Turning the Tide - EDS Home the Tide_FINAL.p… · iv TURNING THE TIDE 1 INTEGRATED MARINE PLANNING IN NEW ZEALAND LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Components of the Sea Change project assessed

This report explores the utility of marine spatial planning as an approach to strengthen marine management in New Zealand. It contains an in-depth review of the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari project undertaken in the Hauraki Gulf between 2013 and 2106. It reviews recent international literature on marine spatial planning and investigates six leading overseas marine plans. Finally, it contextualises the Hauraki Gulf project within this broader body of marine spatial planning practice and draws out lessons applicable to future marine planning exercises in New Zealand.

Turning the Tide Integrated marine planning

in New Zealand

Raewyn Peart

i

TURNING THE TIDE Integrated marine planning

in New Zealand

Raewyn Peart

TURNING THE TIDE – INTEGRATED MARINE PLANNING IN NEW ZEALANDii

First published November 2018

Published by:

Environmental Defence Society IncorporatedP O Box 91736 Victoria St WestAuckland 1142

Phone (09) 302 2972

[email protected]

www.eds.org.nz

www.environmentguide.org.nz

Design: Neale Wills, Wilsy Design & Production Ltd

Photographic images: Raewyn Peart

Cover image: Tahunanui Beach, Nelson

Copies can be downloaded from www.eds.org.nz

Use and copying of the information in this report is welcomed and allowed so long as the source is acknowledged.

iiiTABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Overview of key findings 1 1 . 1 Development of MSP worldwide 2 1.2 Summary of lessons learned from Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari 3 1.3 Summary of lessons learned from international practice 7 1.4 Utility of MSP as a marine management tool in New Zealand 82 Lessons learned from Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari 9 2.1 Project configuration 10 Project initiation 10 Project resourcing and management 13 Project design 14 2.2 Co-governance 18 2.3 Collaborative plan making 19 Selection of SWG members 19 Independent Chair 21 Collaborative process 21 External relationships 24 Roundtables 25 2.4 Information flows 26 Mātauranga Māori 26 Science 28 Independent Review Panel 32 2.5 Public engagement and communications 33 2.6 Implementation 36 Content of plan 36 Implementation process 37 2.7 Conclusions 403 International MSP practice 41 3.1 International literature review 42 3.2 In-depth review of marine plans 49 Integrated management plan for the Barents Sea and the Sea Areas of the Lofoten Islands 2006 (revised 2011) 49 Belgian North Sea Master Plan 2003 and New Belgian Maritime Spatial Plan 2014 51 Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan 2010 52 Haida Gwaii Marine Plan 2015 54 East Inshore and East Offshore Marine Plans 2014 56 The Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Pilot Plan 2016 574 Key lessons from international MSP experience 61 4.1 Impetus 62 4.2 Scope and scale 62 4.3 Regulatory framework 62 4.4 Management and advisory bodies 63 4.5 Timeframes 63 4.6 Funding 64 4.7 Methodology 64 4.8 Public and stakeholder involvement 64 4.9 Role of science 65 4.10 Contents of plans 65 4.11 Provisions for traditional use and management 66 4.12 Implementation and monitoring 67 4.13 Conclusions 67References 69

Endnotes 72

TURNING THE TIDE – INTEGRATED MARINE PLANNING IN NEW ZEALANDiv

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1 Components of the Sea Change project assessed 10

2.2 Structure of the Sea Change project 12

2.3 Sea Change external expenditure budget estimates (2012) 13

2.4 Map of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park and catchments 15

2.5 Sea Change timeline 17

3.1 Summary of the key components of MSPs 59

LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

DOC Department of Conservation

EDS Environmental Defence Society

EEZ exclusive economic zone

FTE full-time equivalent

GIS geographical information systems

IRP Independent Review Panel

MMO Marine Management Organisation

MPA marine protected area

MPI Ministry for Primary Industries

MSP marine spatial planning / marine spatial plan

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Pause Pause in the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari project during mid-2015 to reconfigure the project

PSG Project Steering Group

RMA Resource Management Act 1991

Sea Change Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial planning project

SWG Stakeholder Working Group

WRC Waikato Regional Council

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Department of

Conservation Community Fund which enabled this project to be undertaken. We would like to thank Brooke Cox for her

assistance with the international literature review and investigation into overseas marine spatial plans. We would also like

to thank those who generously gave up their time to be interviewed for the project and those who provided peer review

comments. However, the content of the report is solely the responsibility of the author.

1

1: OVERVIEW OF KEY FINDINGS

Tiritiri Matangi


TURNING THE TIDE – INTEGRATED MARINE PLANNING IN NEW ZEALAND2

This report explores the utility of marine spatial planning (MSP) as an approach to strengthen marine management in New Zealand. It draws on lessons distilled from the MSP project undertaken in New Zealand for the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park and from international practice. The report undertakes a detailed examination of the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari (Sea Change) MSP project undertaken between 2013 and 2016 (set out in Chapter 2). It reviews recent international literature on MSP and investigates six leading overseas marine plans (set out in Chapter 3). Finally, it distils lessons learnt from international MSP practice and contextualises Sea Change within this broader body of MSP experience (set out on Chapter 4).

In this chapter, we bring together the key lessons from these three research endeavours and apply them to the broader New Zealand context. First, we chart the evolution of MSP as a concept and practice worldwide. Secondly, we provide an overview of the lessons from the Sea Change project. Thirdly, we summarise the lessons from international practice. Finally, we seek to answer the question: What is the utility of MSP as a tool for marine management in New Zealand?

1.1 Development of MSP worldwideMarine spatial planning is an approach that has increasingly been applied in countries around the world to better manage the pressures and conflicts arising from human use of the sea. In 2014, it was described as ‘an idea whose time has come’.1 The beginnings of MSP stem back to the first zoning of the Australian Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 1981, which drew on terrestrial land-use and conservation planning approaches. The resultant plan provided a practical demonstration of how ocean space could be spatially delineated. Supported by the subsequent growth of marine science and development of geographical information systems (GIS), promising

MSP pilots were undertaken in the Irish Sea and the Belgian North Sea during the early 2000s. The successful rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 2004 reinforced the value of MSP. Originally described as ‘marine zoning’, the alternative term ‘marine spatial planning’ was developed during the mid-2000s because ‘zoning’ was considered to be a politically difficult concept to sell.2 In practice, few marine spatial plans (MSPs) include detailed zonings, with the Great Barrier Reef plan being a notable outlier in this respect.

In their step-by-step MSP guide published by UNESCO in 2009, Ehler and Douvere describe MSP as ‘a public process of analysing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic, and social objectives that are usually specified through a political process’.3 It is a deliberative, forward-looking and cross-sectoral exercise that seeks to reconcile competing considerations.4 Merrie and Olsson describe MSP as innovative because ‘it enables the recognition that the oceans are no longer being a free-for-all commons and rather a space where human interests and responsibilities (established and emerging) and ecosystems interact’.5

More recently, the underlying concept underpinning MSP has transitioned from ‘sustainable development’ to ‘ecosystem-based management’. When applied to the marine area, ecosystem-based management aims to ‘maintain marine ecosystems in a healthy, productive and resilient condition so that they can sustain human uses of the oceans and provide goods and services’.6 An ecosystems approach considers all the known interactions within a marine ecosystem, including those of humans, rather than taking a single species or sector focus. It recognises the interdependence between ecological, social, economic, and institutional systems.7 MSP provides an integrated, place-based planning approach which can be used to address ecosystem considerations.8

Islington Bay, Rangitoto Island


MSP has become increasingly popular with marine planners, with UNESCO identifying such planning initiatives in 65 countries.9 Kyvelou and Pothitaki describe the application of MSP in regions as diverse as Africa (Angola, Namibia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa), Asia (Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and China), America (Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, United States) and Europe.10 All member states of the European Union are now required to establish MSP by 2021.11 This has been associated with a growing ‘blue growth’ dialogue in Europe, where MSP is linked with the development of marine economies.12

MSP is increasingly seen as a ‘key political tool both for the implementation of development goals related to the sea and oceans and the sustainability and ecosystem management approaches’. However, a key remaining challenge is how to ‘translate its principles into concrete action’.13 Despite its challenges, the popularity of MSP is continuing unabated, with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission predicting that by 2025 MSP could cover just under one-third (44 million km2) of the world’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs).14

MSP has been applied in varying ways at different locations. Many of the processes fail to live up to the ambition of undertaking fully integrated, participatory and ecosystem-based planning exercises. This divergence of approach may reflect the reality of different localities and political contexts. As Kidd and Ellis observe, ‘Planning styles geared more towards trial-and-error experimentation, controlled risk-taking, long-term adaptation and the realpolitik of governance may be more appropriate in such an “age of uncertainty”.’15 Sea Change can be seen in this light, as an experiment and exercise in adaptive management which we can learn from and build on in the future.

1.2 Summary of lessons learnt from Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari

Sea Change was the first fully-integrated MSP project in New Zealand. In the context of international MSP practice, Sea Change was ground-breaking. It built on an international review of MSP commissioned by the Hauraki Gulf Forum in 2011,16 but very much adapted international practice to the local context. It brought together several strands of evolving natural resource management practice in New Zealand, including the establishment of Crown-iwi partnership co-governance and co-management structures, the use of multi-stakeholder collaborative processes, and the integration of mātauranga Māori and scientific approaches.

Sea Change was the most ambitious marine planning exercise to be undertaken in the country. It took place in the most contested marine space in New Zealand. Completing the plan through a consensus process was a major achievement and something that has yet to be attempted in MSP overseas. The integrated planning process enabled a strong focus to be placed on strategic drivers of environmental decline in the Hauraki Gulf and

how to address them. The plan itself sets out a roadmap for action to reverse this decline, while providing for current and future uses. What Sea Change has also provided is a rich learning ground which future projects can benefit from, by building on the project’s strengths and putting in place mechanisms to address its weaknesses.

Several book chapters and articles have been published which describe the Sea Change project and its outcomes.17 In addition, the Office of the Auditor General is currently undertaking a performance audit looking at how effective the process was to develop and implement the first attempt at a MSP in New Zealand, with a report due out in late 2018. A detailed description and analysis of the Sea Change project is presented in Chapter 2. This is based on a review of relevant documents, a case study prepared as part of the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge which investigated the role of mātauranga Māori and science in the Sea Change process, and 37 in-depth interviews undertaken with a wide variety of people directly involved in the Sea Change project.

ImpetusThe impetus for Sea Change was growing concern about the ecological decline of the Hauraki Gulf, as highlighted by the Hauraki Gulf Forum’s State of Our Gulf reports, as well as growing conflicts over its use. Efforts to obtain new water space for both marine protection and aquaculture had been stymied by strong opposition. The Hauraki Gulf Forum and staff at both Auckland Council and the Waikato Regional Council (WRC), supported by EDS, strongly championed the idea of developing a MSP for the Gulf. There was a strong constituency for change.

The willingness to embark on such a project at that time, however, was not as strong in the political realm. It took a year for Auckland Council to approve the project, and with councillors evenly divided on the matter, the project only proceeded on a casting vote by the then chair. There were also competing agendas at central government level, with the launch of a proposal to establish a recreational fishing park in the Hauraki Gulf not long after Sea Change got under way.

This experience highlights the importance of strong champions for a MSP project in order to bring on board all the relevant players. Support is more likely if there are serious and well-articulated problems which current management efforts are failing to address and clear opportunities to achieve positive change. As discussed further below, it is also important that strong agency and political champions are retained and engaged throughout the planning process and into the implementation phase.

Project structure and resourcingThe project design was complex, reflecting the multi-agency, co-governance and collaborative nature of the plan making process. Overseeing the project was a Project Steering Group (PSG) consisting of council politicians, central government agency officials and mana whenua. It was advised by an Independent Review Panel (IRP) consisting of national and international experts


whose role was to assess the Sea Change project against the UNESCO framework and report to the PSG. A Project Board consisting largely of agency staff oversaw the nuts and bolts of the project including budgets, resourcing and timeframes. A Project Manager was tasked with day-to-day management of these aspects. There were also ‘business owners’ in each participating agency. The actual plan making process was undertaken by the Stakeholder Working Group (SWG) under the guidance of the Independent Chair. The Independent Chair was tasked with the challenging role of shepherding the SWG through a collaborative process to deliver a plan within a tight timeframe, as well as to provide a conduit between the SWG and the other project groupings.

Problems were encountered with this somewhat complex structure. At times, accountabilities became opaque to those involved in the project. Partway through the project, relationships became strained between the PSG and SWG, between the SWG and agencies, and between mana whenua, the Independent Chair and the project team. This generated a partial restructure which improved matters considerably.

Substantial resources were made available to the project. However, Sea Change did not have dedicated project staffing, with most staff being seconded from agencies, and additional expertise being provided through short-term external contracts from time to time. Some staff were seconded full time but others had only a small proportion of their time assigned to the project. The skills of the seconded staff did not always match the project’s requirements. Auckland Council was undergoing several rounds of restructuring which resulted in an uncertain environment for its staff. Auckland Council was developing its Unitary Plan and WRC was undertaking a major planning exercise in the Waipā and Waikato River catchments which absorbed much political and staff attention. All these factors hindered the development of a strong core project team.

There are lessons from this experience for future MSP projects. Multi-agency projects are complex with multiple lines of accountability and reporting, various budgetary cycles and the like. However, to the extent possible, the project structure needs to be streamlined. There should be a dedicated project team carefully selected to meet the skills required to deliver the project. Strong working relationships need to be built between all the different elements of the project, and the more streamlined the structure, the easier this task will be.

Project design The project encompassed the entire Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, as well as its catchment areas to the extent these impacted on the Park. This broadly coincided with coastal marine ecosystems. It also included all functions and activities within the Park including fisheries and marine protection. This broad geographical and functional scope enabled the development of an integrated and ecosystem-based plan and it reflected the approach in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000. Such an integrated approach is also identified as desirable in MSP literature, but it is

rarely achieved in practice, and so in this respect Sea Change can be described as world-leading.

From the outset, there was a range of views as to how much leeway should be given to the SWG to develop the plan. One view, which ultimately prevailed, was that there should be minimal constraints on the process so that the collaborative group could innovate to develop solutions to the complex problems facing the Gulf. An alternative view was that the project scope and deliverables should be more tightly defined so that the final outputs were more predictable and could align well with agency functions, funding cycles and support initiatives already under way.

The broad brief given to the SWG did enable innovation, and parts of the plan have been challenging for implementing agencies. Arguably innovation was required in this case if the intractable issues affecting the Gulf were to be resolved. But one of the downsides of such a fluid approach was that there remained a wide variation in expectations amongst implementing agencies commissioning the plan and others as to what the project would deliver. Inevitably, not all of these expectations were met. More effort needs to be put into managing expectations in future MSP projects. Where possible, these should be explicit and agreed amongst the sponsoring agencies.

The project was given a short timeframe of 18 months to deliver a plan. In hindsight, producing a meaningful plan for a such large and well-utilised area which was experiencing complex problems – using a collaborative process and by integrating mātauranga Māori – was very ambitious. Although setting a tight timeframe helps to focus attention, it does create more stress. In the case of Sea Change, the initial tight timeframe contributed to a weakening of relationships and the project was paused for several months (hereafter referred to as ‘the Pause’) before continuing in a reconfigured form. The final plan was delivered after 3 years. A project timeframe of 3–4 years is more the norm for international MSP projects and we would suggest that a 3-year timeframe would likely be appropriate for future MSP projects in New Zealand (depending on scope), particularly if it was preceded by a period of baseline data gathering.

Co-governanceAs already described, the governance body for Sea Change (the PSG) was a mix of local government politicians, central government officials and mana whenua. This usefully brought together all the different agency sponsors of the plan in partnership with mana whenua. The PSG’s role was to provide overall leadership and high level oversight of the plan making process, to approve the plan on completion by the SWG and to advocate implementation by their respective agencies.

The Mātauranga Māori Roundtable (which was established in around October 2014 and renamed the Mātauranga Māori Representative Group in September 2015) brought together the mana whenua members of the PSG and SWG, thereby breaching the structural governance/operational divide between the two bodies. This was of


concern to some interviewees. On the positive side, this arrangement proved effective in supporting the mana whenua members of the SWG, and it helped to embed mātauranga Māori into the plan. However, the short project timeframe made effective dissemination of material to the wider Hauraki Gulf iwi and hapū groups challenging.

