Seagulls dive into the shallow surf that rolls onto the rocky beach at the mouth of the Ōaro River, south of Kaikōura, emerging with silver strands dangling from their beaks.

“The whitebait are running well today,” says Gina Solomon.

Standing on the beach with Gina Solomon, chair of Kaikōura Rūnanga Maurice Manawatu  speaks of the importance of acting now to ensure there is something of the ocean’s bounty left for the future.

“We all realised that if we didn’t start looking after what we’ve got, the way we are going, our children and future generations wouldn’t be able to go down and get a feed of pāua or kina and practice what their ancestors have done for centuries,” he says.

It’s that spirit of kaitiakitanga, guardianship and conservation that are the driving forces behind Te Korowai o te Tai o Marokura, says Manawatu.

“All the families used to come here every Christmas,” says Solomon, who is a Kaikōura Rūnanga member and secretary for Te Korowai. “All us kids used to spend the day playing along the beach. We used to swim, eat seafood and gather fruit from my grandparents’ orchard.”

They were days of abundance that she hopes to recreate for her children.

It was from this small Ōaro community that the idea of a conservation strategy for the area first sprung. Nearly 30 years ago, when fisherman, early environmentalist, founder of Whale Watch Kaikōura and Gina Solomon’s uncle, the late Bill Solomon talked about his vision for a protected marine area around Kaikōura.

Some years later in the early 1990s the Forest and Bird Society proposed a marine reserve that would protect the water and inter-tidal habitats around Te Taumanu o Te Waka a Māui – the Kaikōura Peninsula. While the government shelved the idea, rapidly depleting fish stocks convinced the Kaikōura conservation community and Kaikōura Rūnanga to continue lobbying for greater protection.

The rūnanga wanted to show leadership and uphold its kaitiaki (guardian) responsibilities so they lobbied fishermen, tourism operators, environmentalists, councils and government agencies to come together. The group met officially for the first time on 25 April, 2005 for a coastal management hui. They adopted the name Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura, a cloak that would be laid over the coastal marine area of Marokura to protect it and its treasures from the mountains to the deep sea canyon for years to come.

Marokura is the god who formed the Kaikōura Peninsula and planted food in the sea.

Manawatu, who is also the former chair of Te Korowai, says the group has done its very best to work for the greater good of the Kaikōura people, the wellbeing of its natural environment, and to secure opportunities for future generations.

“There have been concessions but always with the understanding that we are working towards creating abundance for the good of future generations of all of us.

“The communication has been open and honest,” says Manawatu. “If you could see how far we have come from the first meetings to the final draft of the strategy. Things have moved miles.”

The three-month public consultation period ended on December 3 and there were 161 submissions sent in.

John Nicholls, current chair of Te Korowai, says the philosophy of gifts and gains reflects an understanding that the Kaikōura marine environment is an ecological system where the whole is far more than the sum of the parts.

The philosophy was adapted from the Fiordland Guardians, where in 1995 a group of commercial and recreational fishers, charter boat and tourism operators, environmentalists, marine scientists, community representatives and Ngāi Tahu (through Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Murihiku Rūnanga) came together to address the escalating pressures on the marine environment. The main differences between the Fiordland and Kaikōura strategies are the complexities and high number of groups that Kaikōura has had to consult with.

The Kaikōura negotiations have been so successful, Ngāi Tahu kaiwhakahaere Mark Solomon says the process could be a template for the whole country.

“There’ve been tears but mostly it’s been a journey marked by aroha and strengthened community relationships. I think the whole of New Zealand could look at this as a model of how communities can come together to look after their resources for themselves and their children.”

Te Korowai also adopted the Fiordland Guardian’s “egg” model where individuals from groups directly involved with decision-making on the coastal marine area sit in the yolk, and government agencies and local councils who play a supporting role and give advice from the white of the egg.

All discussions took place at Takahanga Marae. “This was so everyone would recognise the position the local rūnanga held and how important the coastline is to them,” says Nicholls.

