Marine Protected Areas: Tier 1 statistic 2013

Read the 2013 report on the current statistics relating to marine protected areas (MPAs) in New Zealand’s Territorial Sea.

Objectives

The objective of this report is to provide the current statistics relating to marine protected areas (MPAs) in New Zealand's Territorial Sea.

Concepts

In 2005, New Zealand released its Marine Protected Areas Policy and Implementation Plan (MPA Policy), the objective of which is to: "Protect marine biodiversity by establishing a network of marine protected areas that is comprehensive and representative of New Zealand's marine habitats and ecosystems" (Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries 2005).

A range of management tools may provide protection to marine biodiversity. An MPA protection standard was developed to determine which management tools contribute to the above MPA policy objective (Ministry of Fisheries and Department of Conservation 2008). The MPA protection standard describes two types of MPAs: Type 1 MPAs (marine reserves) and Type 2 MPAs (other management tools that meet the protection standard).

In 2011, an assessment was made of the areas managed by all tools in New Zealand's Territorial Sea, to inventory the existing marine reserves (Type 1 MPAs) and also determine which other tools met the MPA protection standard and could be considered to be Type 2 MPAs (Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries 2011).

New Zealand's Official Statistics System has identified a suite of key official statistics that are performance measures for New Zealand and are known as "Tier 1 Statistics". Tier 1 statistics:

are essential to central government decision making
are of high public interest
meet public expectations of impartiality and statistical quality
require long-term continuity of the data
provide international comparability in a global environment

A list of Tier 1 Statistics and the agencies that produce them can be found on the Statisphere website.

In 2011, the area of marine protected areas was identified as a Tier 1 Statistic, with the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries as producing agencies. This report complies with the Principles and Protocols for Producers of Tier 1 Statistics (Statistics New Zealand 2007) and provides the current statistics relating to marine protected areas in New Zealand's Territorial Sea, including the area of MPAs, the types of MPAs (type 1 and type 2) and the biogeographic regions within which they are located.

Table 1: Areas (km²) of marine protected areas in coastal marine biogeographic regions. Blank indicates no marine protected areas. Data are rounded to the nearest km²
Biogeographic Region	Total Area (km²) of Marine Reserves^A	Total Area (km²) of Type 2 MPAs^B
Chatham Islands
East Coast South Island	2
East Coast North Island	29
Fiordland	103	378
Kermadec Islands	7,480
North Cook Strait	30	241
North Eastern	89	898
Snares Islands
South Cook Strait	39	139
Southern South Island	11	88
Subantarctic Islands	4,980
Three Kings
West Coast South Island
West Coast North Island	32	329
Total	12,796	2,073

^A Areas for marine reserves (Type 1 MPAs) are taken directly from the relevant Order in Council and therefore may differ from other reported figures, particularly those calculated using GIS.

^B Areas for other marine protected areas (Type 2 MPAs) are calculated using a "spherical area" in GIS, which takes into account the curvature of the earth. The geodetic data projection used in calculating these areas was WGS 84.

Figure 1: Coastal marine biogeographic regions in the New Zealand Territorial Sea

Survey period

The first marine reserve was established in 1975. The first Type 2 MPA was established in 1966. These areas were not classified as Type 1 or Type 2 MPAs until 2011, when the national inventory of MPAs in New Zealand's Territorial Sea was completed (Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries 2011).

Date of extraction of data

1 December 2013.

Definitions

Biogeographic region:: An area that is defined according to patterns of ecological and physical characteristics in the seascape (Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries 2005).
Biological diversity (biodiversity):: The variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems (Convention on Biological Diversity).
Marine protected area:: An area of the marine environment especially dedicated to, or achieving, through adequate protection, the maintenance and/or recovery of biological diversity at the habitat and ecosystem level in a healthy functioning state (Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries 2005).
Marine reserves:: Specified areas of the sea and foreshore that are managed to preserve them in their natural state as the habitat of marine life for scientific study. Marine reserves are established under the Marine Reserves Act 1971.
Refer to marine reserve information
Territorial Sea:: The New Zealand Territorial Sea is an area of water not exceeding 12 nautical miles in width which is measured seaward from the territorial sea baseline.
Refer to Maritime Boundaries - definition of Territorial Sea Baseline (TSB) on the LINZ website

Classifications used

Refer to Definitions.

Data source

The classification of management tools as Type 1 or Type 2 marine protected areas is from the report: Coastal marine habitats and marine protected areas in the New Zealand Territorial Sea: a broad scale gap analysis (Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries 2011). The only modification of that classification is for the northeastern biogeographic region, to account for the replacement of Tawharanui Marine Park with Tawharanui Marine Reserve.

The areas in Table 1 for marine reserves (Type 1 MPAs) are taken directly from the relevant Order in Council. Therefore, areas may differ from other reported figures, particularly those calculated using GIS, including those reported in Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries (2011).

The areas in Table 1 for Type 2 MPAs are calculated using a "spherical area" in GIS, which takes into account the curvature of the earth. The geodetic data projection used in calculating these areas was WGS 84.

Additional information on New Zealand's marine protected areas is available in the Ministry for the Environment's Marine Protected Areas Indicator Update (Ministry for the Environment 2012).

Source agency and publishing agency

The source agencies are the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries (former Ministry of Fisheries). The publishing agency is the Department of Conservation.

Major data limitations

Marine protected areas in New Zealand are defined using the MPA protection standard as set out in the MPA Policy. This protection standard is specific to New Zealand, and for the purposes of international comparisons, it should be noted that other jurisdictions may use different criteria or standards for defining MPAs.

Analytical methods used

Not applicable to these data.

Discontinuities in time series

The time series is continuous.

Revisions (if any)

No changes have occurred since the last publication of this statistic. See the previous report Tier 1 Statistic December 2012.

Other (rounding, valuations, time of recording etc)

Data are rounded to the nearest km².

Technical reports available

Coastal marine habitats and marine protected areas in the New Zealand Territorial Sea: a broad scale gap analysis

Ministry for the Environment (2012) Marine protected areas. INFO 655. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington, New Zealand. Available on the MFE website

References

Marine protected areas policy and implementation plan