The only specialised marine publication in Oceania that focuses on the maritime industry, from super yachts to small craft to large commercial ships, including coastal shipping, tugs, tow boats, barges, ferries, tourist, sport-fishing craft
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/79766
OCEAN LAW Ready? Set? ACTION! T BY JUSTINE INNS he Government recently issued a National Strategy and Five-Year Action Plan to Support Aquaculture. The Strategy and Plan represent the latest in a number of efforts made by successive governments to assist the aquaculture industry in meeting its goal of $1 billion sales in annual sales revenue by 2025. While the Strategy and Plan do not have any legal effect in and of themselves, they do have substantially more meat to them than is usual in such documents, which often tend towards the 'motherhood and apple pie' end of the usefulness spectrum. The Strategy and Plan recognise that sector growth must be "industry-led" and that local authorities remain responsible for individual planning and resource consenting decisions. Within these parameters, however, central government agencies have a number of roles and responsibilities to fulfi l. The intent of the Strategy and Plan is that these central government roles and responsibilities will be carried out in such a way as to promote a series of identifi ed objectives, namely: • a healthy aquatic environment • quality planning and permitting • effective and responsive regulation • supporting Maori objectives • increasing market revenues • increasing value through research and development • sound governance Okay, so those objectives do sound a bit motherhood and apple pie-ish. But a direction that all nine central government agencies with core roles and responsibilities in respect of aquaculture, should operate in such a way as to advance a single set of objectives, is certainly useful. Moreover, the Five-Year Action Plan attached to the Strategy goes further into specifi cs, even including performance measures, introduced as, "we will know we have succeeded when". The inclusion of measurable targets that will allow the industry to assign a pass/fail mark in fi ve years time is, in large part, what gives this Strategy and Plan some real substance. One of those measurable targets is that, by 2016, "80 percent of regional coastal plans include aquaculture provisions in accordance with the policies in the NZCPS (New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement)". Unlike the Strategy and Action Plan, the NZCPS does have legal effect, via the Resource Management Act 1991. The RMA requires that there be an NZCPS in force at all times and that the purpose of the NZCPS is, among other things, to state objectives and policies about activities involving the use or development of areas of the coastal environment. For the fi rst time, the NZCPS, approved in 2010, included a policy specifi cally relating to aquaculture. Policy 8 provides that persons exercising functions and powers under the RMA should: Recognise the signifi cant existing and potential contribution of aquaculture to the social, economic and cultural well-being of people and communities by: a. including in regional policy statements and regional coastal plans provision for aquaculture activities in appropriate places in the coastal environment, recognising that relevant considerations may include: i. the need for high water quality for aquaculture activities; and ii. the need for land-based facilities associated with marine farming; b. taking account of the social and economic benefi ts of aquaculture, including any available assessments of national and regional economic benefi ts; and c. ensuring that development in the coastal environment does not make water quality unfi t for aquaculture activities in areas approved for that purpose. In the language of national policy statements, that constitutes a pretty strong statement of central government support for aquaculture, and requires some positive action from local authorities to include in their policies and plans "provision for aquaculture activities in appropriate places". This is supported by requirements in the RMA that regional policy statements and regional and district plans must give effect to the NZCPS, and that local authorities must amend those statements and plans to ensure that they do so "as soon as practicable". Even before such policy and plan changes are made, local authorities must have regard to the NZCPS when considering resource consent applications. In order to support the task of amending local authority policy statements and plans to better address aquaculture, the National Strategy and Action Plan direct that relevant government agencies will work with local authorities to "identify opportunities for aquaculture growth", with the target of having 4000 hectares of new aquaculture space developed by 2016. It is also recognised that some local authorities have work to do in the area of infrastructure if aquaculture opportunities in their region are to be realised. The Strategy and Action Plan also deal with a number of other initiatives in fi elds including market development, research and innovation, and establishing biosecurity plans. All in all, they signal a number of positive and remarkably concrete government contributions to the development of the sector. Justine Inns is a partner at Oceanlaw. She has spent more than a decade as an advisor to various iwi including several years with Ngai Tahu. 14 New St, Nelson. PO Box 921, Nelson 7040. T +64 3 548 4136. F +64 3 548 4195. Freephone 0800 Oceanlaw. Email justine.inns@oceanlaw.co.nz www.oceanlaw.co.nz 10 ■ NZ AQUACULTURE ■ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012