“Many of the members of Te Korowai may never have set foot on a marae before so it allowed them to get an understanding of how things worked on a marae and feel more comfortable in these surroundings.

“Once you can look at things through different eyes and get in the same room and talk that is the first step to get that trust and understanding.”

In the “yolk”, representing the Kaikōura Rūnanga are Maurice Manawatu, Darcia Solomon, Gina Solomon, Raewyn Solomon and Mark Solomon (who also represents Ngāi Tahu). Richard Craig and Ted Howard represent recreational fishing interests while David Rae, Larnce Wichman, Phil Richardson, Dick Cleall and John Nicholls represent commercial fishing. Tourism is supported by Dennis Buurman and Ian Croucher, while Barry Dunnett, Lynda Kitchingham and Owen Woods are the voice for the environment.

Supporting this group in the “egg white” are Environment Canterbury, the Department of Conservation, Kaikōura District Council, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, an independent advisor and two facilitators.

One of the independent facilitators, Peter Lawless, says the reason the process worked in Kaikōura was because of the great pragmatism among group. He added that being on the marae meant everyone had a chance to have their say and contentious issues were debated without any personal animosity.

Raewyn Solomon agrees. “The kawa of our marae is to encourage the hard things to be said without taking away the mana of the speaker and those that are spoken to.”

Lawless was also encouraged by the unexpected leadership that emerged on several occasions. “When we got stuck, Aunty Darcy [Solomon] would say, ‘Remember, it’s about the whole thing’ and people would come back to the idea of looking after today’s treasures for the future.”

The result of the exhaustive dialogue over the last six years is a 120-page document that outlines a detailed strategy of how Te Korowai proposes to create and manage the marine environment, including five mātaitai and two taiapure.

Once the strategy has been agreed on upon, special legislation may be required to embed the role of Te Korowai and introduce the suite of legal instruments identified in the proposals. Nicholls says this is expected to take a number of years.

Te Korowai has established an area of interest covering the coast and sea between Waiau Toa (Clarence River) south to Tūtae Putaputa (Conway River) and proposed five mātaitai. The mātaitai will be at Mangamaunu, Mussel Rock (Te Waha o te Marangai), and Ōaro as the traditional food gathering places of tangata whenua as well as on the lower reaches of the Ōaro, Kahutara and Tūtae Putaputa (Conway) Rivers.

Mātaitai reserves can be established over marine or freshwater areas that have traditionally been used for customary food gathering. They allow tangata whenua to manage non-commercial fishing in the area.

Tangata tiaki/kaitiaki can recommend bylaws to manage fishing in keeping with local sustainable management practices. The reserves are permanent but the bylaws may change over time.

Tangata whenua and recreational fishers may fish in mātaitai reserves, but commercial fishing is banned unless reinstated by the Minister of Fisheries upon a request from tangata tiaki. Mātaitai do not prevent access to beaches or rivers.

Two taiāpure are also proposed at Haumuri Bluffs. Taiāpure can be established over local fisheries in estuarine or coastal waters to recognise the special significance of the area to local iwi or hapū, either as a food source, or for cultural reasons.

The Kaikōura Peninsula is rich in Ngāti Kurī heritage with at least 14 pā sites, around 30 kāinga sites and several customary harvesting areas.

Andrew Baxter from the Department of Conservation also considers the Kaikōura coastline one of the most environmentally unique in the world.

“Recent research by NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmosphere) demonstrates just how diverse and how productive the sea bed is. In the depths of the canyon species are 100 times more productive than similar habitats anywhere else in the world.”

Baxter says research by NIWA and University of Canterbury, which has a base in Kaikōura, provides snapshots of the environment that need to be pieced together to show the bigger picture.

“Te Korowai has used those snapshots to link with local knowledge from iwi, recreational fishers and the community as a whole, pulling all those threads together. You might look out at the marine environment and think it’s big and can look after itself, but it’s actually quite fragile.”

Barry Dunnett from the Forest and Bird Society, whose initial 1992 proposal was ignored by the government, says the society has concerns the new proposals may not go far enough.