The PSG was disestablished after adopting the plan and handing it over to the sponsoring agencies, so it was not able to undertake the later role of advocating implementation. This role was also compromised by the local government elections, which were held just prior to the plan’s release, where several key members of the PSG lost their seats. These events highlight a weakness in the Sea Change project structure, which saw all the project entities (including the PSG, SWG, Independent Chair, project team and communications lead) disestablished once the plan was publicly launched. No formal multi-agency or stakeholder structure was retained, or put in place, to oversee implementation, monitoring and review of the plan (although informal liaison between agencies has occurred). No specific budgetary provision or resourcing was made available for the implementation stage. International experience indicates that implementation is one of the most challenging phases of MSP. It needs considered thought and design during the plan making process and dedicated resource once the plan is completed. Future MSP projects in New Zealand need to consider implementation structures and processes (including monitoring and reporting on effectiveness) at the outset of the project.

Selection of SWG membersIt was broadly recognised that getting the right people onto the SWG was critical to the success of the project. Selecting 10 people to represent the myriad of stakeholder interests in the Hauraki Gulf was never going to be easy. The selection process came under some criticism, including that it was only those who turned up to the selection meeting that were chosen. But it did enable sectors to identify their own representatives (which meant that SWG members were to some extent mandated by their sectors), and it also included a screening mechanism to exclude potentially disruptive people. An additional four mana whenua members were selected through a hui-ā-iwi process. The members of the Sea Change SWG were high calibre, constructive and able to effectively collaborate. However, some sectors were not well represented. Future MSP projects will need to further refine processes to ensure that good representation is obtained on the SWG.

Collaborative processAlthough the collaborative process proved challenging, it was also one of the notable strengths of the Sea Change process. Stakeholders with a myriad of different interests and worldviews came together with mana whenua, and all agreed on a package of measures for the Hauraki Gulf. A close relationship developed between the SWG members, and this social capital has beneficially flowed into other Gulf initiatives since the plan was completed. People shifted their positions considerably during the process,

enabling agreements to be reached. The collaborative process was very time-consuming for participants, but individuals were positive about the personal benefits they gained in return. Future MSP projects would do well to consider incorporating collaboration into the plan making process as part of broader engagement.

One of the challenges with collaborative plan making is the interface between the collaborative body (in this case the SWG) and the agencies which both sponsor the process and are the implementing bodies. In Sea Change, the agencies were largely kept outside of the collaborative process. This is in contrast to the approach taken in other similar processes, such as the Land and Water Forum, where agency staff participated as ‘active observers’. ‘Agency conduits’ were established in the later stages of the Sea Change project which went someway down this path. The uneasy relationship between the agencies and the SWG caused some difficulties and plan implementation challenges. Future MSP projects will need to design in a more effective interface between the two groupings, which could consist of agency staff being around the SWG table as ‘Active Observers’, having long-term secondments into the project team, or being more closely integrated as members of working groups (such as the Roundtables).

A further challenge is the relationship with members of the public and local communities, who can feel alienated from the process. They can also be uncomfortable with a planning process which is novel and different to statutory plan making. This is why well-constructed and communicated community engagement mechanisms are an important part of collaborative planning processes.

RoundtablesSix Roundtables were established to focus on specific aspects of the plan and to involve a broader range of stakeholders in the plan development work. The Roundtables met monthly for six months and then reported back to the SWG, after which they were disestablished. Overall, the Roundtables were seen as a very positive element of the project. They should be considered for incorporation into future MSP projects. They could be improved through bringing all the groups together from time to time to discuss overlaps and synergies. The groups could also be retained to act as sounding boards later on in the project, as the plan provisions are developed, and could review draft output.

Mātauranga MāoriIt was agreed from the outset that mātauranga Māori would be incorporated into the plan, but this was not well defined and did not prove easy to achieve in practice. There are around 26 iwi and hapū groups with an interest in the Hauraki Gulf and it was difficult for the four mana whenua members of the SWG to fully represent them. It took some time for an effective mātauranga Māori support structure to be put in place, and with the tight initial timeframe for the completion of the plan, this made effective integration challenging.


The establishment of the Mātauranga Māori Roundtable with specialist technical support was a positive step, as was engaging a Māori writer, designer and GIS expert to assist the plan writing and production team. Overall, interviewees thought that mātauranga Māori had strengthened the plan considerably and that Sea Change had made more progress in this area than other planning exercises in New Zealand. Future MSP projects would benefit from designing in a mātauranga Māori support structure from the outset and should consider resourcing the development of mātauranga Māori material prior to the formal plan making process commencing.

ScienceThe science underpinning Sea Change was generally regarded to be of very high quality. Many scientists, who were senior experts in their field, presented their work directly to the SWG and Roundtables. The science needs of the project were largely identified by the SWG with assistance from the project team. At times, the scientific information was gathered on request between monthly SWG and Roundtable meetings, rather than a coherent science programme being constructed in advance. However, the science drawn on was broad and fairly comprehensive.

At times, some of the SWG and Roundtable members felt swamped with science, and they had too little time to digest it adequately. On the other hand, several SWG and Roundtable members commented very positively on what they had learnt from the scientific presentations, and these learnings were one of the highlights of their involvement in the process. Later on in the project, two science conduits were engaged to assist the SWG in the plan writing stage, and this worked well. Many overseas MSP projects establish a technical advisory body to help manage the technical input into the plan and provide quality assurance, and this was the approach taken in the Land and Water Forum. Such a body could include senior scientists, mātauranga Māori experts, economists and policy advisors.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) put considerable resource into developing the web-based mapping software SeaSketch and populating it with data sets. Auckland Council and WRC staff also spent much time on this task, assembling data sets and sending them through to DOC for uploading. Most interviewees considered SeaSketch to be helpful, but it could have been more fully utilised in the planning process. Initially, SWG members were expected to use SeaSketch directly after a short training session, but the software proved more complex to use than anticipated. Later on in the process a dedicated technician was provided by DOC to use SeaSketch during SWG discussions and this worked well.

The key lesson from the use of science in the Sea Change project is that future MSP projects could benefit from including a strong science lead to help curate and interpret the science for SWG members. This could be in the form of a Chief Scientist, one or more science conduits, or a hands-on scientific advisory body. A

scientist could also be included on the SWG, although this may unhelpfully blur the line between independent science and sectoral representation.

Public engagement and communicationMuch effort was put into the engagement and communications effort during the early phases of the project with ‘Listening Posts’ (see section 2.5), surveys, outreach to public events, an active website and public meetings. The effort wound down during the later stages and the communications function was disestablished after the plan was publicly launched. Several interviewees identified the Listening Posts as being particularly valuable.

Despite the considerable effort and expenditure of resource, many interviewees thought that engagement and communications was one of the weaker parts of the project. There are several likely reasons for this. There was no communications plan or lead when the project began and the role was occupied by various people during the duration of the project, making continuity difficult. The connection between the communications team and the SWG could have been stronger, so that information gathered through surveys was better utilised. There was a paucity of public information during the last year or so of plan development, creating uncertainty amongst the public as to what was happening. Insufficient time was provided to prepare for an effective public launch of the plan when it emerged. There was also a lack of clarity as to whether the draft plan would go out to public consultation, with a decision not to include this step only made by the PSG during the latter stages of the project.

Communications and public engagement is a crucial part of any future MSP project. It needs to be carefully planned ahead of time, be consistent throughout the entire project, and continue through into the important implementation phase. A senior communications person should be a dedicated part of the project team from the outset and could liaise with the SWG and the Independent Chair through a communications subgroup. The process for engaging sectoral groups and members of the public in the project should be decided and communicated upfront, including when consultation will take place and whether draft plan material will be made available for comment.

The plan and implementationInterviewees were generally very positive about the final plan that emerged from the process. It was described by some interviewees as balanced, future-looking, ambitious, and an excellent start. It includes new initiatives for biodiversity and habitat restoration, sediment reduction, and co-governance of local marine areas. It provides for the expansion aquaculture and marine protection. It proposes new management settings for fish stocks and a strategy to transition commercial fishing to a higher value and less environmentally damaging model, amongst many other things.

However, no MSP is perfect and some interviewees identified weaknesses in coverage in areas such as infrastructure, biosecurity and climate change. Others


thought that the plan lacked detail and could have been more spatially referenced. Yet others felt that some of the recommendations were impractical, unfeasible or technically unachievable. A consensus process necessarily generates compromise solutions which do not find favour with everyone. Internationally, MSPs are often seen as a work in progress, to be further developed over time as experience is built up. Several plans developed in other countries are now into their second generation and have become more fully fleshed out over time.

Implementation is one of the most important phases of a MSP project and there is broad consensus that Sea Change has encountered difficulties in this area. Nearly two years after the plan was finalised, only a patchy implementation effort is evident. In hindsight, there are a number of factors that have contributed to this situation and that will need to be addressed in future MSP projects. They include:

• Insufficient time to fully test draft plan provisions with agencies, key stakeholder sectors and the general public prior to plan finalisation

• Lack of prioritisation of actions

• Lack of specific budgetary provision for the implementation of the plan

• Local government elections being help just prior to the plan’s release with central government elections the following year

• The disestablishment of the PSG and SWG on plan completion with no formal multi-agency implementation mechanism put in place

• Poor communications when the plan was publicly released and subsequent discontinuance of that function

• No one agency or Minister being given overarching responsibility for the implementation of the plan

• The lack of champions for the plan amongst implementation agencies (with many of the initial champions having moved on and a failure to effectively develop new champions)

ConclusionsThe completion of the Sea Change project is a major milestone for the management of marine space in New Zealand. The project achieved a lot, not least that mana whenua and stakeholders agreed on a common action plan for the Hauraki Gulf. The project was ambitious, charting new ground, and the process provides very rich lessons. Sea Change provides a solid base to build on and an indication of what can be improved in future MSP projects.

1.3 Summary of lessons learned from international practice

There is a wealth of practical MSP experience to draw on internationally, in addition to what can be learned locally

from the Sea Change process. Our research indicates that there is no one best way to undertake MSP, and very different approaches have been successfully applied in various settings. The local context is important. In countries where the role of government in society is relatively strong (such as in Europe) the planning process has been more top down, and the implementation more directive. In other places, where the governmental context is more complex, stakeholders can play a much stronger role in decision-making. Some of the key findings from the review, and their relevance to the New Zealand context, are summarised below. The full international literature review and more detailed examination of six marine plans is set out in Chapter 3.

More and more countries are formalising MSP within regulatory frameworks, sometimes after undertaking non-regulatory pilot projects. In this context, the Sea Change project could be seen as a pilot which can inform the framing of future MSP regulatory provisions. The projects are typically led by government agencies and take around 3–4 years. The planning processes differ between countries but all include a mix of scientific assessments and stakeholder engagement. Science is always a key part of the plan, and most processes undertake an initial stocktake of available information. Many seek to fill key gaps during the planning process by commissioning new research. Science advisory groups are often used to help manage scientific input. Stakeholder advisory groups are frequently established to engage with key interest groups. No MSP project examined went so far as to include a full stakeholder-driven collaborative process, so Sea Change is world-leading in this respect.

Most of the plans did not include hard zoning, but many identified important ecological areas that required protection and areas suitable for new activities. This very much aligns with the spatial content of the Sea Change plan.

Only the British Columbian plan made provision for traditional use and management, with the plan being developed by a provincial government and Haida Nation partnership body. Dedicated resource was put into identifying relevant indigenous knowledge ahead of the formal planning process. The plan included a protection for customary and treaty rights. There are strong parallels between this plan and the incorporation of mātauranga Māori in Sea Change.

Implementation has been achieved in several ways. Some plans have statutory effect through being directly applied to permitting decisions. Others are formally identified as ‘matters to be considered’ when decisions are made. Yet other non-statutory plans are implemented by various government agencies through strong political leadership and multi-agency groupings. Most of the plans included monitoring provisions, and several plans have been reviewed and are now into their second generation. Several plans also undertook reviews after the plan making process was completed, similar to this exercise.


International practice will continue to evolve and New Zealand could usefully link into this growing body of MSP practice through regular literature/web reviews and engagement with international groupings of practitioners.

1.4 Utility of MSP as a marine management tool in New Zealand

There is now a wealth of international experience and practice on MSP to draw on. MSP is no longer on the cutting edge of marine management but is mainstream. A growing number of countries now have regulatory frameworks in place that formalise MSP. Several plans are into their second generation. New Zealand has been a laggard in this area, but the successful development of the Sea Change plan has put the country at the forefront of MSP practice in several respects. This includes by developing a fully integrated plan including all important activities within catchments and the sea, embedding mātauranga Māori into the planning process, and using a stakeholder-led collaborative process for the plan’s development. New Zealand can now build on these leading elements.

MSP has a lot to offer a country like New Zealand, an island nation with a long coastline that has a fragmented institutional and planning structure for marine management. It enables integration across jurisdictional boundaries. It provides an effective

mechanism to harness scientific, local and indigenous knowledge in order to implement ecosystems-based management. It enables focus to be placed on protecting the underlying productivity of the marine environment, which is becoming increasingly urgent, given the serious and ongoing degradation of some of New Zealand’s coastal marine areas.18 It provides greater certainty for marine users and the marine environment. It enables the expression of kaitiakitanga (guardianship). And it helps to build social capital and trust, which enables complex issues to be better addressed.

MSP can be tailored to the circumstances. It can be applied at different scales and at different levels of detail. Plans can be non-statutory or have direct or indirect legal effect. However, MSP is not something to be embarked on lightly. These are complex projects that require significant investment and commitment towards mobilising science, mātauranga Māori, stakeholders and the general public. There should be a pressing need, complex issues or conflicts to resolve, and an appetite for change.

The Sea Change project has demonstrated that MSP can be successfully undertaken in New Zealand, and lessons from it show how such planning can be done better in the future. If MSP is to be progressed in New Zealand, ideally such planning should become institutionalised within New Zealand’s marine management system. How this might be achieved is an issue which will be explored in a subsequent EDS publication.

Firth of Thames

92: LESSONS LEARNED FROM SEA CHANGE TAI TIMU TAI PARI


Harataonga, Aotea


This chapter sets out results of an assessment of the Sea Change process. It draws on several data sources. First, documents produced during the Sea Change process were reviewed. Secondly, material produced for a case study prepared by the author as part of the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge, which investigated the role of mātauranga Māori and Western science in the Sea Change process, has been drawn on.19 This included 10 in-depth interviews with people closely involved in these two elements of the project. Thirdly, between April and May 2018, 37 in-depth interviews were undertaken with a wide range of people directly involved in the Sea Change project. The interviews took between 30 and 90 minutes each. They were broadly based on a set of pre-circulated questions and all covered the following four key topics areas:

• How did you get involved and what was the nature of your involvement in the Sea Change process?

• From your perspective what worked well in the process?

• From your perspective what didn’t work so well in the process?

• If we were to undertake another MSP process in New Zealand, what changes would you recommend?

Interviewees were promised confidentiality to encourage frankness. A simultaneous rough transcription was made of the interviews and the transcripts were subsequently analysed for key insights on the various aspects of the project. These were then integrated into the analysis, and this is set out below with direct quotes from interviewees shown italicised and indented. The author of this report was a member of the Sea Change SWG so has also been

able to draw on firsthand experience of the project. A draft report was circulated to all interviewees and others with an interest in the project for comment prior to finalisation. Not surprisingly, interviewees and reviewers expressed a range of views on the project, some of them conflicting. The material below seeks to reflect this.

The analysis below is structured around the components of the project shown in Figure 2.1. These include project configuration, co-governance, collaborative plan making, information flows, and implementation.

2.1 Project configurationThis section investigates the initiation of the project, how it was resourced and managed, and its scoping and design.

