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I’d like take this opportunity to introduce you all to someone very inspiring, someone who shares my passion for the ocean and someone whose passion for Marine Reserves I am constantly amazed by.
I would also like to thank her very very much for finally succumbing to my pleas for a few words on what she does and what the campaign is all about.
Without further words .. team, meet Catherine Langford – Fish Forever Campaigner.

Notes from a Marine Reserve Campaigner

Author: Catherine Langford, Fish Forever Campaigner
Date: 21 November 2011

Over the past 18 months I have been the impartial, mostly-reliable digital scribe of the Fish Forever campaign team, regularly sharing marine conservation news as @Wantmorefish on Twitter and on our Facebook page to help sustain our presence online.  I was asked some time ago to provide a crisp summary of Fish Forever for journalists, local figures, influencers.

In a flash, my writing powers dried up.

No one was pressuring me to meet a deadline. Nor had I been issued an unrealistic brief. I had been asked only to write more of the same; words shaped to spoon-feed.  But something didn’t feel right.

After procrastinating for weeks, I realised what the problem was. Simply put, I can no longer be objective about Fish Forever. If you want objective, go to the website – I wrote it; they are my measured, committee-approved words that tell you exactly what Fish Forever is about: http://www.fishforever.org.nz .

But don’t ask me to be objective anymore.

After a mentally and emotionally challenging 18 months since the inception of the campaign, I can no longer step back and give you the cool overview and balanced arguments for why we need a network of marine sanctuaries in the Bay of Islands. I still believe we do, harder than ever before. But the truth is that this campaign is not one you can be objective about. This campaign is awkward and twisted and rankling. It’s a political hot potato. It’s exciting, exasperating, rewarding and, occasionally, deathly dull. It interferes with your working life, your private life. For one week a month it becomes your life.

Fish Forever falls under the jurisdiction of the Bay of Islands Maritime Park Incorporated Society. The campaign was set up soon after the showing of the End of the Line at the Turner Centre on 16 May 2010. It had one clear focus: to establish a network of marine protected areas in the Bay of Islands.

End of the Line Press May 2010

Fish Forever is a community initiative, largely volunteer-based. We have an amazing team of volunteers, including marine scientists, oceanographers, professional divers,  ex-charter gamefishers, teachers, photographers. What unites us is a shared belief that the trends towards a depleted marine ecosystem absolutely MUST be reversed before it is too late. We believe there should be areas that are left just “to be” – as Wade Doak would say, “wet libraries for the sea” – to replenish the kelp forests, to let the snapper grow and grow, to let the crays gather, the blue and pink mao mao to flourish.

Fish Forever has become the voice of marine conservation in the Bay of Islands.
What we want is a healthy, replenished bay; a place that we can all live, work and play in. What we – and when I see we, I refer to every individual that has ever come to a meeting, hosted a hui, worn a tshirt, signed a mandate, marked a chart – what WE – the community, tangata whenua, business – what WE want is a Bay of Islands that teems with plants, birds and fish. We want a bay that provides kai for local Maori in their traditional gathering areas. We want waters that can be fished sustainably by recreational and charter fishermen. We want a bay that offers economic and social benefits to the entire community.

Locals mark a chart

After wringing our hands for many months, reluctant to endorse a tool some find so officious, the team has committed to pursuing the application for a marine reserve network using the 1971 Marine Reserves Act. Although marine reserves are not the final answer, they are the only effective long term site-specific tool currently available. The team has not restricted its vision to just marine reserves. However, we believe they are biggest and best step towards the self-management of our marine environment.

First, to heal. Second, to manage.

That is something we learned that from a highly regarded Maori representative, who is campaigning for Maori management rights the length of the Northland coast. We are looking at stage one – healing. So the job is not done when an application is handed in. This campaign is just one component of a more holistic package, probably driven by traditional Maori tools that will help structure the long-term management of the whole of the Bay of Islands and wider Northland coast. It’s unlikely to be called Fish Forever, but I have no doubt members of the Fish Forever team will stay on for the ride.

Fish Forever started out as a publicity campaign to raise awareness about the problem of depleting biodiversity, to listen to the stories of how things used to be and to ask the community what they wanted for their bay.

We advocated for 10% of the enclosed waters of the Bay of Islands to be established as a network of marine sanctuaries for at least a generation. These areas should be representative of the region, they should replicate habitat types throughout the network, the areas should be big enough to sustain the habitat type represented, they should be agreed by the community.

We invited people to sign a mandate – we have over a 1000 signatures. We invited people to draw on charts and engage in the debate about where a marine reserve network might be located – we received 410 responses. We appealed to fishermen to tell us areas that they’d find acceptable – that would not unreasonably affect their recreation or their business. We presented at the Bay of Islands Swordfish club – attendance was poor, so we need to do that again to help us shape a viable proposal. We talked to Daryl Sykes, as representative of the Rock Lobster Industry Council, about how the commercial fishing sector would respond to the call for a network of marine reserves. He talked of opportunity adjustment – possibly meaning financial recompense for those who “lost” a percentage of their legal fishing area? We have approached members of the different hapu in the Bay to discuss what Maori want to see in the future – to learn about their plans for fisheries management and to find out how we can support each other to achieve mutually strong goals. And yes, we are still talking. We haven’t got there yet.

Campaigners on the street in Paihia at It Festival Oct2010

After 18 months of hard debate, we still don’t have all the links in place. However, the process has started.
It is going to be a detailed, technical process that will undergo intense scrutiny. Alongside this work, we will continue to engage in constructive dialogue so that once an application for a marine reserve hits the desk of the Minister of Conservation it will bear the stamp of our community. The application will reflect the aspirations of the local people: those who mourn the decline of a rich marine habitat, those who value Tangaroa for his plenty, those who fear him for his strength and those who love him for the diversity of life he brings.

These are the people with and for whom Fish Forever campaigns.

For more information, please contact info@fishforever.org.nz