Davis Kelvin: Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19782. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour):Tēnā koe Mr Chair. This bill the Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill addresses the significant biodiversity and the uniqueness of the Kaikōura coast. It has been very interesting to listen to the speeches on it so far—in particular when the Minister of Conservation and also Andrew Williams acknowledged the Kaikōura Canyon. In my research of the Kaikōura Canyon it says that the canyon contains a hundred times the biomass of any other equivalent sort of environment. That contributes to the orange roughy and hoki industry down there. It is really important that this area is protected. This marine reserve and the whole bill go some way to doing that.The bill talks about kaitiakitanga. I would just like to explain the notion of kaitiakitanga. We use the word quite often and assume that people understand what it means. The base word of kaitiakitanga is the word “tiaki” which means to care for something. The prefix “kai” is the equivalent of having “er” on the end of an English word. So “kaitiaki” means a carer or a guardian and kaitiakitanga means the guardianship. This bill talks about kaitiakitanga and local leadership.It is really important that we acknowledge the number of local people who have been involved in this. We have heard of the diverse interests such as the crayfishermen the fishermen and local iwi. It is really important that we recognise everybody who has been involved in this in particular the group known as Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura. Korowai is another Māori word which means a cloak. They are laying their cloak of guardianship across this area.I agree with our colleague Gareth Hughes about the shape of the marine area. Looking at schedule 1 the shape looks similar to a capital F lying on its side and it is a 12-sided shape. Not having been part of the deliberations at that stage on the select committee it sort of made sense to me looking at things now that point (f) in schedule 1 could well have been connected directly to point (e) which would have taken out eight sides of that irregular shape or at the very least point (m) connected to point (j) and then (j) to (e) which would have reduced the weird shape of the marine area. As Gareth Hughes has pointed out having such a long boundary around this marine reserve sort of dilutes the effect of having such a large reserve. I do not understand why it is in this shape; I was not part of the deliberations. I am sure there was a very good reason why it is in the shape that it is.Regarding the whale sanctuary I think we need to go back a bit and examine New Zealand’s history around whaling which would bring us forward into why we need a whale sanctuary at this time. Apparently Māori used to hunt whales although very irregularly. I do not know how they managed to do it in the small waka that they would have paddled around in and I do not know how they would have harpooned them but certainly Māori partook of the bounty when a stranded whale washed up on the shore. In fact because they subsisted on such a paltry diet of crayfish oysters kinas wood pigeons berries and things when a whale washed up on the beach they probably would have thought all their Matarikis had arrived at once.There is a very famous story up north in Ahipara that when one tribe was living up on the top of a quite impregnable pā by the name of Whangatauatia another tribe was down below on the beach wondering how it could get these other guys to come out when they hit upon the idea of killing and skinning a number of dogs and sewing the skins together and wrapping them around some sort of frame in the shape of a whale to make it look like a whale was beached part-way up Ninety Mile Beach. The people in the pā came racing out and subsequently were dispatched as we did in the day. It just goes to show that Māori had interests in whale-meat; 10 tonnes of protein turning up on your doorstep was considered a bounty.Hon Trevor Mallard: What does it taste like?KELVIN DAVIS: Mr Mallard I would have no idea what it tastes like.The other two points I would like to make are around the mātaitai. We also talk about mātaitai and taiāpure and people do not really know what they are so I would just like to spell it out. A taiāpure is a local management tool established in an area that has customarily been of special significance to an iwi or hapū as a source of food or for spiritual or cultural reasons. This is spelt out under section 174 of the Fisheries Act. Taiāpure can be established over any area of estuarine or coastal waters to make better provision for rangatiratanga and for the rights secured under article 2 of the Treaty. Taiāpure provisions are contained within sections 174 to 185 of the Fisheries Act. All fishing including commercial fishing can continue in a taiāpure and this tool offers a way for tangata whenua to become involved in the management of both commercial and non-commercial fishing in their area.A mātaitai is slightly different. Mātaitai reserves are areas where the tangata whenua manage all non-commercial fishing by making by-laws. The by-laws must apply equally to all individuals. Mātaitai reserves may be applied for over traditional fishing grounds only and must be areas of special significance to the tangata whenua. Generally there is no commercial fishing within mātaitai reserves.To go back slightly to whaling and the reason we need to have the whaling sanctuary in the 1800s it was estimated that there were some 70000 southern right whales in the southern hemisphere; by the 1920s there were just 500 estimated to be left. It is estimated that over 2 million whales had been slaughtered in the southern hemisphere. This demonstrates the reason we need to have these whaling sanctuaries so we can try to do our small part in making sure the whale population regenerates. We know now that instead of trying to make money out of commercial whaling it is better to protect them and allow economies like those in Kaikōura to make money through people going whale-watching. When we explore what happened to whales parts of the whales were used for such essential items as making corsets and headwear. I believe flexible riding whips were another reason whalebone was used. The oil was used to lubricate machinery and things like that. It is just an utter waste and an utter travesty and that is why this marine reserve is such an essential thing. Kia ora.