Project initiationThe beginnings of the Sea Change project stem back to 2010 when the Hauraki Gulf Forum commissioned a review of international experience of MSP and its applicability to the Gulf. The report investigated MSP projects in Australia (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan and Federal Government bioregional plans), the United States (Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary Comprehensive Management Plan, Massachusetts Ocean Plan and Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan), Canada (Eastern Scotian Shelf Integrated Oceans Management Plan) and Norway (Barents Sea-Lofoten Islands Integrated Management Plan).20

The resulting report, titled Spatial Planning for the Gulf, was released in March 2011, and concluded that ‘marine spatial planning is a well-accepted strategic planning

PROJECT CONFIGURATION

Project initiation

Project resourcing and management

Project design

CO-GOVERNANCEIMPLEMENTATION

Contents of Plan

Implementation process

COLLABORATIVE PLAN MAKINGSelection of SWG

Independent Chair

Collaborative process

Roundtables

External relationships

INFORMATION FLOWSMātauranga Māori

Science

Independent Review Panel

Public engagement and communications

Figure 2.1: Components of the Sea Change Project assessed


process which could help achieve the purposes of the HGMPA [Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act] including integrated management and the protection and enhancement of the life-supporting capacity of the Gulf’.21 The report served to communicate what MSP was, how it had been applied overseas, and what it might contribute to addressing the challenges faced by the Gulf. It helped generate greater understanding and support for establishing a MSP project in the area.

The report’s release was shortly followed by the Hauraki Gulf Forum’s third State of Our Gulf report, which was released in August 2011. Unlike the previous two reports, which had adopted a pressure-state-response framework, the 2011 report adopted a historical ecological baseline set prior to human settlement (around 800 years ago) as a base from which to measure the current ecological state. This resulted in the conclusion that ‘the Gulf is experiencing ongoing environmental degradation, and resources are continuing to be lost or supressed at environmental low levels’.22 The report received considerable media attention, thereby raising public awareness of the issues, with the New Zealand Herald carrying the headline ‘Hauraki Gulf: Toxic paradise?’23

The Hauraki Gulf Forum then sought to persuade key agencies to initiate a MSP process for the Gulf. As part of this effort, it brought international MSP expert Charles Ehler to New Zealand to run several MSP seminars and to impart his wisdom on the topic. EDS, whose Policy Director had authored the international review in her private consultancy capacity, also helped to promote the project more widely.

We had to find a better way of doing things than we were at that moment. Although we were raising awareness, we weren’t getting any change.

As well as a general concern about ecological decline, there were several other factors in play which saw the idea of a MSP project land in fertile ground. There had been a long-standing joint intention by central government, the WRC and the aquaculture industry to gain access to

additional marine space in the Gulf (in addition to the 1710 hectares of consented green-lipped mussel and Pacific oyster farming space) in order to facilitate the expansion of the aquaculture industry. As well as expanding these shellfish species, there was also a desire to diversify into the farming of finfish species such as kingfish.24 Attempts to obtain more space through traditional Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) processes had run up against considerable public opposition, so a new approach was being sought. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), which was charged with supporting the development of New Zealand’s aquaculture industry, was a co-sponsor of the Sea Change project along with the WRC, which has jurisdiction over the marine area where the bulk of the industry is currently located.

Another impetus was frustrated Māori aspirations. The Hauraki Gulf was one of the earliest places settled by Māori and there are multiple and overlapping tribal interests in the area, spanning some 26 groupings. As well as losing ownership of, and access to, much of their land, waterways and marine space in the Gulf, Māori have been largely excluded from decision-making for the area, frustrating both cultural and economic aspirations. At the time the project was proposed, many Treaty claims were under negotiation but had yet to be settled, including those for Hauraki tribes. Māori have a kinship relationship with the natural environment, and as kaitiaki (guardians) they have an obligation to enhance and sustain life support systems.25 The significant and ongoing ecological decline of the Gulf was therefore a cultural affront. The Sea Change process provided an opportunity for Māori oversight and more active involvement in strategic planning for the Hauraki Gulf.

A further motivation was the difficulty experienced in expanding the marine protected area (MPA) network within the Hauraki Gulf. Although New Zealand’s first marine reserve was created within the Hauraki Gulf at Cape Rodney-Ōkakari Point in 1975, more recent progress had been slow. Only 0.3 per cent of the Hauraki Gulf’s marine area was protected by no-take marine reserves,

Umupuia Marae


with the last reserve created some 13 years ago in 2005.26 More recent attempts to provide for meaningful marine protection in the area have foundered on high levels of opposition and conflict.27 DOC was looking for more effective ways to progress marine conservation and MSP provided a potential way forward.

The idea of initiating a MSP project for the Gulf was strongly backed by the Chief Planning Officer at Auckland Council and subsequently the Chief Executive Officer at the WRC. Work was undertaken by key staff members in each respective agency to scope up the potential structure of the project. Models considered during these early stages included a collaborative model, a consultative model and a hybrid between the two. A multi-stakeholder collaborative model was ultimately adopted, where the plan was to be developed by an iwi and multi-stakeholder group engaging in a consensus-building process, rather than by the statutory agencies. The concept drew on the experience of the Land and Water Forum, which in turn was inspired by the Scandinavian approach.28

As the Sea Change model evolved around a collaborative framework, a co-governance element was incorporated (see Figure 2.2). The PSG, which was established to oversee the project, consisted of equal numbers of iwi and government representatives. This approach was readily accepted by councillors at the WRC who were familiar with co-governance approaches, including through the Crown/iwi Waikato River Authority, which had been established in their region in 2010. But it proved more controversial amongst some Auckland councillors, who were reluctant to hand over their power as elected representatives to a co-governance grouping. It took over a year to secure the Auckland Council’s political support,

with the final vote being evenly split and only won due to the chair casting her vote in support of the project.

The [Auckland] Council had to come to grips with the collaborative model and co-governance. Councillors had to be prepared to give away some of their power in the sense of trusting the collaborative body to come up with a good answer. It took a lot of persuading of the councillors that it was a good idea.

My experience of co-governance arrangements is that they are really beneficial. You have iwi at the table and they make a really valuable contribution to the process.

DOC and MPI subsequently became project partners and were each asked to nominate a person for the PSG. The Thames Coromandel District Council also provided a PSG member to represent territorial authorities.

The project was formally approved by WRC and the Auckland Council in February 2013 and an interim project manager appointed. Sea Change was officially launched in September that year, and an initial meeting of the SWG was held in December.

The desire to engage the public to look innovatively at new approaches and to think outside existing institutions was really positive – to step outside and collectively look differently at problems.

I felt really proud of being involved in the initiation of the project in the early days. How exciting for the first time to have a collective conversation around the Hauraki Gulf!

Independent Review Panel

5 members

Project BoardProject management and

support

Mātauranga Māori Representative Table

PSG and SWG mana whenua members

Independent ScientistsAs required

Project Steering Group8 mana whenua and 8 statutory

agency representative

Stakeholder Working Group4 mana whenua and 10 sector

representatives

RoundtablesWater Quality and Catchments,

Fish Stocks, Biodiversity and Biosecurity, Gulf Infrastructure, Aquaculture, Accessible Gulf

Independent Chair

Figure 2.2: Structure of the Sea Change project


Lessons learned• It can take considerable time and effort to build

sufficient support to initiate a MSP project.

• A clear articulation of the problems and the potential of MSP to help solve them is important.

• Bringing in outside expertise can help give people confidence in MSP.

• Champions within organisations are essential to help secure political support.

• Early adopting lead organisations can play a powerful role in encouraging other agencies to come on board.

Project resourcing and managementAn initial budget for direct project costs was put together based on a ‘best guess’ of the timeframe, number of meetings and effort required to complete the plan. This was initially estimated (in 2012) at around $2.2 million and was largely shared between Auckland Council and the WRC (see Figure 2.2). MPI did not directly contribute funds to the project but encouraged the councils to apply to the Aquaculture Planning Fund, and they were successful in securing $550,000.29 DOC supported the development of the SeaSketch web-based spatial planning tool along with funding from the Tindall Foundation. The initial budget itself was exceeded but no final project budgetary breakdown is available.

Expenditure item Project total

Governance Group (PSG) $44,928

Stakeholder Facilitator (Independent Chair)

$240,000

Mana Whenua Facilitator $150,000

Stakeholder Plenary Group (SWG) $338,000

Stakeholder Working Groups (Roundtables)

$81,360

Expert Advisory Group (external scientists)

$105,000

Mātauranga Māori Roundtable (Mātauranga Māori Representative Group)

$150,000

Expert Oversight Group (IRP) $297,000

Research and Investigations $250,000

SeaSketch $550,000

Total $2,207,488

Figure 2.3: Sea Change external expenditure budget estimates (2012)30

SWG members had travel costs covered but there was initially no payment for time spent on the project. After the project was paused in mid-2015, a per diem rate of $250 was provided to SWG members for attendance at SWG meetings, with an additional $250 for meeting preparation.

No payment was made for time spent attending subgroup meetings or other work carried out on the project.

The budget did not include the time of in-house agency staff. Across the two councils this was estimated as being 8.2 full-time equivalent (FTE) technical staff, 0.4 FTE administrative staff and 2.7 FTE information systems/GIS staff.31 DOC also provided significant in-kind technical and scientific resource to the project. These in-house costs were not directly accounted for and were borne by the agency concerned. This practical approach was adopted because with four agencies running different budgeting systems, it would have been difficult to reconcile them. Reconciling cash payments across the two budgetary and financial approval systems of the WRC and Auckland Council proved complex on its own. Costs were generally split between the two councils 50/50. Most costs were raised against the Auckland Council cost centre and reimbursed by WRC. District councils made no direct financial contribution and central government agencies offered particular supporting activities and funding pools.

Next time I would set it up so that all the agencies contributed money into a separate entity and that would manage the budget.

Each agency appointed a ‘business owner’ and it was his or her role to provide the agency resources to the project, as discussed through the Project Board where necessary. Where resources were not available in-house they were sourced externally. Business owners met regularly to discuss resourcing. In the latter stages of the project, when the original budgetary provision became exhausted, money had to be sourced from other council programmes. The Independent Chair had no ability to direct staff but worked through the Project Manager, who then negotiated with agencies for the required resources.

Several interviewees reported difficulties in resourcing the project from its inception. Many of the in-house resources were assigned to the project part time, with some people only having 0.1 or 0.2 of their FTE dedicated. This small amount of time did not facilitate active contribution.

We were often resource-short. When we made changes such as creating Roundtables we were struggling to resource them.

While Sea Change was under way, Auckland Council restructured staff twice. Some staff were unsure about their job security and found working in such an uncertain environment difficult. There were several staff changes on the Sea Change project itself, and it took effort to bring new people up to speed. As the project evolved, the support team structure became more complex. After the Pause, the support structure was streamlined and operated more effectively.

I was told by a SWG member that there were 20 officials in the room and no one knew what they were there for.

You would be better with three key dedicated people from agencies rather than 10 people making up FTEs.


Next time I would set up a dedicated project team. I would second people for the project off the agencies and dedicate them to the project with a project manager and a dedicated business manager.

You need to second people out of their agencies and lock them up in a room until they have developed their own culture and are completely focused on the project. You need an esprit de corps amongst that group.

The management of the project was overseen by a Project Board consisting of senior officials from the four agencies plus the mana whenua co-chair of the PSG and the executive officer of the Hauraki Gulf Forum. Reflecting the major funding provided by the councils, the Chair of the Board was the Chief Planning Officer of Auckland Council (subsequently replaced by the council’s Chief of Strategy when the former left the council) and the Deputy Chair was the Director of Science and Strategy at WRC. The role of the Project Board was to support the PSG, SWG and Independent Chair and to manage the operational side of the project including the timetable, budget and resourcing. The Board received regular reports from the Project Manager on finances and milestones. The Independent Chair attended most Project Board meetings as an invitee, providing a useful opportunity to liaise with Board members.

Project Board members were also potentially important champions for the project within their respective agencies at both the staff and political level. This would prove particularly important, as the project ran into an electoral cycle shortly after completion, and political representation changed. This champion and communication role was performed with varying degrees of success, and a disjunct between the project and the sponsoring agencies occurred in some cases.

In the future, we would want a clear and coherent voice from the agency. You would want to know who was responsible for communicating information. We had different points of engagement at different levels.

Lessons learned• Establishing a separate legal entity for the project

outside participating agencies could assist with creating stronger project autonomy and focus.

• A separate project bank account, into which agencies and others contribute project funds and from which expenses are paid, could assist with financial management for the project.

• SWG members should be paid a per diem meeting fee to recongise their contribution to the project and to assist with offsetting loss of income from other sources.

• A dedicated core project team needs to be established comprised of staff seconded to the project full-time from agencies and/or contracted from external

sources. Staff should be encouraged to commit for the duration of the project.

• The skill set needed in the project team should be clearly identified upfront; this could potentially include a principal planner and economist as well as relevant scientists.

• The project structure should be as streamlined as possible with clear decision-making roles and accountabilities.

• A high level staff champion from each agency should be closely involved with the project and tasked with ensuring effective two-way communication between the agency and the project.

• A regular stocktake of the project structure (say six-monthly) can help ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose.

Project designThe project encompassed the entire Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, a large area of some 14,000 km2 (see Figure 2.2). This area had long been recognised as a coherent whole by legislation in the form of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000. There was some debate as to whether catchments should be included in the project, with WRC somewhat reluctant to go this far, but they were ultimately incorporated, reflecting the integrated approach taken in the Act. Fishing was also included, despite some initial reservations by MPI.

You couldn’t leave the catchments out of it. You had to look at the whole ecosystem that was affected and activities on land affects what ends up in the Gulf.

Fishing was included as why wouldn’t you, you have to include it.

Some interviewees thought that the scope of the project had been too wide, making the SWG’s task unmanageable. One remedy posited was to chunk up the area into smaller pieces and deal with each separately (such as the Firth of Thames, Waitematā Harbour and east Coromandel coast) although this was discounted by others as losing the integrated nature of the project. Another suggested option was to divide the project up into two phases, initially dealing with high level objectives for the whole area and then having more focused working groups for particular aspects, such as fisheries or aquaculture, in a second phase. Others suggested that the scope would have been more manageable if there had been a more clearly defined framework around the project with, for example, defined goals, outcomes and key issues for focus.

I felt strongly from the start that the SWG was given a far too big a task because there were no parameters around what they could do.

The SWG was given a broad brief for the development of the plan, which was set out in its Terms of Reference. The purpose statement (see below) was very broad, requiring that the spatial plan provide ‘guidance and


Figure 2.4: Map of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park and catchments


vision’ for sustainable management of the Gulf and ‘set aside’ locations for human-related activities and for the protection of the natural environment.

Purpose

The Sea Change project aims to develop a spatial plan that will achieve sustainable management of the Hauraki Gulf, including a Hauraki Gulf that is vibrant with life and healthy mauri, is increasingly productive and supports thriving communities. It aims to provide increased certainty for the economic, cultural and social goals of our community and ensure the ecosystem functions that makes those goals possible are sustained.

The spatial plan will provide guidance and vision for the sustainable management of the Hauraki Gulf, including locations set aside for various human related activities, and areas for protection of the natural environment. It will do this using an integrated multi-agency approach through the formation of a collaborative stakeholder forum who will work together to plan for the Gulf’s future.

One area of contention was whether this meant that a network of MPAs would be identified. Some SWG members expected that MPA identification would be part of the SWG’s job, whereas others were reluctant to include this topic in the deliberations.

Other provisions in the terms of reference, under the heading ‘Roles and Responsibilities’, provided more specificity as to what was envisaged. But these largely focused on the utility and acceptability of the plan rather than on its precise content. The plan was required to:

• Address the integrated management of the Gulf and spatial allocation of marine space to inform changes to statutory plans and policy statements, other

non-regulatory plans/strategies, and implementation in accordance with the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act

• Be supported and able to be formally adopted by statutory agencies

• Be implementable by statutory agencies

• Be acceptable to stakeholder groups

This lack of specificity in the terms of reference was a matter of some controversy and was at the crux of two competing views as to how a collaborative stakeholder process should operate. One view, which ultimately prevailed, was that it was better to place minimal constraints on the process, and avoid tightly prescribed objectives, goals and visions so that the collaborative group had the space to design these themselves.

If you make it too prescriptive you cut down on innovation.

If you predetermine the outcome of the process, that is detrimental, as people think the report is already written and you are being asked to endorse it.

The other view, which was more strongly held by some agency staff and Roundtable members, was that the project scope and deliverables should have been more tightly prescribed and the form of the final plan better defined. This was in order to have more focused deliberations and predictable outcomes which could be more easily implemented by the agencies.

There would be real benefit from having the agencies define the scope and specific boundaries of the project, and the framework, so the results in the end could fit more easily within their processes. There would then be a more seamless transition to implementation.

SWG field trip, Whitianga


A clear scope of the main topics – what was in and what was out – would have assisted.

There weren’t really clear goals or objectives. It’s no good getting people floundering around and off tangent when there are a whole lot of constraints we need to be aware of.

