To its supporters, the 620,000 sq km Kermadec Rangitāhua Ocean Sanctuary would be an underwater frontier, one of the few places left on Earth that allows us to truly imagine what the planet was like before large-scale human impact.
Dr Catherine Marshall visited the remote archipelago, 1000km north-east of New Zealand, on a heritage expedition boat. “The isolation of the Kermadec Islands allows a unique opportunity for its endemic species to flourish,” she tells Newsroom.
“It’s something that can only be appreciated after travelling more than 48 hours from the mainland to reach Raoul Island. We were privileged to see rare bird life such as the red-crowned parakeet, as well as Galapagos sharks and large schools of subtropical fish.”
To its critics, the proposed sanctuary is pointless virtue-signalling that would do little to protect the environment, and would be achieved only by seizing hard-won Treaty-negotiated property rights from iwi Māori.
After the failure of a last bid by former Environment Minister David Parker to ram through the law in the dying days of the last Government, it had seemed the plan was sunk to the bottom of the 10,000-metre deep Kermadec Trench.
However, with the publication of the new Government’s Parliamentary agenda, much of the previous government’s lawmaking agenda has been returned to the House – including the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill at No 18 on Tuesday’s Order Paper, under the name of Environment Minister Penny Simmonds.
Simmonds says, through a spokesperson, that she is receiving advice from her officials on the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill. “A decision has yet to be made on if it will stay on the order paper.”
If it does, it would be in the face of immense opposition from many in Māoridom – and most particularly from NZ First and its deputy leader Shane Jones.
“During the during the course of negotiations, obviously, these matters were covered off,” he tells Newsroom. “New Zealand First has no desire to see it survive in any manner or form. The bill faces relegation or, indeed, abandonment.”
Jones is also Minister of Oceans and Fisheries in the new Government, and says the existing marine reserve, out to the 12-mile limit around the small islands of the Kermadecs, is quite sufficient.
The waters are rich fisheries. “That area of our ocean has tremendous potential,” he says. “There is already a marine reserve there. It was agreed to in the 1990s by the fishing industry.”
“We’re not having the Pew Foundation and its protracted vanity pursuits rammed down our throats. It’s just not gonna happen.”
Shane Jones, Minister of Fisheries
The Kermadec Rangitāhua Ocean Sanctuary has been strongly supported by the US-based Pew Ocean Legacy Trust, which points to the area’s crucial biodiversity, featuring nearly 35 species of whales and dolphins, 150 types of fish and three of the world’s seven sea turtle species.
It is also geologically significant, encompassing the world’s longest chain of submerged volcanoes and the second deepest ocean trench, plunging to 10km underwater – deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
But Jones won’t have a bar of that. “We’re not having the Pew Foundation and its protracted vanity pursuits rammed down our throats,” he says. “It’s just not gonna happen.
“As a government, we’ve got a whole host of priorities going forward. And spending money on that distant subtropical location is not one of them.”
It’s a gift that keeps giving from former Prime Minister and National leader John Key. He famously and unexpectedly announced it in a speech to the United Nations in 2015. “The Kermadecs is a world-class, unspoiled marine environment and New Zealand is proud to protect it for future generations,” he told the general assembly.
The sanctuary law would completely ban oil, gas and mineral prospecting, exploration and mining, as well as commercial and recreational fishing. Key said it would support fisheries for New Zealand and its Pacific neighbours, through responsible management of ocean resources.
The bill passed its first reading unopposed the following year, and was referred to select committee – but that’s as far as it got before hitting heavy headwinds.
Jones says this week: “Look, I don’t want to speak ill of John Key. It has never passed. It’s no longer a priority.
“The approach that’s been adopted is to reinstate everything. And then there’s a variety of bills that are not aligned to our objectives. And they’ll be dealt with as the new year unfolds.”
It’s the second time New Zealand First has blocked the Kermadec sanctuary, in behind-closed-doors coalition negotiations. It did the same in 2017 in its deal with Labour, to the surprise and dismay of the Green Party, whose leaders thought they had won agreement to pass the law.
Jones is well-connected in the fishing industry, whose leaders have supported and donated to New Zealand First. He is a former chair of Te Ohu Kaimoana, the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, whose iwi shareholders own the country’s biggest fishing and seafood export companies – Moana NZ and half of Sealord.
Te Ohu Kaimoana has been a robust critic of the ocean sanctuary. It launched court action in 2016, accusing Key’s government of reneging on the Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlement. And it’s threatened to do so again.
The scale of the sanctuary would dwarf any previous New Zealand protected area, spanning twice the size of the country’s landmass. It would cover 15 percent of New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone.
And by the same token, its establishment would bar commercial fishing in an enormous area. That would be staunchly opposed by iwi fishing quota owners.
The main catch would be yellowfin and albacore tuna, but iwi haven’t been fishing the quota – they say they’re balancing development with conservation. There’s quota there, but in such small volumes that it doesn’t even support exploratory fishing.
“Taking our Kermadec rights would just bring the whole settlement process into question, and ultimately the integrity of the Crown as a Treaty partner.”
Pahia Turia, Te Ohu Kaimoana
John Key’s speech to the United Nations caught many in Māoridom by surprise. They had been awarded ownership of the quota in the Kermadecs in the 1992 Sealord settlement, and were unhappy at the attempt to unilaterally seize it back.
In negotiations with the Labour Government, iwi proposed $3 million a year compensation to not fish their quota for 20 years – about $60m in total. The Government countered with $60,000 for research, and an offer to write a clause into the law saying the 1992 Treaty settlement still held.
The truth, though, acknowledged by both sides, is that it was never about the money. Iwi say it’s about the principle behind returning their fishing and kaitiakitanga rights under the Sealord deal.
Pahia Turia, Jones’ successor as chair, says it’s not about fishing the quota either – it’s about having the right to do guarantees under the Treaty settlement.
“If we have governments that believe that they have the ability to unpick what were seen to be durable, historic settlements, when it suits them, then we’re all in trouble,” he says.
Turia’s mother Dame Tariana Turia left the Helen Clark Labour Government and marched against its law appropriating ownership of the foreshore and seabed; Pahia Turia has said Māori will do the same again if the Government attempts to seize their rights over the Kermadecs.
He says it would undermine all confidence in the Government negotiating Treaty settlements, like one with the country’s biggest iwi in response to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ngāpuhi claim report this week. “Taking our Kermadec rights would just bring the whole settlement process into question, and ultimately the integrity of the Crown as a Treaty partner.”
Shane Jones has reassured the commission that the sanctuary will not proceed. “We’ll move through the process next year and they won’t be surprised. They’ll be relieved. That’s all I’ll say.”
It would be a rare and wonderful initiative to be enacted if it were ever to come to pass. Surely Maori and the Crown are able to come together and form a co-operative venture which offers such important protection to the natural environment.