From the short life of an octopus to protecting our seas

Recently I was pointed to 'My Octopus Teacher' on Netflix, one of those films that escapes you into a little known underwater world far removed from our everyday terrestrial existence.

South African documentary filmmaker Craig Foster relates how he began diving daily in the kelp forests that wrap around the southern tip of Africa and where he followed the life and adventures of an octopus.

The area was dubbed The Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese King Joao II in 1488, a name has become something of a metaphor these days for our planet’s survival.  
I highly recommend My Octopus Teacher for the added inspiration it gives us to go diving and also to help adjust our perspective around the significance of our oceans, and how the life in them sustains us.

Foster’s love affair with the octopus appears to be reciprocated. At least that’s what he came to believe. The experience certainly affected him profoundly. He says, “It made me realise just how precious wild places are.”

“What she (the octopus) taught me was to feel that you’re a part of this place, not a visitor. There’s a huge difference.”  

Inspired by the octopus Foster went on to found The Sea Change Project, a community group aiming to protect South Africa’s marine environment by making the Great South African Sea Forest a global icon.  

He says: “Our African ancestors lived here for hundreds of thousands of years and left us with a completely intact ecosystem. It’s our duty to do the same for our children.”

So here in New Zealand, do we hear a similar call to duty? Certainly there is no lack of community and national groups aiming to tackle different parts of our marine protection predicament.

But let’s be honest. Over the last 50 years we have dallied around the issue of marine conservation. And deep down we know that so long as we keep on using economic gain and loss as the key indicators, not to mention motivation, for our protection of the environment, the consequences of our actions will always be limited. Partly because our understanding of what is economic in the long term is so severely limited.

We’ve been making such slow gains that now we find we’re up against a rapidly closing out time frame. We will need to do much more, and act far faster, if we’re to save our planet from the rigours of a rapidly changing climate.

"What she (the octopus) taught me was to feel that you’re a part of this place, not a visitor. There’s a huge difference…

The outline

This is to be the first of a series of three articles. Here we’ll explore the current state of health of the oceans near New Zealand, going over what must be done do to give them, and ourselves, a future fit for our children and grandchildren.
This first article focuses specifically on marine reserves in New Zealand: What benefits do they deliver, and what challenges do we need to face up to, to enhance those benefits?

A second article will be to review what’s being done to reserve marine space in the rest of the world, and the opportunities to connect marine reserves across all oceans. A third article will look at what is the extent of the challenges facing New Zealand and the rest of the planet. What trajectory for humankind should we follow if we are to preserve our natural marine habitats for future generations.

In the beginning

Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve (Goat Island) was the first marine reserve in New Zealand, established in 1975. At first it was proposed mainly for scientific purposes.

Then followed many years of debate and planning between the various interest groups over the value of such reserves. Objections from recreational fishers and other interest groups subsequently slowed down as Goat Island not only proved to benefit the seas and fisheries nearby but also offered a wonderful place for locals and tourist to visit.

Even then it was not until the early 1990s that a steady list of additional reserves began to be added. It was if our collective national mindset had moved further along on the conservation spectrum. Today New Zealand has a total of 44 marine reserves though many are very small.

The purpose

Forest and Bird refers to Marine reserves as the ocean equivalent of national parks - places where marine life can breed and regenerate with less disruption from humans. They are often defined as areas off-limits to all “destructive” and “extractive” uses. (For example bottom trawling is “destructive” and fishing “extractive”).

Marine Reserves allow marine life the space where eco systems can exist largely as if man were not part of the equation. They represent a place where the eco systems can act as a sort of control group allowing for measures of relative health compared to other non-protected areas.

"Our current figure still stands at .0035% if we only count the marine reserves around the coastal shorelines of New Zealand…

Of course marine reserves help increase species’ diversity and density, and if established before serious degradation, and after some years of protection, they offer guidance on the health of ocean systems.

More positives

A number of studies confirm the various positives deriving from marine reserves. In addition to providing habitats for ocean science, they act as living ocean parks to explore and wonder at, where we can experience places and see things that only flourish where there is minimal human interference, a great boon to tourism and especially for activities such as diving and snorkelling.

Goat Island Marine Reserve boasts annual visitors of around 300,000 people, visitors who spend money on other things in the surrounding community. It demonstrated early on that by far the most effective method of winning over people’s approval of marine reserves is to give them direct experiences in and around them.

