The future of Northland’s two landmark marine protection areas is uncertain as the Government moves to strip regional councils’ powers to make rules for fishing and fishery resources.
The Government says fisheries management should be handled exclusively by Fisheries New Zealand, while the Northland Regional Council warns the change could remove a key mechanism used to establish protections at Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga (Cape Brett).
The Government has confirmed the Environment Court-backed Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga (Cape Brett) protections will not be automatically carried into a new planning system replacing the Resource Management Act (RMA), expected to take effect in 2030.
Neither the Government nor regional council could say what their ultimate fate would be.
The proposal is part of the Government’s Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill. Councils would no longer be able to make regional planning rules about fishing or fishery resources already managed under the Fisheries Act.
A spokesperson for Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones said Northland protections would not be “grandfathered” by default. Current fishing controls would remain under the regional plan until the new planning system came into force.
Council group manager environmental services Ruben Wylie said the council would not know the full implications for the Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga rāhui tapu until the legislation was enacted.
Wylie said the protected areas were established through regional plan provisions under the RMA following an extensive Environment Court process that found fishing pressure was adversely affecting significant ecological values.
“If regional councils did not hold powers to make fishing-control rules, those protections could not have been developed and implemented through the regional plan process,” he said.
Jones believes fisheries management should sit with Fisheries New Zealand (FNZ), rather than regional councils.
“Fishing controls will be the exclusive preserve of the fishing department.
“Now I can see that for some Bay of Islands communities that will be a significant change. However, it’s firmly my view that the RMA is not the proper place to control the fishing resource. That is the fishing department.”
The Northland protections became one of the country’s best-known examples of regional planning processes being used to impose fishing restrictions for biodiversity protection after a landmark Environment Court ruling was finalised in 2023.
The protections created no-take areas at Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga, and banned commercial bulk-harvesting methods including bottom trawling, bottom pair trawling, Danish seining and purse seining in surrounding waters off Cape Brett.
NRC says it has not yet adopted a formal position on the latest Fisheries proposal because the amendment was introduced late in the legislative process. However, NRC has consistently supported regional decision-making on biodiversity, ecosystem health and coastal planning, and invested heavily in marine protection initiatives including the Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga provisions.
Wylie said the RMA and Fisheries Act performed different functions and were complementary tools, with councils managing environmental effects in the coastal marine area and FNZ managing fisheries resources.
“The amendment papers appear to remove one of the principal mechanisms currently available to manage adverse effects of fishing on significant indigenous biodiversity and wider ecosystem health,” he said.
Council chairman Pita Tipene said NRC supported the Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga protections because evidence showed overfishing had seriously damaged marine ecology.
He said local buy-in was crucial and the proposed reform would put locally supported, community-driven protections at risk.
Wylie said monitoring of the protected areas showed encouraging early signs, including increases in snapper abundance and biomass at Mimiwhangata and Rakaumangamanga, although it was too early to draw firm conclusions about long-term ecological outcomes.
Jones was asked whether groups raising the same concerns in future could still establish no-take areas. He said communities would still be able to seek protections through fisheries management processes administered by central government, pointing to a recently approved rāhui affecting intertidal rock pools in the Ngāti Manuhiri rohe.
“The deeper question is what sort of administrative system do you want? Do you want local government controlling fishing in a kind of haphazard manner, or do you want the fishing specialists within the state being responsible for implementing fishing controls?”
He cited the proposed mātaitai reserve in the Whangārei Harbour as an example of local fisheries staff working alongside hapū and communities.
“Just because the HQ of the fishing entity is in Wellington, it doesn’t mean the local fishing officers are incapable of working with local communities,” he said.
In announcing the reforms, Jones said the changes would remove uncertainty created by overlapping legislation.
“Our fish stocks cross council boundaries so it makes sense to have a nationwide approach for managing them.”
Jones said the changes would simplify regulation for recreational, customary and commercial fishers while reducing compliance costs for councils. The reforms would also support aquaculture growth by streamlining approvals for open-ocean aquaculture developments, he said.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ journalism experience, much of it court reporting in Gisborne.