For a couple of years prior to the project officially starting, a group of technical officers had worked to put together information on key issues and to design a framework for the project. This work was never presented to the SWG on the grounds that the collaborative grouping should have a clean slate to work from. The perceived slight created bad feelings about the project amongst some council officials.

During the first part of the project the science and technical teams and their skill and knowledge wasn’t utilised enough by the chair. They did a huge amount of work but the SWG didn’t get to see it.

A lack of specificity meant that agencies had different expectations of what the project would deliver. WRC wanted something to both guide and simplify the preparation of its regional coastal plan. Auckland Council was after something similar, although it was completing its Unitary Plan at the same time as Sea Change was under way, making timing somewhat problematic. DOC wanted agreement on the location of new MPAs so as to avoid the need to set up a dedicated MPA forum for the Gulf. It was also keen to explore different ways to progress ecosystem-based management and minimise conflict when undertaking marine conservation. MPI was primarily looking for new areas for marine farming.

A tight timeline was adopted for the project, with the SWG given just 18 months to deliver a final plan that was due in June 2015. The short timeframe was intentional and based on advice that it would help focus attention and avoid a lengthy process that might run out of control.

We put an aspirational time limit on the process to try to control it, as we learnt from others that if you didn’t have an end time, it took forever.

You need a deadline to focus people and get them working but if is too rigid then you don’t get a good result out of it.

By early 2015, it became evident that this timeframe was too tight. It had not allowed input from mana whenua to be sufficiently incorporated, or for the plan provisions to be fully developed. The project was faltering by March and was officially paused in May 2015. Substantial deliberations did not get under way again until October 2015, with a new deadline set to finalise plan writing by June 2016, which was later extended to September that year, prior to the local government election in October. The final plan was formally handed over to the PSG on 9 November 2016 with a public release on 6 December. This was just on three years after the SWG first met.

Date Action

2011 Hauraki Gulf Forum commissions international review of MSP (March)

Hauraki Gulf Forum releases its third State of Our Gulf report (Aug)

2013 Auckland Council and WRC formally approve the project (Feb)

Gordonton meeting to select SWG members (Nov)

First meeting of SWG (Dec)

2014 Monthly meetings of SWG

Roundtables established (around July)

Mātauranga Māori working group established (Aug)

2015 Roundtables report back to SWG (Feb)

Mana whenua members withdraw from process (May)

Original delivery date for final plan (June)

Planning process recommences (Oct)

2016 Final plan agreed by SWG (Oct)

Local government elections (Oct)

PSG approves the plan (Nov)

Plan publicly released (Dec)

PSG and SWG disestablished (Dec)

Figure 2.5: Sea Change timeline

Some SWG members felt that if a further six months had been provided, the plan would have been a more robust document. One difficulty with an extended timeframe is maintaining the participation of SWG members and others. One SWG member retired after the Pause due to health reasons and was subsequently replaced. Some others had sporadic involvement at times due to other commitments. There was also general fatigue amongst those involved in the project near the end.

You have to work to get everyone together and they need time to go away and digest things and talk to their networks. So, a collaborative process will need a lot of time.

If we had had more time we would have got better outcomes.

The whole process ended up in a bit of a whimper. In the end, it felt a bit strangled. We had to finish it so it got rushed. Another six months would have made a huge difference.

Lessons learned• The scope of the project should be broad enough to

allow for good outcomes but be constrained enough to be manageable.


• The project scope should be sufficiently defined to focus the SWG deliberations whilst broad enough to enable innovation.

• Collaborative processes take longer than traditional consultation, particularly with mana whenua involvement, and this needs to be reflected in the project timeframe.

• To the extent possible, statutory agencies should align their expectations for the planning process.

• From the outset expectations and any requirements should be made clear to all parties, including the SWG and Independent Chair, through explicit terms of reference.

2.2 Co-governance Co-governance of natural resources in New Zealand has been evolving rapidly over the past decade, primarily as a result of Treaty settlements which have put in place formal arrangements for decision-making to be shared between the Crown and iwi/hapū.32 A notable development in this area was the settlement of claims over the Waikato River by Tainui tribes which resulted in the passing of the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010. This, amongst other things, established the Waikato River Authority, which is a co-governance body with equal representation from the government and Māori. More recently, co-governance arrangements have been put in place for the Whanganui River and the Te Urewera National Park, amongst other places.33

A co-governance structure was an integral part of the Sea Change project. A 16-member PSG was established to oversee the project consisting of eight representatives of the statutory bodies involved in managing the Gulf and an equal number of mana whenua representatives. As well as overseeing the project, PSG members had an important role as champions for the project within their respective organisations and, once the plan was completed, to promote implementation. This means that the PSG members should ideally be senior, well-respected representatives who are supportive of the project, and able to work constructively with mana whenua and other agency representatives.

You need to populate the PSG with care so you get the right supportive people.

The PSG was led by mana whenua and agency co-chairs. Both Auckland Council and the WRC were represented by two elected councillors each. An Auckland councillor was a co-chair. Territorial authorities were represented by the Thames-Coromandel District Council Deputy Mayor. Both MPI and DOC were represented by third tier managers. The Hauraki Gulf Forum was also represented on the PSG by the Forum’s Chair who was the mayor of one of the local authorities in the Gulf’s catchment. The eight mana whenua members were selected by a process which followed tikanga Māori.

The role of the PSG was to provide overall leadership and high level oversight of the plan, to approve it on completion, and to advocate implementation to the respective agencies. It was to operate on a ‘Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi values-based co-governance approach’.

We looked at how to get a robust plan and keep the politicians out of it. That’s where we came up with the idea of the PSG, which was politically based and could give a mandate to the process, without exercising undue influence.

The PSG received briefings from the Project Board and the Independent Chair but operated in isolation of the SWG during the early phases of the project. This reflected the different roles and responsibilities of the two bodies and was designed to give the SWG room to develop its own thinking about the plan. There was little flow of information between the two bodies and a climate of distrust developed between them. After the Pause, the SWG and PSG met several times, but the relationship remained tense.

The PSG was a good model, more collaborative than co-governance. But we had poor reporting from our officers as we tried to get a handle on the plan as it was evolving. We weren’t getting any certainty about the state of planning and where it was up to.

There was real tension between the SWG and PSG, a real climate of mistrust.

Once the SWG members agreed the plan, the PSG adopted it, after which the PSG was disestablished. A local government election was held just prior to this process being completed and several key PSG members lost their seats. This included the Auckland Council PSG co-chair. While the second Auckland Council PSG representative retained his seat, he was openly hostile to the project.34 In the case of the WRC, the Council’s Deputy Chair who was on the PSG retained her council position after the election, thereby providing some continuity. But the WRC’s second representative lost his seat. The territorial authorities’ representative unsuccessfully ran for the mayoralty of Thames-Coromandel and also lost his seat on council. The role of senior staff as champions for the plan, who can bring new council members up to speed, becomes critical in this situation.

The election changed the faces around the table and that hasn’t helped. That’s why it was risky finishing so close to the election. And for the new leadership Sea Change wasn’t a priority.

Surviving an election cycle all comes back to maintaining relationships and communicating. We make a point of getting any new councillors to know our business and how we do it.

There was a series of processes and political events outside the Sea Change project that also provided a disruptive element. The first was the ongoing Treaty settlement process for the Hauraki tribes, which created uncertainty and also demanded resource and attention.


A Pare Hauraki Collective Redress Deed between the Hauraki Collective (representing 12 Hauraki iwi) and the Crown was only signed in August 2018.

The Auckland Unitary Plan process was also ongoing throughout the Sea Change process, with the draft plan being notified in September 2013 (just prior to the Sea Change process kicking off), hearings held between September 2014 and May 2016, and the Council’s final decision made in August 2016, just prior to the completion of the Sea Change plan. WRC was also undertaking a major planning process at the time for the Waipā and Waikato catchments.

The Minister of Fisheries established a Snapper 1 Working Group in February 2014, just after the Sea Change process got under way, which deliberated until December 2015 and released a plan in late 2016 shortly before the Sea Change release.35 The Hauraki Gulf is the heartland of the Snapper 1 stock and yet the Minister set up a process parallel to the Sea Change plan, operating over a similar timeframe, with no direct interface between the two processes.

The Ministry for the Environment released a marine protected areas discussion document in 2016 which proposed the establishment of a recreational fishing park in the Hauraki Gulf.36 This sought to predetermine spatial allocation for different fishing interests in the Gulf, directly cutting across the Sea Change process. The document also proposed some new tools for marine protection which could have usefully supported the implementation of the Sea Change plan, but these have yet to be progressed, largely because of the event described below.

In September 2015, then Prime Minister John Key announced the creation of the Kermadec Oceans Sanctuary, a no-take marine area of some 620,000 km2 around the Kermadec Islands. A bill to create the sanctuary was introduced into Parliament in March 2016. This prompted a legal challenge by Te Ohu Kai Moana and others claiming the sanctuary undermined the integrity of the Māori fisheries settlement and was a breach of the Treaty. This dispute had a chilling effect on other efforts to address the impacts of commercial fisheries activities, including within the Sea Change process, with Māori becoming very sensitive to any perceived infringement of their Treaty fishing rights.

The Sea Change process continued despite these challenges, but there was a lack of clarity as to who should address them on behalf of the project, and what the respective roles of the PSG, Independent Chair and SWG were. The latter events were also indicative of uneven political support for the Sea Change process at central government level.

Lessons learned• A co-governance arrangement for the project can

help embed mana whenua support for the planning process.

• Members of the project governance group need to be carefully selected to ensure that they have the requisite qualities, including strongly supporting

the project, and being able to effectively champion the planning process and resultant plan within their organisations.

• In the event that the project might extend over an electoral cycle, a risk management plan needs to be developed to ensure that new political representatives are fully briefed and enrolled in the project.

• The governance group could usefully continue operation after the plan is completed to oversee and champion implementation.

• A positive working relationship needs to be developed between members of the governance and collaborative groups. This will enable the two groups to work positively together to resolve any issues which arise during the development of the plan, as well as to promote the plan’s implementation.

• Key external risks to the project should be identified upfront, including any proposed or likely government policy which may affect the project. Responsibility for managing such risks needs to be clearly identified.

2.3 Collaborative plan makingThis section covers the collaborative plan making process, including the selection of SWG members, role of the Independent Chair, the SWG collaborative process, the operation of Roundtables and external relationships.

Selection of SGW membersMost interviewees emphasised the importance of getting the right people onto the SWG. The SWG had a total of 14 members. There had been some early discussion about having equal iwi representation on the SWG but the number was ultimately reduced to four alongside 10 stakeholder representatives.

SWG members were intended to be broadly representative of the relevant sectors associated with the Hauraki Gulf. They were to have their sector’s general support and be able to represent its views and experiences. However, SWG members were to participate as individuals, and not as directly mandated representatives of any particular sector. This was to enable collaboration to happen between SWG members directly ‘within the room’, rather than requiring decisions to be reported back and approved by an outside person or body. It did, however enable some people to question the mandate that SWG members had from their respective sectors.

If you used industry leaders such as from Federated Farmers or Fonterra they already potentially have a bias or position. If you use knowledgeable individuals they come in with a fresh perspective and are potentially more open-minded to a different process.

My experience after being involved in a few of these processes is that if you appoint people as representatives you start getting positioning and gaming coming through. If you appoint people as individual experts in their own right people operate


differently. You get a bigger sense of community and you don’t get lobbying happening.

The Sea Change SWG stakeholder selection process started with the agencies compiling a joint list of stakeholders within the Hauraki Gulf region. This totalled some 12,000 people. The list was pared down to around 700 people who were then sent an invitation to attend one of two public meetings held respectively in Auckland and Thames. Around 80 people attended the Auckland meeting and 70 the Thames meeting. People attending these meetings were invited to organise themselves into key stakeholder groupings. Each group was then invited to select the person most appropriate to attend the subsequent meeting held at Gordonton where the SWG members would be chosen.

Around 60 people attended the Gordonton meeting held on 20 November 2013. At the meeting, the Independent Chair was introduced, and this was his first involvement in the project. Seven stakeholder interest groupings that would be represented on the SWG were identified as being Agriculture, Aquaculture, Commercial Fishing, Shipping, Recreational, Environmental and Communities. People were asked to self-select into the group they wished to participate in. For each group in turn, members who wished to represent their sector on the SWG were asked to self-nominate by stepping forward and making a brief statement on why they thought they should be a SWG member. Others in the room, with the exclusion of those in that sectoral group, were asked to stand alongside the person they thought they could best work with. The sectoral groupings were then asked to reform and select their representative incorporating this additional information. Following on from this initial process, the Recreational and Environmental sectors were permitted to choose a second representative. An additional place was created for Youth. This resulted in 10 SWG members being selected. A further four mana whenua members were selected through a hui-ā-iwi process, bringing the total to 14.

There were various responses from the interviewees regarding this selection process with some describing it as ‘haphazard’, ‘ad hoc’ and even ‘bizarre’. Others thought it worked well in that it produced a group that was generally interested in the wider issues, rather than in personal agendas, and people who were able to collaborate well.

I thought the selection process was bizarre, the weirdest thing I’ve seen.

There were some evident weaknesses in the process. It was confusing for many and also at times personally confronting. People weren’t clear ahead of time how the selection process was going to operate. Participants were being asked to vote on the suitability of people they often knew little about. Some participants attempted to game the process by putting themselves forward as a representative of a group that they did not primarily associate with or even competed with (e.g., a commercial

fisherman joining the recreational group). There was no requirement to identify potential conflicts of interest.

I felt the process was going to limit people and put people off as it became a popularity vote.

To some degree the process alienated the more practical and pragmatic sectors of the greater community.

Membership of the SWG was entirely dependent on being physically present at the Gordonton meeting. Forestry was notably absent from the SWG, despite being a major land user in the Gulf’s catchments. An interviewee involved in organising the process recalled that forestry people had been invited but they were unable to attend on the day of the meeting. Others were unaware of the meeting or had not grasped its significance.

I think you need to spend more time upfront to get the right people in the room and make them aware of the significance of the project.

The grouping of the sectors was also somewhat awkward. Recreational fishing was included with other recreational activities despite a potential divergence in interests. The recreational fishing SWG representative changed partway through the process, also creating difficulties with continuity, and necessitating considerable time and effort to bring a new member up to speed when the process was well down the track. Commercial fishing had one representative for the myriad of interests in this sector, including independent fishers, quota owners and processing companies. Some sectors were not directly represented such as forestry, island communities and different ethnic groups.

The key strengths of the approach were that, first, it enabled each sector grouping to identify its own representative rather than having someone appointed by government to perform this role. It also provided a broad mandate from the wider grouping for the person selected. Several SWG members represented more than one interest, which allowed useful crossover and support. For example, the recreational representative was also a dairy farmer, and the youth representative was also a marine farmer. Secondly, the selection process provided a mechanism to check that other stakeholders could work with the potential candidate; that is, that they were collaborative rather than combative. Several potential candidates did not make it onto the SWG due to a negative response from other sectors. Thirdly, people involved in the various preliminary meetings and not selected for the SWG were able to participate in Roundtables or be part of the Hauraki 100+ Forum (see section 2.5).

Lessons learned• The process to be used to select SWG members, as

well as the role of SWG members, needs to be clearly communicated well in advance so all sectors clearly understand it.

• Dedicated effort will likely be required to promote the project amongst sectoral groups in order to encourage


the strongest potential SWG candidates to put themselves forward.

• Any sector likely to be significantly affected by the plan needs to be represented on the SWG, especially if the plan will be asking that sector to change its activities.

• Sector groupings need to be carefully identified to ensure that they represent one key interest. For example, recreational fishing will likely merit is own sector representative(s) (as it has interests distinct from non-extractive recreational activities) and commercial fishing may require more than one representative where there are several competing interests within the industry.

• More than one SWG representative may be required for key sectors to provide mutual support and share the workload. In some cases, one individual may have strong links across two or more sectors providing a useful overlap.

• Sector groups, once identified, should identify potential SWG members.

• A mechanism may be needed to exclude people who are disruptive and unable to collaborate. A joint meeting of stakeholder groupings could help achieve this, but this needs to be carefully managed.

• Potential conflicts of interest should be identified upfront.

• There is a trade-off of between the size of the SWG and the speed of deliberations. It could be useful if the Independent Chair (who is charged with overseeing the SWG collaborative process) was more involved in the process of determining an optimal size.

