Polishing the crown jewels

View of Rangitoto Island. Photo / Thinkstock

The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park is the crown jewel of Auckland's tourism industry. From the highly successful urban developments of the Wynyard quarter to the 'treasure' islands the small islands of which Auckland Tourism describes as "a reflection of the high premium which Kiwis place on keeping their natural environment 'clean and green'".

An Auckland Council study carried out in 2012 found that Tourism in the Hauraki Gulf alone has a value of $937 million and creates employment for 15,742 people.

Over 1 million people visit Waiheke Island each year and 100,000 flock to Rangitoto. But the environmental issues that are threatening the viability of this booming business go generally unseen to the tourists as they climb volcanoes and enjoy a chardonnay at a winery.

The Hauraki Gulf has a myriad of challenges affecting it and while plenty has been made of the rubbish which pours into the catchment, the biggest problem is the tainted water.

Nutrient run-off from the land contributes to algal blooms in the gulf, which disrupt diving and can contribute towards mass killing of fish. Tens of thousands of fish perished up at Orewa in 2002 causing a stinking mess and an incredible waste of resources.

Algal blooms have increased over the years in direct relation to the increase of nutrients that we are dumping into the water.

On the east side you have the heavy industry present in the Firth of Thames, with the Waihou River excreting the results of this into our harbour. But this is nothing new, I have written about the area before, and the conflict between commerce and the preservation of our natural systems is covered in an excellent article in the latest New Zealand Geographic magazine this month.

But with a prized water system such as the Hauraki Gulf, it is not so simple as to blame the 750 square kilometres of dairy farmers, when you have a city of over one million people just around the corner which is spluttering sediment, nutrients and heavy metals into the Gulf too. Farmers quite rightly make noise about the fact that our cities' water is dirtier than rural areas.

This doom and gloom quite frankly got embarrassing when environmental lobby group Pure Advantage pointed out that per capita, New Zealand was 18th worst out of 189 nations when it came to preserving its natural surroundings

But the good news is that innovative projects are addressing these challenges. One great example is the Revive Our Gulf project, where fishing giant Sanford has donated product to re-seed the wild mussel beds that - before they were decimated by dredging - used to filter out a lot of the water contaminants.

Another is the work of The New Zealand Landcare Trust. After years of running highly successful projects in rural areas, that bring people together to look after waterways, they sought to share their knowledge in the urban area as well, with the Volcano to Sea project in the Tamaki River.

What I particularly like about their approach is that they work incredibly hard to deliver solutions for water quality in communities and then openly share their hard-gained knowledge and experience. In this case, they produced an excellent free resource, called the CURE guide, which is bound to help communities tackle water quality challenges for years to come.

So while there are major challenges facing our crown jewel and economic boon, it heartens me to know that people are taking these on through innovative programs and sharing their knowledge to make such efforts grow.

Do you have any ideas on what we could do to clean up the Hauraki Gulf? If so, please leave a comment or email me.