What works best

In 2018 an international study of the various types of marine protected areas considered the most effective was undertaken by Sala and Giakoumi and published in the ICES Marine Science Journal. It found that no-take marine reserves are very effective in restoring and preserving biodiversity, and in enhancing ecosystem resilience. It concluded that the reserves provided on average 670% greater protection than adjacent unprotected areas, and 343% greater protection than partially-protected areas.

In New Zealand, several studies recently have, for instance analysed sediment samples in reserves. One in 2008 by NIWA (National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research) looked at where there had been a 30-year fishing ban at Separation Point near Nelson with adjacent fished areas. The analysis showed the reserve area sediment was very coarse, full of shell, and poorly sorted, whereas the adjacent fished areas had sediment comprised almost entirely of soft muds. Other studies have confirmed a greater richness and biodiversity of sediments within reserves.

"The reserves are mostly disjointed, tending to serve as a sort of localised “gaol” for wildlife where, if species stay in the gaol, they are safe...

Bill Ballantine, considered the “Father of our Marine Reserves,” spent a large part of his life advocating for their establishment. In 1999 he reviewed his 35 years of experience concluding that progress was slow but continuous.
He suggested a marine reserve is a proactive rather than a reactive form of marine preservation.  

By contrast, marine protected areas are fraught from the outset with rules, legal frameworks, and vague definitions because they are reactive – as in reacting to diminishing numbers of fish and other species. Ballantine defines areas of partial protection as stock specific and data-based, effectively putting rules around what man can and cannot do in a specifically identified area of protection. An example of the stock and data he refers to is that 98 of 169 commercially caught fish species are managed under the QMS (quota management system).

The 'jail' effect

At present New Zealand’s 44 legally protected marine reserves cover 19,903 square kilometres, estimated to be 11.8% of the 167,650 square kilometres comprising our territorial seas defined as the area within 12 nautical miles of the coast.

The reserves are mostly disjointed, tending to serve as a sort of localised “gaol” for wildlife where, if species stay in the gaol, they are safe. But if they go even so far as approaching the reserve’s border, they face increasing risk though of course unaware of any such boundary.

Goat Island Dive and Snorkel owner Tine Roland says she sees crayfish pots placed around the perimeter of Goat Island Marine Reserve, and suspects a lot of poaching goes on.

To counter this gaol effect how might we create a meaningful network of reserves between which marine species can migrate to help safeguard their protection?
Ballantine argued that a network of marine reserves, with the distances between them being not too great, was vitally important to enable various life forms to move between reserves.

Size (and shape) matters

The size of a reserve is significant. In general, it is thought a reserve needs to be twice the size of the foraging range of its focal or target inhabitant species – with each species requiring different sized areas to flourish. Some sea turtles for example forage over a huge range whereas many species survive well in a fairly small area.  
Square areas or circles are also considered more effective than elongated reserves in areas that are extensively fished around their perimeters, and of course, a healthier reserve will lead to a more abundant food source and help reduce the size needed to forage.

A study carried out by Colmar Brunton for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) in 2011 found that even though less than 1% of New Zealand’s total marine environment is protected in marine reserves, respondents on average thought that 31% of the environment was protected, and they wanted 36% to be protected. This suggests firstly, that New Zealanders are in general on-board with protecting marine life, but unfortunately it also shows a mismatch with our level of knowledge of what is actually the case.  

How much is needed?

No one has the answer to the exact amount of our oceans that need to be protected by marine reserves to put us on a trajectory that will save our oceans.  

Greenpeace suggests the figure might ideally be around 40% and Sala and Giakoumi mentioned earlier, believe 40% is a minimum figure. Ballantine put a figure of from 10 to 50% and suggested back in 1999 that we start by aiming for 10%. This was a goal to achieve by 2020.  

2020 has come and gone and our current figure still stands at .0035% if we only count the marine reserves around the coastal shorelines of New Zealand, and 11.51% if we count the marine reserves on New Zealand’s far away offshore islands such as the Kermadecs and Auckland Islands. Is this good enough?

Bill Ballantine said in an interview before he passed away in 2015.

“We hear a great deal in the media about the ‘rights’ of fishermen, but the ‘rights’ of others are rarely mentioned.

“What should we think about the ‘right’ of children to see for themselves the full display of marine life? Or should they just see what the fishing industry did not want, or couldn’t catch?

“I personally consider it is a human right for all children to experience the rich range of natural life, and that we should make real efforts to arrange.