Marine farmers adrift in murky waters

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Marine farmers expect it will be several years before the red tape strangling aquaculture is loosened.

The three-year moratorium on new marine farms is due to end in December, but the expectation within the industry is that problems with the allocation of new waterspace will drag on for years after that.

A spokesman for Fisheries Minister Pete Hodgson agreed there might be delays.

He said the problem for aquaculture was not a lack of space; several thousand hectares of marine farm applications that were partly processed before the moratorium were still being processed.

The problem was "that the bottom has fallen out of the market".

Aquaculture was once held out as one of New Zealand's brightest export hopes, but that excitement has been replaced by disgruntlement at the legislative obstacles and the fall in earnings caused by the high New Zealand dollar and a depressed global market.

While the dollar was hurting, Marine Farming Association president Rob Pooley said such outside influences simply had to be dealt with.

It was the legislative mechanisms - in which he felt the industry could participate - that irritated.

Regional councils responsible for deciding which areas qualify as aquaculture management areas (AMAs) say it is almost beyond the realms of possibility that new areas will be ready by the moratorium's end.

That means, even when the ban on marine farm applications is lifted, there won't be anywhere to put them.

Spokespeople for marine farmers said the industry, which earned almost $300 million in export earnings through existing farms, was being gutted.

Pooley said the legal moratorium was essentially going to be replaced by a "pseudo moratorium ... the whole thing is so bogged down. But [a pseudo moratorium] would be of a much less transparent nature."

He said it "wouldn't be hard to speculate [delays] of five to seven years or more."

Some regional councils are saying that late 2005 would be the earliest possible time that AMAs could be ready.

Just two years ago, the industry's export earnings were tipped to soar to $1 billion by 2020.

There was a rush of applications for new farms, which prompted the moratorium to control growth while the law was refined.

The moratorium was extended for nine months last year after the Aquaculture Reform Bill's progress was scuttled by a Waitangi Tribunal-backed iwi claim over marine waterspace, and the Court of Appeal judgement on the foreshore and seabed.

The bill is now going to be released after the foreshore and seabed legislation, and is likely to be influenced by it.

Regional councils are struggling to plan the AMAs because they don't know what new policy will be implemented in the bill.

The regional councils are grappling with a lack of information over the impact of Maori claims and the process that will be used to allocate AMA space.

It is widely expected that iwi will receive guaranteed access to 20 per cent of new marine space, but that has not been confirmed.

Tendering will be the default method for allocating space, but details of that process have not yet been given to the regional councils.

Sanford's Ted Culley, chair of The Aquaculture Council Response Team, said he had sympathy with the regional bodies.

"I think there is a real difficulty for them.

"The process has been flawed right from the word go."

Culley believes the regional councils have limited incentives to create the AMAs - the process costs hundreds of thousands of dollar - and little instruction from Government.

"They have to spend quite a bit of money getting their ducks in a row and then they have the risk they have to go and tender it ... what if they don't have any tenders?"

Pooley believes the problem lies ultimately with the Resource Management Act.

With responsibility for creating marine farm waterspace now with regional councils rather than farmers, the process will almost inevitably lead to protests through the Environment Court.

Pooley says he has no issue with people voicing their opinions, "but I do have a problem with people who don't even have to go and see a marine farm - they just close their eyes and think about it ... and then burst into tears."

He said marine farming offered huge economic benefits for townships and the country.

"And it is such a benign and environmentally friendly industry."

Environment Waikato is one regional council that is a step ahead of some of its counterparts.

It created areas for marine farming before the law reform and does not intend to expand on those areas.

Under the new law, those areas are likely to be deemed interim AMAs and their development under existing applications can proceed.

Even so, the issues of allocation to Maori interests may cause hiccups.

Environment Waikato's programme manager for coastal policy, Rosalind Wilton, said that debate was between the Crown and iwi.

But if it had an impact on the existing applications "we will need to deal with it when it happens".

At the Auckland Regional Council, Hugh Leersnyder, manager of the coastal environment section, said the public hearing for their AMAs had been put on hold until the draft bill was released.

He said the council had gone as far as it could toward creating the AMAs and had discussed the planned areas with marine farms.

Leersnyder said he doubted there would be problems tendering off the space.

But "there still are a number of ideas where we are waiting to get clarity from central Government".

Leersnyder said that the majority of potential AMAs had been publicly notified but the hearings had been postponed.

"We don't want council and marine farmers and communities to put their time and effort into hearings only to find that time is wasted if there is a change in legislation that will nullify it."

The chances of getting the AMAs in place by December were "very remote", said Leersnyder.

He expected the AMAs would be operative by the end of next year, assuming any Environment Court appeals were completed within 12 months.

But in Northland, the regional council is not expecting completion of its AMAs anytime soon.

Public notification won't start until December or January and a very best case scenario for completion of the AMAs - assuming there are no Environment Court appeals - would be most of the way through next year.

Tony Seymore, Northland Regional Council's leader of the Project Aquaculture, said it would be "naive" to expect no appeals.

Seymore doubted AMAs would be established before 2006.

While the regional council wasn't sitting on its hands, he said "it would be unwise in my view to prepare a plan change in the absence of legislation that is settled and clear".

Troubled times

November 2001: Moratorium on new marine farms announced, to be lifted March 2004.

March 2002: Aquaculture industry claims victory after Government refines the moratorium, allowing marine farm applications which were part way through the consent process to continue.

December 2002: Waitangi Tribunal report finds proposed aquaculture law reforms breach at least four treaty principles and have insufficient regard for Maori interests.

June 2003: Court of Appeal decision says Maori can argue a case for claiming customary title of foreshore and seabed.

July 2003: Fisheries Minister Pete Hodgson concedes moratorium could be delayed.

November 2003: Moratorium extended for nine months to December 2004.

2003/2004: Industry suffers a slump in global demand, and rising kiwi dollar eats into export returns.