What is the marine park?
The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park was established by special legislation in February 2000. It is innovative for New Zealand but akin to many parks overseas. The marine park protects important areas within a lived-in, worked-in environment and includes land controlled by different agencies.
The marine park protects in perpetuity the natural and historic features of the Gulf that are of national and international importance for their quality and the presence of wildlife and plants not found anywhere else in the world.
Hauraki Gulf Marine Park logo
An important feature is the provision for Deeds of Recognition, which acknowledge the relationship of tangata whenua with specified places, and identify opportunities for them to contribute to their management, whether by DOC or a Council.
Significance
The Hauraki Gulf has a natural richness, environmental quality, biological diversity and landscape that make it outstanding and distinctive within New Zealand.
For nearly 1000 years the Gulf has been a focal point for human activity and home to generations of residents. Today, its hinterland contains the most intensively developed parts of New Zealand - metropolitan Auckland and the Hauraki-Piako lowlands.
The Gulf itself is one of the lifelines of commerce in New Zealand, serving the Port of Auckland and a significant fishing and transport industry. It also provides outstanding recreation opportunities for residents and visitors.
View of Rangitoto Island from Browns Island
The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000
By establishing some overall objectives for the Gulf, its islands and catchments, the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act achieves integrated management across land and sea, so that the effects of urban and rural land use on the Gulf are given proper attention and the life supporting capacity of the Gulf is protected.
The Act provides for integrated management of the Gulf across 21 statutes including the Resource Management Act, Conservation Act and Fisheries Act.
Hauraki Gulf Forum
The Hauraki Gulf Forum integrates management of the marine park across the boundaries of statutes and districts, through co-operation and better communication. It promotes the conservation and sustainable management of the natural, historic and physical resources of the Hauraki Gulf for the benefit and enjoyment of the people and communities of the Gulf and New Zealand.
Forum members include representatives of all local authorities adjoining the Gulf or its catchments, representatives of the Ministers of Conservation, Fisheries and Maori Affairs, together with six representatives from iwi. The Act requires the Forum to produce a 'State of the Environment Report.'
What does the Act not do?
Whangapoua beach, Great Barrier Island
The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act does not:
- Create new layers of bureaucracy - it should make existing systems more efficient and effective. The Forum is not a management agency for the Park.
- Change any statutory functions - the Ministry of Fisheries management of fisheries will remain, as will DOC's responsibilities for reserves, conservation areas and the seabed. Local authority responsibilities for the management of reserves and the Resource Management Act remain unchanged.
- Affect private property rights.
- Affect present or future claims by Maori to the Waitangi Tribunal or Maori Land Court.
- Affect commercial fishing, recreational fishing and customary fishing rights, except that in determining sustainability measures for the Gulf, the Minister of Fisheries will have to take into account the objectives of the Act.