History of pine forestry in the Pelorus/Te Hoiere catchment and the Marlborough Sounds

The harvesting of radiata pine (Pinus radiata) plantations in the Pelorus/Te Hoiere catchment and the Marlborough Sounds is contributing to excessive sedimentation into coastal waters, although the timing of when this commenced is subject to debate. Here we present a history of radiata pine to document trends in forest establishment in the Pelorus/Te Hoiere catchment and the Marlborough Sounds derived from the scientific literature, newspaper articles, local histories and recollections of retired foresters. We identify that radiata pine trees were planted primarily as ornamentals, shelterbelts and woodlots from the late 1800s, with plantings increasing after the 1913 Royal Commission on Forestry. The first commercial plantations were Farnham Forest in Queen Charlotte Sound/Tōtaranui in the 1930s and the Rai State Forest in the Pelorus/Te Hoiere catchment in 1940. Commercial plantings expanded with forestry encouragement loans from the 1960s. There are now ca. 26,420 ha of radiata pine plantations in the contributing catchments to the Marlborough Sounds. We identify that the majority of radiata plantations are on Class 7 land in the Pelorus/Te Hoiere and Kaituna catchments, which are the largest contributing catchments to the Marlborough Sounds. These areas have soils highly susceptible to erosion, which is exacerbated by vegetation clearance. The industry has reached a point of near continuous harvest over extensive areas on steep hillsides. This means that the window of vulnerability to erosion (five to eight years after harvest) is always open somewhere across the landscape

Untangling the Gordian knot: Estuary survival under sea-level rise and catchment pollution requires a new policy and governance approach

Many estuaries are squeezed between sea-level rise, coastal hardening and adverse cumulative effects from unsustainable catchment activities. In Aotearoa New Zealand, there is little planning to provide future accommodation space for estuaries. A complex knot of policies and plans, and accompanying poor implementation also affect ecological sustainability. We examine these issues for Brooklands Lagoon/Te Riu o Te Aika Kawa, a tidal lagoon northeast of Christchurch/Ōtautahi. It is within the takiwā of Ngāi Tahu iwi and Ngāi Tūāhuriri hapū, and the jurisdictions of Christchurch City Council and Environment Canterbury. The estuary is influenced by three rivers, and surrounding land use is managed under three different statutory resource management plans, along with several non-regulatory strategies and organisational management plans. However, these plans are poorly integrated and estuarine ecological health is compromised. The incoming tide of resource management and local government reform will add complexity, but also an opportunity to accommodate and enhance the estuary as a blue carbon sink, and to restore cultural and ecological values. This requires specific recognition of estuaries in the proposed managed retreat and spatial planning laws, and within the replacement resource management statute. Legal recognition of Indigenous customary rights could also produce novel governance models to improve management

From ‘clean and green’ to ‘brown and down’: A synthesis of historical changes to biodiversity and marine ecosystems in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) is a potential antidote to the alleviation of multiple stressors in highly-valued and contested marine environments. An understanding of the magnitude and drivers of past ecosystem changes can inform the development of realistic ecological and social outcomes for different places. These goals should aim to increase the ecological health and resilience of coastal ecosystems and their connected land- and sea-scapes by minimising anthropogenic disturbances. To address knowledge gaps, we present a marine historical synthesis of the Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand's South Island. These rias are strongly coupled to the surrounding land and inland river catchments. We took an integrated approach by examining effects of land use change on coastal ecosystems, along with case studies of the effects of exploitation on foundational marine species. We found that ecosystems have gone through a series of transformations since Māori settlement ca. 700 years ago, with localised extirpations of marine megafauna, overharvesting of exploited species, and disruption to ecological functioning through ongoing clearfelling of terrestrial and marine biogenic communities since European settlement in the 1800s. There has been a decline from great abundance of marine life to relative scarcity, which is currently evident to local people in increased effort and reduced allowable catches of fish and shellfish. Recovery of biodiversity in the short-term within the Marlborough Sounds is uncertain, given ongoing multiple and interacting stressors from unsustainable land-use and over-exploitation of marine life. Lifting baselines are possible but will require significant changes to land and marine management to restore ecological health and enhance resilience in the face of climate change. Increased marine protection, regeneration of biodiverse biogenic habitats, spatial fishing measures to increase predators of sea urchins, stricter regulation of plantation forestry and a replanting prohibition in critical erosion source areas, are all needed within an EBM framework. Large experimental areas are proposed to develop, test and integrate different management techniques, and to facilitate community understanding, participation, and support for the transition to EBM

A synthesis of historical environmental changes to Brooklands Lagoon/Te Riu o Te Aika Kawa, Canterbury