Independent ChairAn Independent Chair was appointed to lead the SWG. A Facilitator was also appointed to assist the Independent Chair in his role. After the Pause and extension of the project, the Independent Chair and Facilitator contracts expired. A replacement Independent Chair, who had previously chaired the IRP, was appointed for the balance of the project.

The Chair was directly accountable to the PSG and had the role of shepherding the SWG along a pathway to develop the plan. He set the timetable and agendas for the SWG meetings, chaired the meetings and worked to resolve disputes between SWG members. Overall, the role of the Independent Chair was to create a safe collaborative space for the SWG to do its work, and to ensure that the SWG had the requisite material to inform its discussions. In a broader sense, the Independent Chair’s role was also to help ensure the project’s success, and this may necessitate involvement in areas such ensuring adequate sectoral and public consultation, and sufficient agency and political support.

In the Sea Change project, the Independent Chair was appointed only after the project was well developed, and the process for selecting SWG members was well under

way. An earlier appointment would have enabled the Independent Chair to usefully feed into the project design and SWG configuration. In addition, there was no direct linkage between the Independent Chair and the project’s resourcing. The Chair could not direct staff or allocate resources but could only make requests through the Project Manager, who in turn negotiated with the agencies for the project’s requirements. This resulted in delays and under-resourcing of some areas of the project (such as economics, communications and the Roundtables).

The role of Independent Chair was key to the success of the project and Sea Change was fortunate to have two high calibre people in this role. The Chair is at the fulcrum of the project and needs to be able to act as the conduit between the various groupings involved. He or she needs to be politically astute, well respected by Māori and other stakeholders, and have strong negotiation and conflict resolution skills.

Chairs are key in the process. They need to balance their approach and have really good people and negotiation skills … The chair needs to have mana with iwi as well as with other stakeholders.

Lessons learned• When setting up the project be very clear about the

role of the Independent Chair.

• The Independent Chair should have some ability to direct or prioritise resources within the project (within overall budgetary constraints).

• Independent Chairs need a broad skill set, including well-honed political, negotiation and conflict resolution skills.

• In multi-agency processes, Independent Chairs need a good understanding of how agencies operate and the machinery of government.

• In co-governance processes, Independent Chairs need to be able to cross the divide between Māori and Western worldviews.

• The Independent Chair should be appointed at the inception of the project so that he or she can have input into the project design, and in particular the make-up of the SWG.

• The Independent Chair should be fully briefed on the lead-up to the initiation of the project and any relevant work undertaken prior.

• The Independent Chair could usefully receive an initial briefing from agencies as to their expectations and contributions.

Collaborative processThe SWG was to operate on a consensus basis, which means that ‘every member either supports or does not actively oppose (can live with) the decision’.37 The SWG had an initial meeting in December 2013. This was followed by a second meeting on 23 January 2014 where SWG members introduced themselves and described their connection with the Gulf, as did the agency support


staff. The mana whenua co-chair of the PSG also attended this early meeting. The draft terms of reference for the SWG was discussed as well as the development of a collective vision for the plan. The Independent Chair outlined the broad structure for the planned 18-month-long collaborative process, which was 6 months to be spent on listening and fact gathering (until 30 June 2014), 6 months to be spent thinking about solutions (1 July–31 December 2014) and 6 months firming up the plan (1 January–30 June 2015). There was discussion around establishing smaller working groups on key topic areas (later termed Roundtables).

At my first meeting I walked into the room, looked around at the SWG members, and thought, ‘This is not going to work with all these diverse people around the table.’ But it did work.

Two meetings were held in February 2014 and these further discussed the terms of reference (which were finally approved at the third SWG meeting) as well as the public engagement programme. There were broad contextual presentations on the key marine resource management issues, ecosystem productivity drivers, ecosystem services and what a MSP could look like. Following this, the SWG generally met for one day each month.

During the March 2014 meeting, SWG members were given training in how to use the web-based mapping tool called SeaSketch. At the April meeting, there were further technical presentations on economic valuation and a historical reconstruction of the Gulf undertaken by NIWA. A two-day meeting was held in June, in Whitianga, which included a day field trip to the local fish factory and boat trip out into the bay. During this initial period, much

effort was put into setting up the Roundtables whilst also building up relationships between SWG members.

By July 2014, once the Roundtables were established, the detailed work was focused within these groups. Technical presentations also continued at SWG meetings. For example, at the September meeting, there was a presentation of the findings of the 2014 State of Our Gulf report followed by a panel discussion on rethinking the economy. A second two-day SWG meeting was held on Rotoroa Island in November with a range of presentations covering MPA design, the fisheries management system, MPA proposals on Waiheke Island, marine protection on Great Barrier Island, conservation on the Noises Islands, population growth in the Gulf and climate change impacts.

The length of time it took to get the Roundtables up and running confounded the initial programme. This had the listening and information collecting stage completed by July, whereas the Roundtables groups were just starting to do this work at that time. The relatively short timeframe for the Roundtable deliberations (just six months) did not enable detailed solutions to be developed within these groups, given that members needed time to get to know each other and for trust to build up. In addition, mātauranga Māori was in a catch-up mode, and had not been effectively integrated into the Roundtable deliberations, making rapid plan development after the Roundtables reported back problematic.

In February 2015, a two-day meeting was held in Whitianga for the Roundtables to report back to the SWG. By that stage, there was too little time for the combined work to be digested, integrated and formulated into collectively agreed solutions by the SWG members before the final plan deadline in June. There were also some

Water Quality and Catchments Roundtable field trip, Whangapoua


important outstanding issues on which agreement had not been reached including MPAs.

By February 2015, a dedicated writing team had been established and work was under way to write the plan based on the Roundtable reports. At a later meeting in February (the 14th) the SWG discussed the framing and design of the plan including vision, goals and objectives. The plan’s structure was further discussed at a two-day meeting in March, as was an approach to addressing MPAs. The MPA discussion was continued at the April meeting and segments of the draft plan circulated for comment. By then, SWG members were starting to express strong concerns about the short timeframe and the need for an extension. Discussion about MPAs continued but was fraught and made little progress. Mana whenua expressed concern that cultural perspectives were not being reflected in the process and, in particular, the criteria for the selection of MPAs. A second meeting held in late April further considered provisions in the draft plan, with now only six weeks until the plan was supposed to be finalised. Mana whenua indicated there was insufficient time to digest the plan, consult on it and provide feedback. Other SWG members indicated that more time was needed.

Mana whenua members did not attend the SWG meeting in May 2015, precipitating the Pause. The project did not effectively restart until October 2015, six months later. A meeting at this time focused on reconstituting the project on a sounder footing. A new timetable had most topics addressed by June 2016 and the plan written by September that year, prior to the local government election in October. The SWG focused on developing the final contents of the plan. Smaller working groups consisting of some SWG members and writing staff were reconstituted to focus on some key areas such as fishing, water quality and MPAs. There was also greater interaction with some agencies and sector groups on the final recommendations. Final agreement by SWG members on the plan was achieved in late October and the completed plan was handed over to the PSG on 9 November 2016.

Overall, interviewees indicated that the SWG collaborative process was the greatest strength of the project.

The biggest strength of the process was bringing together diverse sector voices to identify what the situation is and then to look at workable opportunities to address issues. I wasn’t sure at the start that it was going to be an effective way to address things. But having been involved in the process I was very impressed with how well it all went.

I saw people leaving their bags at the door and getting on with the job which I haven’t seen in other catchment processes.

I went from a sceptic to a very strong supporter of a plan developed by stakeholder consensus.

I think collaboration is the way forward. But we need to give it real time and resourcing and make plans more enduring.

No one process will solve every problem but this style of approach has massive advantages.

The participants in the collaborative process, who gave up many hours of unpaid time to contribute, were overwhelmingly positive about the experience.

At the end of the day I got more value out of being involved than the time I invested in it. I built relationships with iwi and environmental groups. The science was pretty interesting.

Would I do it again? It was a huge commitment of time for SWG members. In hindsight, I would have done it again, but would have done so more readily if I knew that the outcomes would be applied. To put in that amount of effort for something that gets cherry picked and taken apart is a bit of a let down.

A few interviewees indicated that some of the SWG meetings were slow-moving, and there was a need for tighter control on the agenda and discussion. Others thought that more time out in the field during the early stages would have expedited relationship-building and helped members obtain a shared view of the issues that needed to be addressed.

It would have been useful to put the whole SWG on a charter trip and to go right around the coastline to see with their own eyes what was what. Some people would have seen it as a junket but it would have been useful.

It would have been good to have an induction for the SWG, then a field tour of the place and then to do Listening Posts in the community.

Interviewees also identified some of the disadvantages of collaborative processes. They require a huge time commitment by SWG members. They can fail if there are entrenched powerful interests which have nothing to be gained from being inside the room. Stakeholder collaborative processes can also make agency implementation more difficult.

For the whole thing to work it has to be better to be in the room than outside it. What drove people into the room in the first place was a desire to care for the Gulf and everyone had that. If you have more chance of achieving your objectives outside the room why be there.

SWGs as a forum for driving large scale reform are useless. Power is the underlying issue and if you have entrenched powerful interests you are on a hiding to nothing.

A multi-faceted discussion means there is more potential for compromise but it makes implementation difficult.

The SWG deliberations struggled to deal with the contentious issue of MPAs, and in the end full consensus


on this matter was not achieved. The interviewees were probed on how such contentious issues could be more effectively approached in future processes. Some thought that the hard conversations should have been held earlier in the process so there was more time to work through them. Others thought that if you hit road blocks, you should accept that and move on, taking what gains you can. Others thought that the sequence was important and that other management issues needed to be agreed first as a basis for moving to the protection discussion.

Sometimes dealing with hard issues builds relationships. But ultimately there is no point having strong relationships if you can’t do the hard work together. The process needs to be structured in a way that you have to have the hard discussions.

The sequence is critical. We have to manage before we protect and it is not valid to initiate a discussion on protection in a vacuum of management. We should have nailed the fisheries workstream before we moved onto protection.

External relationshipsOne of the roles of the SWG members was to act as a conduit back to their respective sector groups, communicating information from the plan making process to their sector and bringing sector views back to the SWG table. This process worked better in some sectors than others. In the farming sector, DairyNZ helped to organise meetings with farming groups. In other sectors, it was left up to the resources of each SWG member, with various results.

The links with stakeholders worked out quite well with the farmers but in fishing we didn’t have that. In the end, we did not feel we had buy in from the sectors. The relationship between SWG representative and the sectors needs to be a strong and effective one.

The relationship between the SWG and the commissioning agencies was a matter that many of the interviewees commented on. The approach initially taken by the PSG and Independent Chair was that the SWG members should be given the space to develop their own thinking about the problem and solutions, and that the agencies should not be around the table as part of the collaborative discussions. This approach was successful in that did enable the SWG to have unfettered discussion and to come up with joint solutions. However, a climate of mistrust developed between the SWG members and agencies.

The Independent Chair’s role was to define space for the SWG to come to their own view and to give them freedom to make it the way they wanted to make it. That is how you get innovation.

There was quite a lot of mistrust between the SWG and the agencies. I have never experienced anything quite like it before and it made it quite hard to work in the project.

When some council experts came to talk to the SWG they weren’t the right people and didn’t have the knowledge or information the SWG needed so that perpetrated the ‘councils are useless’ mentality.

Agency staff felt excluded from the process even though they had valuable information and expertise to offer. Several suggested that senior agency personal should have at least sat around the table with the SWG members as ‘Active Observers’. Another suggestion was that, although the agencies might not be involved during the initial deliberations, they could have usefully assisted the SWG with developing solutions and recommendations.

You needed someone reasonably senior from each agency around the table. This would have simplified the governance structure as a lot of the discussion that went on at the next level, at the PSG and Project Board, could have been had around the table with the SWG.

Agency staff do have a lot to offer. I think it is positive to have agencies involved in having discussions with people and sharing their experiences.

After the Pause, the Independent Chair implemented an agency conduit arrangement, where a senior representative from each agency acted as a conduit between the agency and the SWG through attending monthly SWG meetings, often for an afternoon. This helped to improve relationships but was not wholly successful.

The conduit thing didn’t work for us as we had one conduit and if she couldn’t make there was no substitute. … It was also not clear what we wanted from conduits – political or technical advice.

The lack of agency engagement in the plan making process hindered implementation when the plan was finalised.

If the agencies had been involved in the collaborative process you would have built up networks and ongoing relationships and conversations. Some people thought the SWG was trying to exclude the council from the process. As a result, the plan does not have champions within the agencies.

Lessons learned• Collaborative processes are very powerful and can

be effectively deployed to make progress on complex environmental challenges.

• Collaboration takes time and collaborative processes need to be given a longer timeframe than normal participatory processes (with 18 months likely too short a timeframe).

• Contentious issues should not be left to the end of the process.

• SWG members may need support to effectively feed back to their various stakeholder groupings.

• Mechanisms will need to be developed to enable effective agency input into the process. This could


include involving key agency staff around the table with SWG members as Active Observers or including them as active participants in work groups (such as Roundtables).

• Collaborative processes help build social capital which can be valuable going forward.

RoundtablesEarly in 2014, efforts were undertaken to establish Roundtables in six areas: Fish Stocks, Water Quality and Catchments, Aquaculture, Biodiversity and Biosecurity, Accessible Gulf, and Gulf Infrastructure. These were designed to focus the plan development work on key elements of the overall picture and to involve a broader range of stakeholders in the plan development work. In particular, these were seen as a mechanism to help fill some of the sectoral gaps in representation on the SWG including forestry and corporate fishing interests. They were also a mechanism to develop broader support for the plan.

Planning for the Roundtables was undertaken by self-selecting subgroups of SWG members, who met separately to draw up the terms of reference for the specific Roundtable and identify potential members. This selection process was described by some interviewees as ad hoc. The draft terms of reference and membership list were then discussed and agreed to by the full SWG. Some interviewees suggested that the work of the Roundtables would have been more focused if the SWG had also developed the groups' objectives.

Having a more visible forward time frame and a well-defined outcome as to what success looked like might have been more helpful.

We would have got more out of it if we were asked more definitive questions or given scenarios to test.

The SWG agreed that two SWG members would act as co-chairs of each Roundtable. The chairs were identified by consensus. Having co-chairs enabled more balanced, shared leadership with, for example, a commercial fishing representative and an environmental representative co-chairing the Fish Stocks Roundtable and an agricultural and an environmental representative co-chairing the Water Quality and Catchments Roundtable. Feedback on the chairing role indicated that some SWG members were stronger chairs than others, and perhaps in the future more effort needs to be put into ensuring that the groups have strong chairs.

Either the Independent Chair or Facilitator attended most Roundtable meetings to provide an overarching perspective. SWG members were free to attend any of the Roundtables. Some were members of several, and this created significant time pressures, with multiple monthly day-long meetings to attend as well as material to digest inbetween. For this reason, the number of Roundtables needs to be contained. Sea Change may have established too many; 3–4 may be a more reasonable number than six.

The Fish Stocks Roundtable was the first to meet, in May 2014, with all Roundtables up and running by July. Each

Roundtable was provided with a collation of information on its specific topic and a synthesis of initial information and issues. The Roundtables met for approximately one day a month for six months and operated on a broad consensus basis. Members endeavoured to agree on a vision and problem definition and then focused on identifying solutions to the problems identified. Much of the science for the project was presented directly to the Roundtables. The Roundtables were instructed by the Independent Chair to complete their work by the end of 2014 and they presented their final reports to the SWG at a combined meeting in February 2015. This was the only time all the Roundtable members met together. The wording of the reports was not fully agreed by all the Roundtable members so they were never made public.

Interviewees were overwhelmingly positive about the Roundtable concept, albeit noting that some Roundtables worked much better than others. In general, the fish stocks, water quality and catchments, and aquaculture Roundtables were viewed as the more successful. These had included field trips which were mentioned by participants as being a valuable addition. Reasons posited for less success in the other Roundtables included the lack of a clear problem definition in the case of infrastructure, and people being unwilling to shift their views in the Biodiversity and Biosecurity Roundtable. That Roundtable was grappling with the topic of MPAs which also proved a highly contentious issue at the SWG level. In addition, as Roundtables were not originally planned for, resourcing for them was constrained and this put their support structures under strain.

The Roundtables were a good idea. We learned a lot more to feed into the project and got a greater perspective on some issues.

