Monitoring

Measuring the benefits of the marine reserve

How has marine reserve status helped the sea life in the area? DOC is monitoring the changes in the Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve to measure the project's results.

Sandager's Wrasse, male

Monitoring programme

A monitoring programme was implemented at the Poor Knights in 1998 to assess the effectiveness of a no-take marine reserve establishment following a period of partial closure at this important north-eastern New Zealand site. The work was also to provide an invaluable measure of the change occurring over a continuing time period between the marine reserve and control areas at Cape Brett and Mokohinau Islands.

The data collection frequency for the fish survey component will remain yearly until a reasonable post stability point has been reached or understood. Data collection for reef benthic flora and fauna was first done in 1998, and has been repeated annually to establish any trends of change.

The monitoring program has provided a body of quantitative information, (replicated spatially and temporally), that demonstrated that no-take marine reserves in north-east New Zealand outperform partial protection strategies in the recovery of target exploited species, and lead to rapid and significant recovery of target species.

The data provided evidence that the earlier partial fishing regulations were inefficient at protecting targeted species. The increase in snapper density in particular, since full reserve status, has been rapid, probably resulting from immigrating adult fish rather than from recruitment. It is not yet clear whether snapper numbers have stabilized.

Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve shallow subtidal reef communities report

A 2007 study compared data on subtidal reef communities between 1999 when the area was first afforded no-take status and 2006 after eight years of full protection. This study found varying results for different species. While some species and communities showed no significant change, others, such as kelp, had increased by up to 100%. However when looking at the larger picture it seems that these results may not be derived from a protection related increase in predators but rather are a reflection of region-wide variation.