Brooklands Lagoon / Te Riu o Te Aika Kawa (‘Brooklands’) is an important wetland and estuarine ecosystem in Canterbury. It is a site of cultural significance to Ngāi Tūāhuriri, and is also valued by the wider community. Home to an array of life, it is connected to the Pūharakekenui/Styx and Waimakariri rivers, and is part of a wetland landscape complex that includes the Avon-Heathcote / Ihutai estuary to the south and the Ashley / Rakahuri estuary to the north. Notionally situated within the territorial boundary of Christchurch City Council and jurisdictionally encompassed by the regional council Environment Canterbury, it has been legally determined to be part of the coastal marine area. The complicated administrative arrangements for the lagoon mirror the biophysical and human challenges to this surprisingly young ecosystem since its formation in 1940. Here we present a synthesis of the historical events and environmental influences that have shaped Brooklands Lagoon. Before existing as an intertidal ecosystem, the Waimakariri river mouth was situated in what is now the southern end of the lagoon. A summary timeline of key events is set out in the table below. These included the diversion of the Waimakariri River mouth via the construction of Wrights Cut in the 1930s, which influenced the way that the lower reaches of the river interacted with the land and sea. A large flood in 1940 shifted the river mouth ~2 to 3 kilometres north, that created the landscape that we see today. However, this has not remained stable, as the earthquake sequence in 2010 and 2011 subsided the bed of the estuary. The changes are ongoing, as sea level rise and coastal inundation will place ongoing pressure on the aquatic ecosystem and surrounding land. How to provide accommodation space for Brooklands as an estuary will be a key planning and community challenge, as Environment Canterbury begins the engagement for the review of its Regional Coastal Plan. There is also a requirement to safeguard its ecological health under the 2020 National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. This will necessitate an integrated mountains to sea (ki uta ki tai) management approach as the lagoon is affected by wider catchment activities. We hope that this report will contribute to, and inform these processes by providing a comprehensive historical synthesis, and by identifying considerations for the future collaborative management of Brooklands Lagoon, and protection of its values. In essence, we suggest that Te Riu o Te Aika Kawa deserves some sustained aroha

The Earth Summit 25 years on: Why is biodiversity continuing to decline?

The opening years of the 1990s brought great promise and hope for biodiversity. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the “Earth Summit”, was held in Brazil in 1992, following a worldwide outcry at the loss of species and habitats in the 1980s, symbolised by alarming rates of destruction in the Amazonian rainforest. It seemed that the same collective will that had brought about the Montreal Protocol in 1987 (The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (agreed on 16 September 1987 and entered into force on 1 January 1989)) to phase out ozone-depleting substances would now move to protect life on earth. In this article, we set out how New Zealand has responded over the last quarter of a century to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which arose from the Earth Summit. We consider these responses in light of the alarming findings on the state of our coasts and oceans in Our marine environment 2016 (Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand Our marine environment 2016 (October 2016)). This is the first environmental domain report required under the Environmental Reporting Act 2015. We examine whether the policy framework developed since the Earth Summit to maintain biological diversity (“biodiversity”) is adequate to prevent the ongoing loss and degradation of marine habitats and consequent decline in biodiversity, or whether the decline can be more fully attributed to a systemic implementation failure. We conclude there is a comprehensive policy framework in place, but this is poorly implemented. We set out a number of key reasons for the systemic failure to protect and maintain biodiversity, and suggest some urgent solutions

What it means to "maintain" biodiversity in our coastal marine environment

The Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) is fundamental to protecting and maintaining life on Earth. It arose out of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The global community affirmed the importance of biological diversity (“biodiversity”) for its own intrinsic value and for humanity’s sustainable use. The CBD defined biodiversity (at art 2) as: “[T]he variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.” The Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and the The New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy (February 2000) (NZBS) have similar definitions, but the Fisheries Act 1996 omitted the ecological complexes component. In part one, we identified that this inconsistency in statutory definitions is an important factor contributing to the unfolding biodiversity crisis in the marine environment. In this article, we focus on the definition of ecological complexes, and their crucial importance in maintaining biodiversity and ecological function, which are inextricably linked. This is because biodiversity is much broader than just the variety of life. We also consider the importance and necessity of intact ecological complexes for safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of ecosystems, and the abundant services that healthy ecosystems provide

‘Hooks’ and ‘Anchors’ for relational ecosystem-based marine management

There remains uncertainty about the legal and policy tools, processes and institutions needed to support ecosystem-based marine management (EBM). This article relies on an interdisciplinary study of ecosystem-based language and approaches in the laws and policies of New Zealand, Australia and Chile, which uncovered important lessons for implementing EBM around the need to accept regulatory fragmentation, provide effective resourcing, respect and give effect to Indigenous rights, and avoid conflating EBM with conventional approaches to marine spatial planning. We suggest a new way of thinking about EBM as a ‘relational’ process; requiring laws, policies and institutions to support its dynamic process of dialogue, negotiation and adjustment. We argue that relational EBM can be best supported by a combination of detailed rule and institution-making (hooks) and high-level norm-setting (anchors). With its focus on relationships within and between humans and nature, relational EBM may enable new ways to secure cross-government collaboration and community buy-in, as well as having inbuilt adaptability to the dynamics of the marine environment and the impact of climate change at different scales

Marine guardians – A novel solution to improving our marine environment

New Zealand’s coastal and marine ecosystems are in ecological trouble. In 2016 the Government reported on the state of our seas, as required by the Environmental Reporting Act 2015 (ERA). “Our marine environment 2016” identified serious and widespread issues with seabed habitat damage and destruction, numerous threatened seabird and marine mammals, and massive loss of topsoil into our coastal waters causing deterioration in water quality and ecosystem services