Every fish farm to have consent extended for 25 years

Environmentalists have heavily criticised a Government proposal that would mean every marine farm in New Zealand would have its consent extended to at least 2049.

The proposal, a blanket 25-year extension for more than 1200 existing shellfish and salmon farms, was the subject of a 10-day consultation period by Fisheries New Zealand with a small number of handpicked stakeholders.

About 300 farms must be reconsented by the end of this year, a significant increase compared with previous years. Many of these farms were originally approved before the passing of the Resource Management Act and have few or no environmental-monitoring conditions.

Some mussel farms were started in the 1970s and have never had an assessment of their impact on the seafloor. Extending the consents would mean they would continue to operate like this for another quarter of a century.

Oceans and Fisheries Minister and New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones said the policy was a result of his party’s coalition agreement with National.

“I’m looking forward to that happening sooner rather than later. We promised to bring a greater level of certainty.”

Gary Taylor, CEO of the Environmental Defence Society, told Newsroom he took the unusual decision of publicising the private consultation because of the disrespect it showed to civil society.

“The degree of consultation has been appalling, the timeline has been completely unrealistic,” he said.

The consultation document itself is just a single page, although Taylor and others were later provided with a set of slides during a ministry presentation held on the Friday before the Monday deadline for submissions.

The lack of detail meant Aquaculture NZ chief executive Gary Hooper was unable to say whether the proposal would raise environmental concerns for him, though he was generally supportive of it.

“We would be very supportive of the Government’s proposal to extend marine farm consents. That would enable industry to focus on productive pursuits that will take us into the future and realise some of the enormous potential that the sector offers New Zealand,” he said.

“The existing industry is the foundation for the future industry. Reconsenting involves a lot of bureaucratic practices that cost a lot of money, they take a lot of time, introduce uncertainty and fundamentally undermine the confidence to invest.”

Taylor argued the reconsenting concerns from the industry are overblown.

“I think they’re trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” he said. “The previous government was aware of these reconsenting issues and passed regulations to address them, so the National Environmental Standard for Marine Aquaculture 2020 sets up a process whereby regional councils can effectively waive through acceptable renewals without public involvement.”

As of last year, 61 farms had been reconsented under these regulations, with a review by the ministry showing the standards had “been effective and met their objective”. Some technical amendments were proposed by the review, as well as a bespoke consenting pathway for just eight mussel spat sites in the Tasman district. No blanket pathway or extension for all 1200 marine farms was suggested.

The environmental problems with the proposal are clear-cut, Taylor said, because the one-page consultation document specifies that no new conditions would be added to any of the extended consents.

Some of the 200 shellfish farms in Marlborough that are due for reconsenting this year were built over reefs, which the Marlborough Environment Plan now disallows. Though the 2020 regulations would allow them to be moved to 20 metres away from reefs, the blanket extension would mean these farms would skip that step and face no additional scrutiny for a quarter of a century. Most of the 200 have no monitoring conditions at present.

Six salmon farms in the Sounds also have their consents scheduled to expire this year. Half of them don’t have modern environmental discharge standards required as a condition of their consents, with one of these having no discharge standard whatsoever. These standards reduce the impact of the farms on the ocean and the seafloor.

Jones said the economic benefits of the move would outweigh any environmental costs.

“I’m more concerned about the resilience of our rural communities and needing to keep jobs going and international revenue than about snails and mangroves and relatively irrelevant, relatively minor issues.”

Taylor also said newly consented farms would be granted such a long consent period that there was little point scrutinising what happened there.

“This on the face of it would lead to worse environmental outcomes because the scrutiny of these farms on an ongoing basis just disappears. If you’ve got a 35-year consent that’s just been approved and you add 25 on to that, you’re good to go for 60 years,” he said.

Hooper pushed back, saying New Zealand’s aquaculture industry is internationally recognised for its environmental bona fides.

“Our products are recognised as premium seafood products. They’re revered both at home and in over 75 export markets, and acknowledged by influential, international NGOs for their sustainability credentials,” he said.

“You think of Monterey Bay Aquarium, where New Zealand is the only country where farmed salmon is given their highest rating. We have that same rating for our mussels and oysters as well.”