Hobbs Marian: Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine  Management Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Hobbs Marian: Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine  Management Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:19892] 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine Management Bill be now read a third time 
. One of the main features of the bill is the creation of eight new marine reserves in Fiordland—a total area of nearly 10000 hectares. Although the bill creates reserves they are to be managed under the Marine Reserves Act. Special conditions apply to those reserves. For example within the reserves Ngai Tahu will be able to take dead marine mammals and remove pounamu by hand and fishers will be able to store rock lobster pots and live rock lobster within designated areas. Also anchoring will be prohibited in particularly fragile areas within some of the reserves. 
Those conditions are a result of the Guardians of Fiordland’s Fisheries and Marine Environment’s “gifts and gains” process whereby stakeholders gave up certain benefits in the interests of achieving the overall protection and sustainable management of Fiordland. That the guardians secured the support of recreational fishers commercial fishers and iwi for those marine reserves is a remarkable achievement. A key aspect to achieving that support was that there would be a moratorium on the creation of new marine reserves in the Fiordland marine area for 7 years or until a ministerial review of the management of the Fiordland marine area as required by the legislation is completed. 
The legislation also creates a new body—the Fiordland Marine Guardians—to provide advice and make recommendations to management agencies and Ministers involved in the management of the Fiordland marine area. Ministers and agencies must take into account any such advice. In total there will be between five and eight members. I assure Mr Baldock and Mr Jim Peters that to maintain the local flavour of the initiative five of the members must be resident in either Otago or Southland which is great and one member must also be nominated by Ngai Tahu. 
In addition to this legislation the Government is committed to several Fiordland-specific work programmes to give effect to other aspects of the guardian strategy. The work programmes will cover monitoring compliance and enforcement; information and education; and biosecurity. They will involve the guardians and key agencies with management responsibilities in the Fiordland marine area including the Southland Regional Council. I am pleased to announce that the Government is providing the necessary budgetary funding for those programmes so that they can now get under way. Along with the legislation they will contribute to achieving better integrated management of Fiordland’s marine environment. 
I give particular thanks for the work that has gone into this legislation. Firstly I thank the House and in particular the Fisheries and other Sea-related Legislation Committee for honouring the work done by the Fiordland guardians by reviewing the bill with efficiency attention to detail and speed. I also give thanks to the officials in Wellington from the Ministry for the Environment Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries for their work in converting a local and brilliant plan into legislation. That has involved compromises not only among the different ministries but between central agencies and the guardians. In fact the notion of “gifts and gains” has spread not only from inside Fiordland but between Fiordland Wellington and central government. 
My thanks also go to the officials from those departments who worked at the local level with the Fiordland guardians. In particular—and I know that one is not necessarily meant to do this all the time—I pay tribute to Alisdair Hutchison from the Ministry for the Environment. He was the officer who worked so well. In fact one of my first trips as Minister for the Environment occurred because Alisdair Hutchison asked me to go down with him to Te Anau to meet the people involved who had been working there so that we could set up the funding necessary to get this project under way. He was a committed regional member of the Ministry for the Environment who wanted to support what he saw was really good work. So I pay tribute to the work that Alisdair Hutchison has done in that area. Those from the South Island will be able to recognise that particular official. 
My thanks also go to the local member Bill English because I found out very early on that he worked very closely with the chair of the guardians John Steffans in order to keep abreast of the progress. When I checked with him he would say that he had met frequently with John Steffans and I appreciated that. I think it is really timely to note that we have a new member in the House from that area Lesley Soper who also will recognise Mr Steffans and continue to work with the guardians on these issues. 
My very special thanks go to the Hon Pete Hodgson who was at that time the Minister of Fisheries. Pete Hodgson and I attended at least two gatherings of the guardians and friends in Te Anau. Together we made a public commitment when the guardians handed over their plan to us to have this work of the guardians turned into special Government legislation and also to give the financial support to back that up. It was really good to have a person from the south who understood the issues involved and the particular processes and who was able to instruct his officials on how important this legislation is. Of course that was continued by another member of the south my colleague the Hon David Benson-Pope. 
But my greatest vote of appreciation is to John Steffans the chair of the Guardians of Fiordland’s Fisheries and Marine Environment and to Laurel Tierney the coordinator because this legislation represents the culmination of years of hard work by the guardians. The chair John Steffans is present I think to witness this third reading and I acknowledge that this legislation is testament to his and the other guardians’ vision and tenacity. The select committee is aware of their tenacity and their deep commitment to Fiordland’s marine environment. 
At this stage I say to some of the members from one particular party in this House who thought that this was just a bill about fisheries that that really casts a slur on people who I have seen stand in Te Anau and say that they want that environment. They live and work in that environment more than any other people in this House and they really honour it. They want it for their children grandchildren and grandchildren’s children. They are absolutely dedicated to that environment. They do not want it “fished out” and they do not want it destroyed—they certainly do not want that special underwater coral destroyed. So they are absolutely careful about it. But they understand the meaning of sustainability and I love them for it. It is about sustainability. It is three legs absolutely in action in terms of economic growth social development in a remote area of New Zealand and care and protection for the environment. Those people have shown how different interests within one community can work together to define and achieve a common vision. 
Through this legislation Fiordland’s marine environment will be better protected and more sustainably managed. It will also ensure that the local community in Fiordland will have an ongoing role in the management of the area’s marine environment. This is not about locals doing it against the world; this is about locals who know and love the area and who know it far better than I think any other people in this House know it. The local people know every corner of those particular fiords. Ministers and officials alike have learnt a great deal from the guardians’ process and we are excited about exploring whether similar models can be used. I commend the bill to the House.