The main thing for me was that it brought together people in a non-threatening way and encouraged them to share what they had to offer and to listen. I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it.

I learned a heck of the lot in the process, it was quite fascinating.

What worked well was the make-up of the group which had a really good mix and diversity of people with different perspectives. There was a lot of co-creation of ideas as there was diversity of thought. It was good to be able to understand why others saw it in a different way.

One of the main issues with the Roundtables, which was raised by several participants, was that they were effectively operating in silos. In addition, SWG members who were not part of a particular Roundtable found it hard to come up to speed with that particular element of the plan. This meant that there was some repetition when SWG meetings went over the same ground as was traversed in a Roundtable. One suggestion to address this was to bring all the Roundtables together at the outset so that they could meet each other and understand how their piece fitted into the overall plan. The Roundtables


could then be brought together again later in the process to discuss overlaps and common issues.

We wanted to look at the whole picture. We were trying to create mini plans as part of a bigger spatial plan without any integration.

We were operating in a silo whereas all the issues and challenges are inextricably linked. We didn’t get to interact with other groups and collectively tackle the issues.

The second major issue raised by many interviewees was the lack of feedback once the Roundtables had reported back to the SWG. The Roundtables were effectively disbanded in February 2015 and there was no direct feedback to members after that time. In the first instance, Roundtable members were interested to know what had happened to their input after having devoted a considerable amount of volunteer time to the project. They wanted to know if the provisions they had developed had made it into the plan and how conflicts had been addressed. Secondly, several members thought it would have been more valuable if the Roundtables had been reconvened later in the process as a sounding board as the plan developed. There could have been a more iterative process between the SWG and Roundtables. This could also have served as a useful test for the sectoral and public acceptability of plan provisions.

It went into a black hole when our report went to the SWG and we didn’t know what was going on.

They met for six months and were disestablished and the plan didn’t go back to the Roundtables for a look. You lose your social capital if those people become critics.

There were various comments about the timeframe of six months for the Roundtables. Some interviewees thought that this was about right whereas others considered that a longer timeframe – up to a year – might have enabled more progress to be made.

Other matters raised included that a better upfront briefing should be given to Roundtable members. In some cases, members were not happy with work undertaken between meetings and did not think that the content in the report was what had been agreed by the group. Some members felt their comments had been ignored. Others felt that the discussions were more about protecting the status quo rather than taking an innovative and blue skies approach, and that solutions could have been more future-focused.

Lessons learned• The establishment of Roundtables, where a broader

range of people are invited in to work with SWG members on specific topics, can assist with the plan development process.

• Roundtables need to be properly resourced, and this should be included in the budget from the outset.

• To manage time pressures on SWG members, the number of Roundtables should be kept small.

• Roundtables work better where there are clearly defined issues to be addressed.

• Highly contentious issues may be better dealt with directly by the SWG to avoid duplication of effort.

• SWG co-chairs can work well, particularly if the individuals are from potentially opposing sectors. However, it is important to have strong chairs, and not all SWG members will be suitable for chairing roles.

• It is important to establish good process that Roundtable members have confidence in.

• Roundtables could usefully be brought together collectively several times during the process to avoid creating silos and encourage a broader exchange of ideas.

• Field trips should be incorporated into the Roundtable programmes to enable members to collectively get out into the field to explore problems and solutions.

• Further along the process, Roundtables could provide a useful testing ground for ideas as they are developed by the SWG. They could also provide feedback on a draft version of the plan.

• Roundtable members should be kept fully informed as the plan development process proceeds so they are clear on what has happened to their inputs. They are potential champions for the plan.

2.4 Information flowsThis section investigates the information flows within the project and more specifically the use of mātauranga Māori, scientific information, the SeaSketch web-based mapping tool, socioeconomic information and scientists themselves.

Mātauranga MāoriAlthough not specifically stated in the terms of reference for the SWG, it was made clear from the outset that mātauranga Māori would be incorporated into the plan. This matter was discussed at the first SWG meeting where it was agreed that:

The inclusion of mana whenua (MW) values and an indigenous worldview will be vital to the work. There may be some times where MW may need to get together to identify how to bring the Māori views back to the table. It will be important to have MW attendance on each of the Roundtables so that the MW views are built in throughout the work.38

Despite this intention, integrating the Māori and Western worldviews proved difficult and the tension almost derailed the project. The mātauranga Māori component was complicated by the sheer number of iwi/hapū groups who had an interest in the Gulf, totalling around 26. It was a very challenging task for the four mana whenua members of the SWG to represent so many groups.


Four people were representing a huge number of interest groups, which caused strife, and they were less empowered to make decisions.

What mātauranga Māori encompassed, and its implications for the Sea Change process, was not well defined or understood. It took some months after the project commenced for a structure to be put in place to support the mātauranga Māori component. In July 2014, a mātauranga Māori hui was held with presentations from experts in the field. Due to poor communication, none of the non-Māori SWG members attended. In August 2014, a mātauranga Māori working group consisting of mana whenua members on the PSG and SWG was established to consider the best mechanisms to integrate mātauranga Māori into the project. There was some debate as to whether mātauranga Māori should be addressed through all the Roundtables or through a separate Mātauranga Māori Roundtable, with the latter finding favour. This was modelled on a similar arrangement which had proved successful for the involvement of Ngāi Tahu in the Canterbury Freshwater Management Strategy.39 A Māori economist and mātauranga Māori planning expert was contracted to provide the group with technical support.

One of the main ideas was that the mātauranga Māori workstream was cross-cutting. There were challenges in how to weave that perspective into all the workstreams without losing the essence of it and ensuring that the perspective was recognised as valid. Then at the same time you are providing a space for the mātauranga Māori focused workstream to be able to make its own unique contribution.

The mana whenua members of the project subsequently developed a plan for wider iwi engagement through convening a series of hui-ā-iwi, with a total of seven convened during late 2014 and early 2015. An online survey of mana whenua was also undertaken during March 2015. In October 2014, the SWG met on a marae for the first time at Umupuia and heard a series of mātauranga Māori presentations. Some interviewees indicated that the SWG could have benefited from spending more time on marae interacting with various iwi.

By October, the Mātauranga Māori Roundtable had held an initial meeting. This Roundtable continued to meet throughout the project and was supported through a significant expansion of the mana whenua support team, which at one stage comprised eight people.40 A mana whenua writer and GIS expert were incorporated into the plan writing team.

By early 2015, however, tensions over integrating the two worldviews into the plan began to show. The pressure was on the SWG and plan writers to complete the plan by June that year, and the short time period mean that there was not sufficient time to ensure that all mana whenua interests were comfortable with the content. As noted above, this resulted in the Mātauranga Māori Roundtable calling for the project to be paused, which took effect in May 2015.

The Pause was caused as all this stuff was coming from iwi and none of it was included in the early draft of the plan. It was a defining point as to whether we would have a robust spatial plan or not. Iwi had to be there.

It was not a sign of wellness of the project if half the room was mana whenua but mātauranga Māori had not been incorporated in the project.

Mana whenua got to the stage where they felt they were not being listened to and they had the right to put up a red flag and say, ‘It’s not working’, which they did. They felt their views were not being reflected in the documents and agreements coming out of the group. They felt they had been raising issues but no one had been listening to them.

A contributing factor to the Pause, which continued until August 2016, was a tension between the co-governance arrangement which was embedded in the PSG on the one hand, and the collaborative approach which was the basis for the SWG process on the other.

The project design had tensions which were not explicit and were not resolved. It was not clear whether co-governance was the main thing or SWG collaboration was the main thing.

As a result of the Pause, the timeline was extended, the chair of the IRP took over as the Independent Chair, and changes were made to the project support team structure. There was a renewed commitment to integrate mātauranga Māori into the plan.41 Interviewees were generally positive about embedding mana whenua experts into the project team.

The integration of mana whenua in the writing team and GIS worked well.

Having a Māori in the plan writing team was key. As the plan started to be written, it enabled the SWG as a whole to really start to understand what mātauranga Māori meant.

There were challenges in how to bring together a document with a very diverse range of views. This worked much better in Part 2 of the project [after the Pause] where there were a number of technical officers that worked on drafts for each part of the plan based on thematic areas. I think what really helped in Part 2 was the recognition that mātauranga Māori or the kaupapa Māori perspective wouldn’t stand alone.

Some interviewees emphasised that integrating mātauranga Māori into the plan requires more time than traditional Western processes, and therefore requires projects to run for longer periods.

Māori can collaborate but not within a Western timeframe. We collaborate all the time on the marae. In the normal world, Māori members of the SWG would come back to the marae, convene a hui and say, ‘This is what we are talking about, I’d like to hear what you think.’ They would then take that


back to the SWG. But the time frames were not long enough for them to do that. It usually takes two months to check in and talk about matters but by then Sea Change had moved onto something else. Two years was too short. If we had three years we would have landed in a better space and it would have been a more robust collaborative process.

Several interviewees observed that the processes to integrate mātauranga Māori into the plan were very much a result of learning by doing. It took a while to develop an effective supportive structure.

There was certainly a clear intent to include mātauranga Māori in the process and for it to appear in the plan. The challenge of course was how that was done. There was Māori representation on the PSG and SWG, but when it comes down to science and knowledge how does that express itself? I think the plan reflected a Māori worldview but not mātauranga Māori.

For mātauranga Māori there was not a recipe for it, we made it up. It took time and at the beginning it was a bit behind the eight ball.

Mātauranga Māori was well represented in the project. The people on the SWG and in the project team were fabulous champions of it and very knowledgeable and skilled.

The plan itself was structured by a Māori designer into four kete (baskets) of knowledge: 1) kaitiakitanga and guardianship; 2) mahinga kai – replenishing the food baskets; 3) ki uta ki ta – ridge to reef or mountains to the sea; and 4) kotahitanga – prosperous communities. Despite this, full integration of mātauranga Māori into the plan was elusive. But several interviewees indicated that Sea Change had been more successful in this area than other planning processes in New Zealand.

Mātauranga Māori was certainly there, but at times I felt it was not fully integrated. It seemed like Western science came first and then mātauranga Māori was added on, whereas to be fully integrated they should have happened at the same time. In the end, I thought the two became quite well integrated, but they were not on an equal footing.

There was a sense at times that there was knowledge from the Māori world that would be an equivalent [to science] but I am not sure I saw it in a tangible form very often. This is understandable as no one would argue that it exists in discrete chunks, it is more of a different type of knowing.

I think we got there in the end. We had provisions in the plan that allow for mātauranga Māori and all that goes with that.

I think we more than scratched the surface but we didn’t fully land it. … I think the plan is further ahead than anything in the country, I think it pushed the boundary further.

In Auckland I haven’t seen that level of involvement of mana whenua in a process of this nature before. I think it was extremely positive.

Lessons learned• Mātauranga Māori can provide valuable input on

values as well as long-term scientific knowledge based on observation and experience.

• Effective integration of mātauranga Māori takes time and therefore is unlikely to be achieved in a process with short timeframes.

• Advance work to develop mātauranga Māori input, prior to the planning process commencing, can help avoid it being in a catch-up mode.

• Clear communication around the scope of mātauranga Māori and its implications for the planning process can help engender support.

• Accessing mātauranga Māori information is likely to be resource intensive.

• Creating a separate mātauranga Māori workstream can be successful in focusing effort, but requires effective measures to integrate that work into the broader project.

• Developing protocols around confidentiality and intellectual property can be important in enabling mātauranga Māori information to be accessed.

• Including mana whenua support people in the writing and GIS teams can help integrate material as the plan is prepared.

ScienceEarly on in the process, the SWG members agreed that the plan would be science-based as well as incorporating Mātauranga Māori. The plan was to draw mostly on existing scientific knowledge as there was not sufficient time or budget to commission much new work. One piece of work which was commissioned during the process looked at the recovery of benthic habitats in a cable protection zone after trawling had been excluded.42 A second piece of work was commissioned jointly by the WRC and DairyNZ, to review and synthesise current knowledge about the impacts of sediment and nutrient flows into the Firth of Thames.43

In broad terms, scientific input into the project was managed by a Technical Support Group which consisted of agency science-orientated staff. A technical support person was provided to most Roundtables. SWG members were asked to identify scientists they wished to hear from. The project team also compiled a list of general topics and technical experts and asked the SWG to identify any gaps. The technical leads then approached the outside experts who presented to SWG and Roundtable meetings. The model changed during the project, and after the Pause two science conduits were appointed to work more closely with the SWG to develop the plan content.

Interviewees generally considered that the quality of science input into the process was very high.


We probably had the best science it was possible to get in New Zealand. I felt the people were outstanding and they were prepared to share their information.

I thought the science was pretty good. Quite a bit of work had been done on the Gulf in various areas and at different times and I thought the Sea Change process did a pretty good job of identifying the different experts and bringing them in.

There was no problem with the science, the quality was of a high standard. We felt there was probably an overload and that the SWG brains must be overloaded and bursting at the seams with the deluge of technical information. But we were very happy with the veracity of it.

Despite the high quality of the science, there were some important gaps in coverage. One interviewee noted the lack of knowledge on important matters such as where fish nursery and spawning grounds were. Another considered that very little information about land and sea interactions was provided. Others raised gaps in information on biosecurity and future pressures such as climate change. There were some difficulties accessing fisheries data, particularly around the spatial location of crayfishing effort, to help identify the impacts of specific proposed MPAs.

One result of the stakeholder-led approach to identifying science needs was that a consistent programme of setting out all the scientific building blocks underlying issues was lacking. There was also weak synthesis between the various pieces of scientific information.

The science was fairly organic and there wasn’t a programmed approach to set out the building blocks. We said, ‘Let’s see what comes out of the

process before we engage with the science.’ We could instead have had something more structured.

The science input was the best part of the process but I think it was underutilised. It was too siloed and not brought together to work through the issues.

We were not getting the information we needed, it was coming too late in the piece and there was way too much information. There was a lack of management of the science.

Some felt that the volume of material was overwhelming and that there needed to be more time to enable laypeople to digest it. Others thought that too much emphasis had been put on the science given that in the end the plan was more about values and judgement calls.

As a scientist, it was pretty clear that there were massive amounts of information being produced for digestion and synthesis by the Roundtables. But the volume of material was so great that the groupings had difficulty in digesting it. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees. There was inadequate time left for proper synthesis within each Roundtable and at no time was there a synthesis across Roundtables.

Personally, I found the science overwhelming. But it was absolutely fantastic to have people coming and sharing information with us.

The science was generally well handled but there needed to be more time for us to absorb the material fully and to ask questions.

Several interviewees noted that there could have been more preparatory work undertaken before the collaborative process commenced. This would have enabled science to take a stronger leadership role and for the best science to be available at the right time in an appropriate format.

Fisheries Roundtable field trip, Leigh


Although a start had been made on collecting information prior to the project commencing, this was put on hold on the grounds that SWG members should decide what kind of information they needed. This meant that much of the scientific input was gathered during the project and the process was often in catch-up mode.

We seemed to be running hard the whole time to provide information to the project when it would have been best generated prior to the process starting. We were trying to grab information and pull it together at the last minute. We should have ground-truthed the data to ensure everything was there but we didn’t have time to do this. So people lacked confidence in some of the data.

If I was planning the process, I would start by getting a scientific review of the Gulf done, before the process starts. I felt that science was tacked on rather than leading the process.

You have to put all the elements on the table upfront. Otherwise you might put a wonderful plan together and then someone says, ‘Why didn’t you factor in sea level change or the QMS?’ That stuff should have been upfront. The state of the Gulf should have been populated a lot more.

Several interviewees raised concerns about the seeming inability of SWG members to adequately deal with scientific uncertainty. This was particularly the case for nutrient enrichment of the Firth of Thames.

In the Firth of Thames we were not 100 per cent sure about what was going on and to me we could have thought about that in terms of risk, what are the consequences if things go wrong? It means you can still take action even if you are not sure about what is happening. The discussion was more about certainty than about risk and we would have been better to think more about risk and adaptive management associated with that.

There seemed to be a position, and there continues to be, that if the science isn’t perfect, if the model isn’t perfect, then it’s not good enough and we wait for something better to come along. People were struggling with utilising imperfect information and recognising that science is never going to be perfect.