“We’d like to see more protection for some of the rare and distinctive marine communities and ecosystems,” says Dunnett. “So we see this more as a starting point but it is important to keep reminding ourselves that this strategy is about the future.”

Pulling the threads of these agreements together over so many different interest groups was painstaking and thorough and the final decisions were always reached through agreement. “There was no voting as such,” says Nicholls. “The idea was that if we couldn’t reach consensus we would go away and work on it until we could.”

According to Te Korowai proposals, recreational fishers will gift reduced bag limits, commercial fishers will gift fishing below maximum sustainable yield and within local codes, and customary fishers will gift open access to most areas. In return, the gains are more fish for all, traditional fisheries are sustained and more big fish are accessible for non-commercial fishers.

Richard Craig, who represents recreational fishing on Te Korowai, says fishermen have to be reasonable about the changes, as bag limits for some species are quite extravagant.

Something chairman Nicholls agrees with. “Only take enough for a feed; you don’t need to take your limit; when you fish in Kaikōura, respect our abundance.”

Mark Solomon has the same opinion. “The issue is not about rights but about what fishermen are taking from the sea. Some recreational takes are nonsense, such as a family being able to take 900 cockles a day (based on the current daily bag limit of 150 cockles per person).”

Commercial fishermen in the area are generally applauded for their conservative approach to fishing with most already adjusting practices to sustain local commercial stocks. They recently refused to accept a 15 per cent increase in the crayfish quota in the interest of building up the population.

However, there are concerns that as the group works to create abundance in its marine environment, the area will become attractive to commercial and recreational fishers based outside Kaikōura.

“We’ll have to deal with that once, and if, we see it happening,” says Ted Howard, Te Korowai treasurer and president of the Kaikōura Boating Club.

Spokesman for commercial pāua fishers David Rae says the group has had work together for the benefit of the whole environment.

Rae says the pāua fishers are working on several research projects to ensure future sustainability, including GPS tracking of divers and different ways of reseeding pāua beds, including artificial spawning to encourage growth.

“We’ve been managing the stocks well and the catch-breaks have been steady for the last 10 or 12 years, so we’re confident the industry will stay healthy.”

Other elements proposed in the strategy include creating a marine reserve that stretches from the coast near the slipway at Barney’s Rock out to the deepwater canyon. The strategy includes seeking World Heritage status for this area and including a code of practice to avoid Hector’s dolphin entanglement in set net operations outside the closed area; and a rāhui within the Taiāpure around the Kaikōura Peninsula. Rāhui are temporary bans on marine areas.

Te Korowai also plans to work with Environment Canterbury, Kaikōura District Council, the New Zealand Transport Agency, Department of Conservation and MAF Biosecurity to make decisions around Resource Management Act planning, highway and amenity planning and the development of local marine biosecurity capability.

Minimisation of fish theft through better enforcement, management of localised fisheries under local recreational fishing rules and an agreed overarching code of practice, is also proposed.

Ted Howard says people need to learn that just because there is a bag limit, they don’t have to take all of it.

Nicholls says fishermen need to learn that undersized pāua should be thought of as next year’s harvest.  “Death of any damaged pāua that you return will not only lead to fewer pāua in the following year, but also in years to come. This is because young stocks are the breeding stocks of the future.”

He says the general public need to be better informed about customary rights and the rules around mātaitai and taiāpure.

As Gina Solomon reflects on picnics spent as a child on the Ōaro beach cooking cockles on a hot plate over a fire, she says it was food that made the difference for Te Korowai in its infancy. “We all came to the marae and shared a meal. We didn’t realise it was such a diverse group until that meeting so having a shared kai was a real icebreaker.”

Maurice Manawatu believes a mātaitai on his beloved beach will have far reaching consequences. He says having mātaitai and taiāpure allows Ngāi Tahu to exercise their rangatiratanga once again. “It uplifts us as a people and allows us to walk on the paths our ancestors once did.”

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