The sanctuary covers an area of 620,000 square kilometres around the five Kermadec Islands. The reserve, located in the South Pacific Ocean and about 1,000km north-east of New Zealand, will also have the 10-km deep Kermadec trench, the second deepest ocean trench in the world.
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Plans for a massive marine sanctuary at the Kermadecs, about 1000km northeast of New Zealand, have been announced by Prime Minister John Key at the UN General Assembly in New York. Fishing and mining will no longer be permitted in the area.
In a statement, industry lobby group Seafood New Zealand said it was working through the implications of the sanctuary, which had been announced without warning.
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary lies north of the mainland and includes a chain of islands and underwater volcanoes.
“New Zealanders value our coasts and oceans, which are an important part of our culture, economy and environment and we are committed to managing them sustainably”.
A Cabinet paper on the establishment of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary says that while the protected area will comprise 15 per cent of New Zealand’s EEZ, there is little viable commercial fishing in the area so no compensation should be paid. It’s an important breeding and feeding ground for a variety of seabirds, whales and dolphins, turtles, and an extraordinary variety of fish and invertebrates like corals, crustaceans, and molluscs.
“New Zealand welcomes the focus on the sustainability of the world’s oceans and marine resources – a goal which resonates strongly with our region where so many draw their food and livelihoods from the sea”, Mr Key says.
“We also need more flexibility in the types of marine protected areas that can be created, and a robust, independent process to consider prospective areas”.
He said the decision was taken now to give certainty to a Canadian company, Nautilus Minerals, which had applied for a prospecting permit covering an area that was partly within the sanctuary.
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“We’ve still got the Maui’s Dolphins to protect, water quality to improve, and National is taking an embarrassingly weak proposal on limiting New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions to the Paris Climate Change Conference”, she said, referring to the country’s commitment to reduce emissions ahead of a global climate conference in December. And yet, “only two percent is protected,” Smith added.