The development of a web-based tool for the project (called SeaSketch) by researchers based at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was commissioned by DOC and the Tindall Foundation in 2012 in association with the WRC and Auckland Council. The platform eventually hosted around 100 spatial data layers. It was initially envisaged that SeaSketch would be used by SWG members and the public to test out spatial options. This did not eventuate, and after the Pause DOC provided a technical assistant who operated SeaSketch during SWG meetings to assist with the discussion. This was particularly useful in relation to deliberations around the location of MPAs. SeaSketch was also used to assist in identifying suitable space for aquaculture. Most

interviewees felt that the SeaSketch tool had been helpful but it had not been fully or effectively used in the planning process. As a result, SeaSketch spatial information was not well integrated into the plan.

SeaSketch captured all the community values and mapped those out, so I thought it gave a good baseline of information for SWG discussions.

DOC put a huge amount of effort into SeaSketch and it was not picked up until the very end of the process.

SeaSketch is not something that is simple to pick up and there is huge value in having someone running the thing and helping people. SeaSketch has a huge amount of potential but you need someone who can follow the conversation and bring things up.

I think you need the processes running in parallel, where you have the SWG talking about their aspirations, and then at the same time you have processes that recognise the spatial components of those aspirations.

One difficulty with the utilisation of SeaSketch was the significant gaps in the coverage of the spatial data sets, including a limited amount of biogenic and cultural data layers.

There was an assumption that you could populate a mapping tool with sensible ecological content and therefore we would be sketching areas that people would have a high degree of collective confidence around. But that never happened as the underlying science assumptions were always in doubt and we never got past that.

There were gaps in the information, with no single biogenic map of the seabed. We know it has absolutely changed enormously due to sedimentation.

Contributions of spatial information from iwi and other stakeholder groups (such as fishers) also did not eventuate due to the lack of resource and appropriate protocols.

It would have been good to ask industries to voluntarily provide their data from the start. They then have the opportunity to front foot it. I know forestry had a lot of data they did not make available. Fonterra could have been more forthcoming.

There would be real opportunities in future collaborative processes, where you have protocols in place, particularly around confidentiality and intellectual property arrangements. … One of the aspirations was to involve a number of iwi and identify their aspirational mapping. But because of the breadth and number of iwi and hapū involved to do the process, it would have taken a significant amount of time and resource. So it ended up as a case study approach.

Several interviewees noted the lack of social and economic input into the planning process. One


interviewee thought that this was inevitable given the state of these disciplines. Other interviewees suggested that it would have been valuable to have an economist and/or social scientist on the technical team. Others considered that much more could have been done in this area through the use of models, although this could have been resource-intensive. Another raised the problem of achieving community acceptance for a plan that did not necessarily reflect the values of their communities.

There was a strong focus on biophysical and a lot less on social and economic information. Also, infrastructure and tourism were missed. But I don’t think that social science has come of age, it is a young infancy science which has a long way to go. Ecosystem services are not of age either.

There was a lack of social and economic information on the pressures on the Gulf going forward. There could have been economic modelling on the futures of the Hauraki Gulf. Important issues were missed such as the pressure of housing on coastal areas, the port’s access to waterways, the tourism industry and the populations of the islands. You could have captured all of that by looking at some modelling.

One particular area where several interviewees thought that models could have been better used was in testing the implications of various solutions being considered.

There was not enough time to fully analyse potential solutions, in particular to understand their cost-effectiveness and social and cultural implications.

One area that was possibly lacking was good models to assimilate the stuff. It would have benefited from a process of scenario testing and using different models to test different management solutions.

Interviewees generally considered that scientists could have been used more effectively in the process.

I am not sure that we used scientists in the best way. The SWG would ask questions of scientists who would go away and respond. We didn’t give the scientists the opportunity to be scientists and actually help frame up the questions. We used them to just to give us information. The project would have benefited from having a head scientist who could say, ‘X, you have asked this question but I think you mean to ask this other question.’

There could have been a more proactive role for scientists to develop the information rather than just respond to the SWG. There was disagreement about some of the science, and you are always going to need some mediation, otherwise the message can be lost. A Chief Scientist position could help to support that proactive approach.

The use of scientists in phase 2 of the project, when two science conduits were appointed, was generally considered more effective than in the initial phase where

a scientist would come in to give a presentation and then leave. The science conduits helped with the organisation and communication of science.

During the first phase scientists would put something together, give a presentation and go. In the second phase the scientists engaged repeatedly and they could learn what the SWG was interested in. They could sit in the background, and if something was important that people didn’t know about, they could put their hand up and talk about it. I think it is better to have scientists on hand to respond to questions or to raise things missed.

I acted as a science conduit between other scientists, agencies and the SWG, feeding things back and forward. I think it was an effective way of managing the science. I think having someone who understands all sides is a role which is crucial to the process.

Having the science conduits was very beneficial and provided continuity. They were able to span across the project and have an integrated lens. It would have been good to have them from the start.

Others thought that there should have been scientists around the table participating in the conversations, as a SWG member representing the science community and/or in an active technical support and advisor role. This may have helped ensure that the science was properly interpreted by the SWG members, although it could blur the line between technical advice and stakeholder representation.

I felt the science sector needed a voice as they have the credibility behind them to direct and challenge certain arguments.

People were allowed to discredit robust science and this was allowed to stand. There were statements about bad or old science on a number of occasions and they were clearly incorrect but never challenged.

Some interviewees highlighted the rich learning environment that a collaborative process can provide for scientists. Others noted the contribution the process made in connecting scientists up with mana whenua and other stakeholders.

If a scientist asked me whether they should do it [get involved in a collaborative process] I would tell them to do it, it’s a fabulous experience. It’s great to see how science is used to contribute. You also learn that science is not everything, it is only one piece of information and it is important for scientists to know that. It puts science into perspective and shows where we can do things, where we are part of a bigger process. It also shows a lot of defects in science. … It is such a deep experience in communicating your science. We will get better science out of it.

Sea Change was useful for me to get to know iwi representatives. Those relationships were built


through the process and are very valuable. I learned from the process. It was good to see the different sectors around the table and I learned a lot from individual conversations with people, such as talking to fishermen.

Lessons learned• Appointing a Chief Scientist or a small number of

‘science conduits’ to the project to proactively work with the SWG can usefully assist with curating the science input and communicating the science to laypeople.

• The project team should include a social science/economic advisor.

• A stocktake of available science relevant to the issues being grappled with by the MSP could usefully be undertaken prior to commencing the collaborative process. This could then be used to develop a framework for science delivery to the SWG, building up from broader system-wide science to more focused issue-relevant science.

• A spatial mapping tool such as SeaSketch can be very useful in MSP processes, but will likely require dedicated technical expertise to configure and operate during SWG sessions.

• Appropriate protocols should be developed upfront regarding accessing and using data from iwi/hapū and key stakeholder groups.

• Laypeople will need time to digest and synthesise scientific input.

• There will always be gaps in science and scientific uncertainty. SWG members will benefit from guidance on how to deal with such uncertainty.

• Collaborative processes can be a rich learning environment for scientists.

Independent Review PanelThe IRP was appointed by the PSG in July 2014 and comprised five experts: a lawyer, a MSP consultant from France, a coastal scientist, a Māori earth system scientist and expert on the integration of science and mātauranga Māori, and a strategist. The group was tasked with using the UNESCO MSP step-by-step approach co-authored by the French MSP consultant to assess the Sea Change process. The IRP provided three reports, the first in August 2014, the second in March 2015 and the third in September 2016, which was after the plan had been largely finalised. Each report contained an in-depth consideration of key aspects of the project and a set of recommendations for actions to remedy any weaknesses identified.

One of the initial difficulties was that the IRP was set up to give the PSG comfort about the process and not specifically to meet the needs of the SWG for assistance in developing a robust plan. The terms of reference and focus for the IRP reports were set by the PSG without any consultation with the SWG. The IRP started to review the project at a very early stage, and not long after the SWG

started its work, which some felt was not constructive. There was a sense by some interviewees that the IRP was evaluating Sea Change against a European model which was not relevant to the local context. The UNESCO framework had not been referred to in the terms of reference and was not a mandated approach for the project. This meant that the project was being evaluated against criteria which the project team and the SWG had not been asked to meet. All these factors contributed to the reports not being well received by the Independent Chair and the SWG, and they had limited impact on the plan making process itself.

The IRP was an important part of the whole structure as it gave an independent view and allowed us to tap into international experience and best practice.

The PSG wanted some independent advice about the process and whether we were following good process. The IRP gave confidence to the PSG. But the SWG were not sufficiently informed of where the political thinking was.

The IRP thought we were running a UNESCO project and so were evaluating it against that. But that was not what we were doing at all. We had a SWG-led process.

Lessons learned• The role of any independent review panel needs

to be carefully thought through. If its purpose is to strengthen the plan making process then it needs to have a stronger linkage to the collaborative group which is preparing the plan than the governance group which is overseeing it.

• If the project is to be assessed against a predetermined framework (such as the UNESCO MSP approach), this should be made clear from the outset.

Aquaculture Roundtable field trip, Bream Bay


2.5 Public engagement and communications

When the Sea Change project was initiated, surprisingly little thought had been given to public engagement. There was no engagement plan and no one had been appointed as a project lead for that function. As the project progressed, various agency people were involved in the communications functions from time to time, with considerable turnover in personnel over the three-year project, making continuity difficult. Efforts were eventually made to address this issue, and in May 2014 an external contractor was appointed as the project’s communications and engagement lead. She developed an engagement and communications plan which was largely implemented. But she left the project in December 2015, a year prior to the project’s completion, and a new person was then brought on board. Reporting lines were not clear, with the communications team reporting both to the Independent Chair and the Project Manager, but with the SWG as the key client. Overall, interviewees considered that community engagement was much more effective during the early stages of the project, but then dwindled closer to the finalisation and launch of the plan when funding ran out.

Public engagement was the biggest downfall of the project.

For a long time we could get nothing done.

It would have been good to have someone in charge of engagement. There should have been a chief communications person.

The first public activity undertaken by the Sea Change project, after the selection of the SWG members, was to convene 27 ‘Listening Posts’ around the Gulf between January and June 2014. Organised by the project’s Facilitator, the Listening Posts were held in a range of small communities including on Great Barrier and Waiheke Islands, and had a total of 250 participants. Each event lasted around two hours and participants were asked to talk about their experiences of the Gulf in the past, what it is like today, and what they hoped to see in the future. This resulted in a large number of transcripts of conversations. Staff went through all the transcripts and identified key themes. These were incorporated into a detailed report for the SWG, where Listening Post comments were organised into Roundtable topics.44 In addition, a more worked-up version was published in a small full-colour booklet titled Voices of the Gulf which was aimed at the general public.45 Quotes from the Listening Posts were also incorporated into the final plan.

The Listening Posts were generally considered by interviewees to be a very successful exercise, enabling information on a diverse range of people’s views to be gathered. It also broadened the public reach of the project, with some people from the Listening Posts being subsequently invited to participate as members of Roundtables. However, the follow-up was poor and there was no direct report back on the project’s progress

or outcomes to the people who had given up their time to participate. Some interviewees suggested that the Listening Posts could have usefully been revisited once or twice later in the project, to report back on progress and obtain further feedback.

Getting the firsthand view of someone who had lived near the ocean for 50–60 years was very insightful.

I would definitely do the Listening Posts again. They were really amazing and the people were so generous with their time and what they shared.

While the Listening Posts were being undertaken, a PhD student and staff member at the Auckland University of Technology undertook an online survey during March and April 2014 aimed at mobilising citizen science to contribute to the project. The survey utilised SeaSketch as a web-based collaborative mapping tool. Participants were asked to identify places that were important to them by putting markers on an online map of the Hauraki Gulf. They were then asked to indicate the values associated with the site, their use of it, and the health of the environment at that location and how it had changed over the past five years. A total of 1491 respondents plotted over 42,199 points as a result of this exercise. Analysis was undertaken to identify spatial hotspots for different values, uses and environmental condition.46 The results were subsequently presented to the members of the Accessible Gulf Roundtable by the researchers. No interviewee specifically commented on this survey, likely reflecting its low prominence within SWG deliberations and the plan development process.

Running alongside the Listening Posts and the university survey was the ‘Love Our Gulf’ initiative undertaken by WWF New Zealand and funded by the Tindall Foundation. This was not specifically a Sea Change initiative and was not branded as such. The use of two brands, Sea Change and Love Our Gulf, created some confusion. A Heads of Agreement enabled the Sea Change project to utilise the data gathered by the Love Our Gulf project. Between January and April 2014, Love Our Gulf message boards were erected at 11 beaches and community events, with members of the public invited to write on the board what they loved about the Gulf. Around 1700 people left a message and this was supplemented by Love Our Gulf Facebook and Instagram accounts where a further 428 people left messages. A second Love Our Gulf campaign was undertaken between August and December 2014, at 14 events around the Gulf, and reached 2600 people, with a further 698 posts via social media. The format of this campaign was closely aligned to the Roundtable topics.

Love Our Gulf hit youth really well and created a huge amount of goodwill and an online community which is really important for a project of this scale and with a change component.

The Listening Posts and Love Our Gulf initiatives were part of a developing strategy to engage with people, in their own places, around the Gulf. Sea Change staff attended 17 community events between March 2014 and


March 2015 at which project stands were erected and members of the public invited to engage in discussions about the project. People were invited to place hearts on their favourite place in the Gulf and also to sign up for the e-newsletter. The events included boat shows in an endeavour to connect with boaties and fishers who were considered to be resistant to engaging online. The boat shows were identified as the most valuable events for direct engagement, but also produced some hostile conversations which were hard on staff.

Sea Change ran several online surveys. The first was between August and December 2014. This focused on the Roundtable topics and asked respondents to identify priority issues for each, receiving 104 responses. This was followed by a set of six surveys undertaken during December 2014 and January 2015 which asked questions on each Roundtable topic and received 1601 responses.

The last element of the public engagement programme was convening meetings of the Hauraki 100+ Forum whose membership was loosely based on those attending the initial workshops to select the SWG members. Invitees were expanded to include those participating in the Listening Posts and the Roundtables. It was originally envisaged that meetings of this group would be held twice a year. Evening meetings were held in July and November 2014 in both Auckland and Thames. A meeting scheduled for May 2015 was cancelled due to the Pause. Interviewee feedback suggested that these meetings could have been more valuable if they were redesigned to be smaller, more regular meetings.

The engagement process gathered a large quantity of data and it was a challenge to manage and analyse some 13,000 responses. All the public engagement data was analysed in terms of the Roundtable topics and was also included in a published overall summary of the results of community engagement prepared by the communications team in March 2015.47

It was a huge amount of data and needs consideration of how to process it meaningfully so that it is useful to the SWG who already have a huge amount of data on their plates.

It’s all very well to collect data but you need to use it.

The communications and engagement effort lacked integration, with the engagement material reported to the SWG not including the mātauranga Māori material, despite hui and an online survey of mana whenua being undertaken.

We should have had a mana whenua engagement lead and the two communications and engagement plans should have been written side by side. What happened is that the mana whenua engagement was separate.

Media engagement proved problematic with missed opportunities for building media profile and a lack of public rebuttal to misinformation surrounding the project. There was a lack of provision of regular information and follow-up. Several interviewees emphasised the need to have a regular newsletter, say every 4–6 weeks. Others

noted the good effort at the beginning of the project, but a failure later on to test ideas with the public. Some of this related to a reluctance to reveal any information about the content of the plan until all SWG members had signed up to it as a package, and this only happened close to its release.

We picked up people and we dropped them. If you are going to contact and involve people you need to keep them informed.

The post report flak and putting the plan on the shelf stems right back to not communicating constantly to the public. We needed constant messages and if we’d had that we would have had much greater buy in at the end.

Communications surrounding the launch of the plan were generally considered to be poor. This was a result of the plan being delivered later than anticipated, in October 2016, but the launch date being fixed for early December due to a desire to hold the event prior to the Christmas break. This condensed the timeframe to both design and produce the final plan as well as to ‘warm up’ the public prior to the release. Two launch events were held in Auckland and Thames and the plan was made publicly available on the website. However, a printed version of the plan was not available until around six months later, and even then only a small number of copies (80) were printed. Once the plan was launched the project was disestablished, including the communications staff, so there was no ongoing external communications effort.

Before the launch, it would have been good to signal the stances in the plan, but we weren’t ready and when the launch happened it was too late.

It was three years of work and we had a month to produce something beautiful and launch it.

