In 2000, New Zealand established the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park. This was the first marine national park in the country, covering 13,900 sq km (5,370 sq mile). The park’s objective was to protect the gulf’s “life-supporting capacity”, its nature and its history. The legislation required local councils and government departments with jurisdiction over the gulf to consider these objectives in planning or fisheries decisions.

However, with the exception of a handful of tiny marine reserves (0.3% of the park), commercial and recreational fishing was allowed to continue. Sewage and stormwater overflows, and discharges of fertilizer and effluent have added to the pressure.

Today crayfish are functionally extinct in most of the gulf and with snapper also seriously depleted. Kina barrens –forests of sea urchins – are proliferating. Twenty years later, the creation of the park, has failed to prevent ecosystem collapse. Simon Thrush, head of the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Auckland, is arguing for immediate action on every problem at once: more marine reserves, a halt to trawling and dredging, and more efforts by developers and farmers to keep sediment out of the gulf. Although more research is necessary, too, he called for action on the studies already done: for example, his research in the 1990s demonstrated the negative biodiversity effects of bottom-impacting fishing gear, but fisheries management has not adapted to the problem.

“We need agencies to not just commission another report and have another meeting, but to do something,” he says. “We need citizens to vote appropriately. We want as many people as we can to stick their thumb in the dike.” Click here to read more