as to why they weren’t
counting many snapper on
monitoring expeditions. Then
they tried using unmanned underwater video cameras
with bait (instead of divers) and discovered the flighty fish
had been there all along: they were just giving humans a
wide berth.
That wariness has now been forgotten at Goat Island
and the Poor Knights. Big snapper follow you around.
(Fishermen, please do not cry at this point: while snapper do
set up house in reserves, tagging has shown that they can
also travel further than previously thought, beyond reserve
borders.) Add a stunning marinescape with ancient volcanic
rock formations like an undersea city, full of massive, seacarved archways and streets, sunlit sunken gardens, dark
caves and cavernous halls – and it’s no wonder it’s rated as
one of the world’s top 10 scuba destinations.
Air New Zealand is proud to be DOC’s conservation
partner, supporting such special places and has recently
extended this partnership, pledging support until 2017. The
airline already makes a difference to conservation efforts by
sponsoring biodiversity projects on New Zealand’s Great
Walks – a partnership with DOC to bring back some of
New Zealand’s rarest bird species to the national Great
Walks network.
Now Air New Zealand is looking after our sea creatures,
too, by supporting DOC’s National Marine Reserves
Monitoring Programme – that monitor species inside reserves
like the Poor Knights.
Air New Zealand head of sponsorship James Gibson
says the extension of the partnership with DOC is not only
important from a purely conservational perspective, but
also for the joy national parks and marine reserves bring to
visitors. “By protecting and enhancing the environments
themselves we also greatly enhance our own experiences
of them.”
Gibson has his own Poor Knights snorkelling story: the
sight of a large, violet school of blue maomao shimmering
around him while he was snorkelling is one he’ll never forget.
“It was a very cool moment. It’s amazing how quickly the
marine life responds and replenishes within the protection of
a reserve. With a little care, generations to come can share in
experiences like this too.”
Collaboration is vital to effective conservation, says DOC
marine ecosystem manager Sean Cooper. “It’s not just DOC
that cares for these places. It’s all of us,” he says. “Working
closely with communities is a really important part of our
“The reserves are living
museums where the
lack of disturbance and
increase in abundance
allows people to go see
what the New Zealand
coast was once like.”
Clockwise from top left: The beautiful, sun-splashed Goat Island Marine Reserve; Goat Island is as accessible to families as it is to scientists;
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Must-Do Marine Reserves
1 Poor Knights (day trips depart from
Tutukaka, Northland)
2Long Bay (Auckland)
3Goat Island (Leigh, North
Auckland)
4Cathedral Cove (Coromandel
Peninsula)
1
2
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5Taputeranga (Wellington)
6Long Island (Marlborough
Sounds)
7Tonga Island (Abel
765
Tasman National Park)
8Milford Sound
(Fiordland)
9Ulva Island 8
(Stewart
Island)
9
A diadema urchin in the Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve; snorkelling at the Poor Knights.
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“When you jump in the
water you just never know
what you’re going to see
there. Divers come often
come back with stories of
creatures that haven’t
been seen before”
Clockwise from top left: Underwater at Long Island-Kokomohua Marine Reserve; pink rhodoliths surround a clam in Tonga Island Marine
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work. We want people to get involved and ‘own’ our
marine environment, to look after it collectively.”
The Poor Knights is at an intersection between tropical
and temperate waters, meaning the best of both worlds
when it comes to species-spotting. “Because of the
subtropical East Auckland current, when you jump in
the water you just never know what you’re going to see
there,” says Freeman. It’s one of the few places in New
Zealand to spy subtropical beauties like spotted black
groper, mosaic moray and Lord Howe coralfish.
“Divers often come back with stories of creatures that
haven’t been seen before. Just the other day someone
spotted a beautiful sea slug that we didn’t know was
there. And you see some rare sights. In summer, for
instance, it’s renowned for spectacular squadrons of
stingrays aggregating in the archways for mating season.”
By global standards, New Zealand’s long network of
coastal marine reserves is extremely varied – the envy
of marine biologists abroad. We lead the field in marine
reserve research, and the same wealth of experience
avails itself to the amateur underwater explorer.
“The reserves are living museums where the lack of
disturbance and increase in abundance allows people
to go see what the New Zealand coast was once like,”
Sean Cooper says. “The importance to science is great,
but from a recreational point of view these are also
special areas.”
Like Freeman, Cooper was an early convert to getting
a Cousteau-style view of his surroundings. His first
tip backwards out of a boat was in Canterbury’s Lake
Coleridge. It was three degrees and there was absolutely
nothing to see. That’s keen. “I started scuba diving as
soon as I was old enough – I’d always been a water
person and that feeling of being free and weightless under
the water was addictive. No fences, no gates, the big
expanse – I loved that openness.”
After studying philosophy and art history, he went
travelling before returning to do a marine studies course
at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. That led to working in
tourism, as a guide on dolphin-swimming trips at Akaroa,
before a new job as a DOC ranger took him to Stewart
Island and the subantarctics, working on conservation
programmes within our southernmost marine areas.
What are they like? “Extraordinary. If you’ve been
to Stewart Island/Rakiura, you’ll know that strolling
through the terrestrial wilderness there is an amazing
experience in itself. Predator control means you can
hear saddlebacks and kiwi and you might even see kiwi
foraging on the beach. It’s like going back in time to
discover what mainland New Zealand was once like.
“If you get into the water around Ulva [a small, offshore
island and the focus of the Te Wharawhara Marine
Reserve], it’s the same. It’s worth taking time to explore
the area by both land and sea – do some kayaking, go
diving and see the wonderful colours coming through, the
fur seals and New Zealand sea lions rolling around in the
giant kelp.”
Far fewer people get to visit the subantarctic, where the
islands are steeped in tales of 19th-century shipwrecked
sailors. Cooper did research on the Antipodes and
Bounty Islands (far to the east and south-east of Stewart
Island, the latter discovered by Captain Bligh of mutiny
fame) and the importance of marine ecosystems to the
survival of unique land species like the gutsy Antipodes
Island parakeet.
A distant cousin of mainland kakariki, it lives in a place
where seed is scarce and forages on everything from
seal guano to nesting petrels. “Everything that rolls up
on the beach or grows on the rocks is really important to
sustaining everything on land, from spiders up,” Cooper
explains. “If the same variety of marine species wasn’t
there, those parrots, the local penguins and everything
else hopping about on the land would be affected.”
The same principle applies to mainland New Zealand.
Our coastline used to be full of marine mammals and
seabirds, and nutrition in their ecosystem starts with
phytoplankton and seaweed. The linkages are such that
marine reserves have a very important connection to the
abundance of certain land species.
A gleaming example is the largest penguin colony on
mainland New Zealand, at Flea Bay on the “wild side”
of Banks Peninsula. There, former farmers Shireen and
Francis Helps run Pohatu Penguins nature and sea
kayaking tours in between overseeing a conservation
programme that, thanks to predator trapping, nesting
habitat restoration, and a sprat-filled marine reserve
around Flea Bay, has seen little white-flippered penguins
buck the general penguin trend, breed like mad, and
increase their population over the past 25 years.
Every marine reserve has its own stars. Paddle
around Tonga Island fur seal colony and there’s a
chance a seal will jump onto your kayak. When Debbie
Freeman did her doctorate on Gisborne’s marine
reserve, she was sceptical about old iwi stories of
crayfish being so numerous that you could pluck them
from the shallows for dinner without getting wet. “But
when the marine reserve established, I began to see it
for myself – that’s the sort of glimpse into our past that
reserves offer.”
Once species are thriving, biologists can study them
in rare detail. “A lot of studies we can do only in marine
reserves now, because species can be too hard to find
Reserve; the humble blue cod; a Salvin’s albatross chick.
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New Zealand artist
Shane Hansen
created the original
piece, Dance of the
Hiwihiwi (above),
we feel lucky to
have gracing our
cover this month.
Its beautiful swirling
colours remind us
of how fortunate
we are to have
such abundance
in our oceans, and
the importance of
protecting it. It was
created especially
to celebrate Air
New Zealand and
DOC’s partnership
in protecting our
marine reserves –
see main story.
shanehansen.co.nz
Photographs Getty Images, DOC, Brian Mackie, Rob Davidson, Steve Wing, Rob Suisted, Photonewzealand
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elsewhere,” Freeman says. Take the cutting-edge New
Zealand science that came out of Goat Island. Auckland
University researchers were able to prove that increasing
densities of crayfish and snapper reduced the density of
kelp-grazing kina to the point where most of the kinaravaged “barrens” disappeared from the reserve and kelp
forest returned. The kina had been out of control because
there weren’t enough fish around.
Sean Cooper: “As an island nation we’re all heavily
reliant on the health of our marine area, from going to the
beach or bach to harvesting seafood. It’s part of who we
are, but we may need to think harder about how we look
after the environment so that future New Zealanders can
share those wonders. That’s why we do what we do. We
want to ensure there is a future that is both economically
sustainable and prosperous and one that we can enjoy.”
So, I wonder, can he himself bring himself to fish for
a spot of snapper beyond the reserves – knowing the
biological boom-times going on in the no-take reserves?
“Oh yes! I still fish, but I fish responsibly. As a conservation
manager, what I tend to worry about most is the cumulative
pressures on our marine environment, like eutrification,
pollution, sediments from our land use entering rivers and
ultimately smothering harbours and the seabed. Then come
the pressures from using the marine environment, both
commercially and recreationally.
“So there are a whole lot of environmental impacts going
on at once and, though New Zealand does a really good
job of managing those impacts, marine reserves are the
places that really show us what it’s all about. Go diving in
a place like Fiordland – where a fresh-water layer on top
of the seawater creates this rare situation where reduced
light allows beds of black coral to flourish in the shallows
– and you’ll never forget it. It’s the underwater equivalent
of the almost unreal nature we value in our national parks.
My hope is that we treasure the significance of our marine
reserves exactly the same way.”
story margot butcher
Clockwise from top left: Sea lions in the Auckland Islands; a butterfly perch in Fiordland; a clown nudibranch.
Air New Zealand is proud to partner with DOC’s
National Marine Reserves Monitoring Programme.
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