The SWG was not directly involved in the development of the engagement and communications plan. There was some disconnect between the SWG and the communications team, with the information produced through surveys and other engagement efforts not necessarily meeting the needs of the SWG. Communications was identified by several interviewees as one of the weaker elements of the Sea Change project. This was particularly in the later stages of the project and around the launch of the final plan. They emphasised the need for a dedicated communications person. In addition, a communications subcommittee of the SWG working with the Independent Chair to oversee progress and connect directly with the communications team could have been useful.

There was a disconnect between what we were doing and what the SWG were expecting.

In May 2016, the SWG was advised that the PSG had decided that there would be no consultation process on the draft plan due to budgetary constraints. One interviewee recalls the attendees at the initial public workshops being promised that they would have a chance to comment on the draft plan, which had raised


expectations. Several interviewees from agencies indicated that the lack of public consultation on a draft plan had made subsequent implementation more difficult. This was supported by other interviewees who considered that the draft plan should have at least gone back to the Roundtables for comment before finalisation. On the other hand, other interviewees were hesitant about such public consultation as it had the potential to unravel the delicate consensus within the SWG that had been built around the package of measures in the plan.

I would have put the draft plan out for comment by the Roundtables, to at least know what the issues were, how people would respond and where the concerns were. Agencies aren’t going to do things unless the public has been consulted.

Public consultation is going to happen at some point regardless of who does it and when. It would be better if the public comments went back to the SWG for consideration.

If you put the plan out for consultation, when it is the result of a sophisticated and sensitive collaboration between people, the consensus unravels.

Overall, despite the significant efforts in the communications and community engagement element of the Sea Change project, many interviewees considered this to be the weakest element of the project. This was likely for a combination of reasons. Those highlighted included the turnover of communications staff, lack of connection between the communications effort and SWG

members (and therefore with the actual development of the plan), lack of regular communication and follow-up with members of the public who engaged with the project, drop off in communications activity during the later stages of the project, insufficient public build-up to the release of the plan, and cessation of any external communications activity once the plan was publicly released.

Lessons learned• A dedicated senior person should be appointed to be

in charge of community engagement for the term of the project and to work closely with the SWG.

• A Communications Subcommittee of the SWG could be established to work with the Independent Chair and communications lead.

• A public engagement plan should be developed prior to commencing the project setting out who will be engaged with, for what purpose, and how they will be kept informed as the project progresses.

• The project’s community information needs should be clearly understood as well as how data will be analysed and used before collecting it.

• A comprehensive contacts list should be established from the inception of the project that records contact details for all people attending project events and meetings and engaging in the project in other ways. This should include when they were contacted and what they were promised in terms of follow up.

• A regular e-newsletter on the project should be produced every 4–6 weeks.

• Community members should be directly engaged through mechanisms such as ‘Listening Posts’ and outreach to community events.

• Those who have engaged in the project should be regularly contacted and kept informed.

• A decision should be made early about how the draft provisions of the plan will be tested publicly. If full consultation is not to be undertaken, alternative mechanisms to test the plan with key stakeholder groupings and others should be developed. The process to be adopted needs to be clearly communicated from the outset to avoid raising expectations that will not be met.

• The communications effort should be maintained throughout the entire project and the budget managed accordingly, taking into account that a collaborative plan making process may take longer than first anticipated.

• A significant communications effort should be planned leading up to and after the launch of the plan. The communications staff need to be retained on the project after the plan launch and into the implementation phase.

Water Quality and Catchments Roundtable field trip, Hauraki Plains


2.6 Implementation This section overviews the content of the plan as well as the process developed to implement it.

Content of planAs already indicated, the final final agreed plan is structured around four parts or kete (baskets) of knowledge: 1) kaitiakitanga and guardianship; 2) mahinga kai – replenishing the food baskets; 3) ki uta ki ta – ridge to reef or mountains to the sea; and 4) kotahitanga – prosperous communities. The front end of the plan consists largely of objectives and actions and is supported by a summary of the scientific basis underpinning the plan provided in the appendices. The plan is wide-ranging and detailed. Some key features are described below.

The fish stocks chapter (Chapter 4) is based on two broad strategies: first to apply an ecosystem-based approach to harvest management and second to put in place mechanisms to protect and enhance marine habitats, thereby increasing the ecological productivity of the Gulf. Restoration of marine habitats focuses on a nested approach. Large benthic areas are to be protected through the retirement or mitigation of key stressors, such a fishing gear impacts, to allow natural regeneration. Smaller areas within these zones will be the focus of passive restoration (through the establishment of marine reserves) and active restoration through the transplanting of species or establishment of new habitat patches.

The chapter also includes a proposal to remove seabed-damaging fishing methods from the Gulf including bottom trawling, Danish seining and dredging. This is to prevent any further habitat damage, reduce sediment resuspension and allow natural or assisted recovery of the three-dimensional benthic habitats which are of critical importance to the survival of many juvenile fish. Fishers will be assisted to transition to methods such as long-lining which produce higher quality fish, achieve a higher market price, and have less environmental impacts. Other matters addressed in the fish stocks chapter include rebuilding depleted fish stocks and establishing a separate fisheries management area for the Gulf.

A novel proposal in the plan is the creation of Ahu Moana co-management areas. These will be located in nearshore areas extending 1 kilometre seawards. They will be co-managed jointly by mana whenua and local communities to mobilise and focus the energy and knowledge of these parties towards improving the management of local fisheries and inshore coastal waters. This is to help strengthen customary practices associated with the marine space, as well as more effectively control harvest levels, particularly in areas under increasing pressure from the growing Auckland population.

The plan recommends 13 new aquaculture areas and 13 new marine protected areas, as well as an extension in size of two existing marine reserves. In addition, an extensive area is identified as being unsuitable for aquaculture due to its proximity to the Auckland

metropolitan area where there are many potentially conflicting uses of the water space.

The provision of marine protection was one of the more difficult issues to reach consensus on, and in some cases this could not be achieved in the time available. As a result, two alternative proposals are included for some specific sites. Provision has been made for customary harvest and the adverse effects on commercial fishers will be addressed. In addition, there is to be a 25-year review of the protected areas, and co-governance and management of them once established.

The impact of poor water quality on the ecological health of the Hauraki Gulf was one of the greatest areas of concern, with the main stressor being sediment. Sediment was a difficult issue to effectively address due to the large number of diffuse sources that contribute including conservation land, forestry, agriculture, earthworks and stream bank erosion. In addition, a large amount of sediment has already reached the marine area and is retained in the Gulf for long periods of time, being regularly resuspended by wave action.

The approach set out in the plan is wide-ranging and includes measures to reduce soil erosion, to minimise sediment entering waterways and to stabilise sediment once it has reached the marine environment. Some of the key features of the strategy are to develop catchment management plans (starting with four high priority catchments), establish catchment sediment limits, increase sediment traps through reinstating natural or engineered wetland systems, ensure the adoption of good sediment practice by all land users, and retire inappropriate land use on highly erodible land. Emphasis has also been put on scaling up one-on-one interaction with farmers through doubling resources to employ additional land management officers.

Nutrient enrichment was an emerging water quality issue in the Firth of Thames. The rivers discharging into the area have raised nutrient loadings as a result of intensive land use, including dairying within the catchment. The Firth of Thames is not well flushed and the water becomes stratified in late summer and early autumn. Water quality monitoring in the outer Firth has identified oxygen depletion and seawater acidification during these times.48 The plan recommends that a cap is placed on nitrogen discharge levels which are to be kept at or below current rates until sufficient scientific work had been completed to enable an appropriate nutrient load limit to be put in place.

There were varied reactions to the plan when it was publicly launched on 6 December 2016. The three key Ministers – for the Environment, Primary Industries and Conservation – welcomed the plan in a joint press statement.49 The EDS Chairman called it ‘a major achievement not to be underestimated’.50 The New Zealand Herald headlined its article on the plan’s release ‘Revealed: The bold plan to save Hauraki Gulf’. Science Reporter Jamie Morton went on to write: ‘The plan – the first of its kind in New Zealand – sought to help stem the flow of sediment and other pollutants into the Hauraki


Gulf, ease pressures on wildlife, fish stocks and kaimoana and restore the health of crucial ecosystems.’51

Other responses were not as positive. The plan was criticised by a Thames-Coromandel district councillor as being undemocratic.52 The Chief Executive Officer of large fishing corporate Sanford Limited expressed concern about the proposed phase out of bottom-impacting fishing methods and was reported as saying, ‘Some areas just consist of sand really and bottom trawling doesn’t really have a negative impact.’ In response, PSG co-chair Paul Majurey, who is also chair of both the Hauraki Collective of Iwi and Tāmaki Makaurau Collective of Iwi, was reported as saying, ‘For too long we have complained about the indiscriminate, bulk harvesting, benthic destroying methods being used to harvest fish commercially, to have those phased out over time is a huge win for the environment.’53

Interviewees were generally very positive about the final plan that emerged from the process.

I am not sure entirely that everyone was clear as to what a marine spatial plan looked like. I not sure everyone had the same view on what it was expected to be. But I thought the content was excellent. Clearly a mountain of work had gone into it. I don’t think it’s perfect. The consensus process means it is a compromise. But I think it’s an excellent start and a product for people to galvanise around. I think generally all the agencies generally agree on this. They will see different risks from different lenses from where they sit but no one has come out and said it’s all wrong.

I would recognise and congratulate the participants in the process for the task they chose to undertake and the huge amount of effort they put into it. It was a very ambitious exercise and at an international level it is being looked at. They almost made it. The product is very balanced and is future-looking and can be moved to the final phase quite easily.

I thought the plan as an end product was a bloody good outcome.

One interviewee noted that communication of the science was quite well done. Another was more critical of plan, considering that it had not been developed sufficiently to be considered a spatial plan.

The plan document is a penultimate document and is not a spatial plan per se. It was the best outcome possible at the time, being mindful that there were still Treaty settlement processes going on. But the full synthesis of issues was not complete and the parties recognised there was a need for more work. … It was a bit fluffy.

Lessons learned• No MSP will be perfect, and such plans can more

usefully be seen as a form of adaptive management to be further developed over time as experience and scientific and economic understanding is built up.

• A consensus process will generate compromise solutions which may not find favour with everyone.

• The outcomes will be challenging for some as they can represent significant change and a new way of doing things.

Implementation processThere was broad consensus amongst interviewees that the lack of implementation was one of the main challenges of the Sea Change process. Given that the plan does not have direct legal effect, and crosses over several different jurisdictions and pieces of legislation, implementation was always going to be a challenge. Little thought had been given to the structural implications of implementing the plan at the outset, such as whether there should be a separate agency for the Gulf holding all accountable to the plan.

As earlier described, there was little public communications effort prior to the launch given the short timeframe between the plan being completed and the launch function. The project was disestablished at that point, including the PSG and SWG, and it was left to individual agencies to pick up elements of the plan. Although some coordination continued between Auckland Council and the WRC, there was no formal ongoing multi-agency structure for plan implementation.

A number of SWG members were keen to get involved in implementation. We could have done more in terms of talking to agencies. Some kind of roadshow would have been useful.

The disestablishment of the SWG was an opportunity lost as the group had developed a degree of ownership in the plan that hasn’t been duplicated or taken up by anyone else.

When I think of all the fantastic work that went into it, for it to be sitting there and nobody talking about it, is very sad.

I am very disappointed with it not being taken up in council plans although implicitly it has been. Not sure what the answer is to this but you could make it more binding.

The plan envisages rapid implementation, with a series of dates for the completion of actions included in the text. It also provides useful guidance on the implementation process in several places. Chapter 1 of the plan includes the following implementation principles:

• The Plan has been developed as an integrated packaged and needs to be implemented as a ‘whole’.

• Implementation should preserve the integrity and value flowing from current and future Treaty settlements.

• Mana whenua, stakeholders and the community must be substantially involved in the implementation of the plan and the collaborative spirit developed through the SWG process should continue as these groups work together with agencies to progress implementation.


Chapter 4 of the plan identifies the need to develop a strong fisheries implementation plan through establishing a multi-stakeholder group (including recreational and commercial fishing interests, mana whenua, the environment sector, government and scientists), possibly under the auspices of the Hauraki Gulf Forum and supported by MPI, with the implementation plan to be completed by the end of 2017, a date now well passed. Chapter 6, meanwhile, identifies the need for further discussions with mana whenua and local communities on the MPA network proposals, particularly in areas for which consensus was not reached amongst SWG members.

Chapter 11 of the plan provides some further guidance as to the implementation process, including that:

• Actions need to be prioritised and their implementation staged over time.

• Successful long-term implementation of the plan will likely require a reformed governance entity for the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.

• A research and monitoring committee should be established to facilitate and coordinate the development of a research and monitoring plan for the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.

There has been minimal stakeholder and/or public engagement on the plan since its release in December 2016. As already indicated, the PSG and SWG were effectively disbanded on the plan’s release and so have had no formal role in supporting implementation efforts. The multi-stakeholder fisheries implementation body has not been established. The plan has been made widely available on the project website, but a printed copy of the plan produced in April 2017 had a small print run (of around only 80), and has not received wide circulation. A shortened introduction and overview summary document was produced for wider circulation in May 2017.

Overall, feedback has been that stakeholders and members of the public have little or no idea as to what, if anything, is being done to implement the plan. They are also unclear as

to what they could or should be doing to support the plan’s implementation. Given the large investment of funds in developing the plan, this lack of public engagement during the implementation phase may prove unwise if the benefits of that investment are to be realised.

Although not generally publicly evident, implementation planning work has been undertaken by some agencies. Auckland Council staff met with local boards and various departmental and council-owned organisations to socialise the plan between January and April 2017. The council then established a Political Reference Group to provide oversight and guidance for council activities relevant to the plan as well as to integrate with the work programme of other agencies. The Group first met on 2 August 2017. Both Auckland Council and WRC have gone through a process of evaluating the recommendations in the plan, identifying relevant actions and assessing them against current work programmes and budgets. Proposals have been included in long-term plans. For example, Auckland Council’s 10-year budget for 2018–2028 has made provision for a new investment of $452 million in stormwater infrastructure to reduce the frequency of overflows into the Hauraki Gulf. DOC and MPI delayed any external implementation activity until after the national election in September 2017 and the confirmation of subsequent ministerial posts. The new government has been in place for just over a year but implementation action at a central government is yet to emerge. In early August 2018, the Minister of Conservation indicated that Sea Change implementation was still on the government’s agenda and a paper was going up to Cabinet on the topic shortly.54

Many interviewees highlighted the importance of having a champion for the plan. The Hauraki Gulf Forum, which had been one of the key instigators of the process along with Auckland Council and WRC staff, might have been expected to act as such a champion. But this did not happen due to changing political membership, with some new members being hostile to the plan, and the subsequent resignation of the executive officer and chair who had been the plan’s champions. This highlights the importance of identifying upfront who will take the lead and be the champion for the implementation phase. Some interviewees suggested there needed to be an accountable Minister and/or lead agency while others suggested that an implementation group should have been formed from those involved in the project.

We put a recommendation to our council [WRC] to adopt the plan, but our councillors and executive were uncomfortable so they just received it.

One of the broken things about Sea Change is there was no real commitment to implementing it. So if you did it again you would need far more certainty around this.

In good faith, we worked hard to deliver an unanimous consensus on the assumption the councils would formally and unambiguously embrace the plan as a whole and recommend it to Crown agencies. I feel betrayed. They are in

SWG meeting, Rotoroa Island


breach. I now hear that they are adopting elements in their long-term plan. That’s piecemeal and that was not the deal.

The design of the greater project could have had more foresight regarding the transition to implementation. You need to have a champion for the plan. It needs a responsible parent from inception, to delivery, to implementation. Effectively it is an orphan.

We needed a working group that would become a champion for the plan. It could be a subcommittee of the Hauraki Gulf Forum. The SWG could have morphed into a group that would oversee the plan along with the PSG. But there was no funding for the SWG to be champions of the plan.

Some interviewees raised the lack of agency involvement in the plan as an obstacle to their implementation of it (as discussed above). Agencies had not helped to develop, or been asked to endorse, the recommendations prior to the plan being finalised. Some suggested that the SWG should have developed and tested options before writing the plan. In addition, the value of implementing the plan had not been well articulated.

If you expect me to go back to the council and sell the plan to the governance group, you need to give us space at the table, to give us buy in so we can endorse it. We never got the opportunity.

Several interviewees indicated that the lack of public consultation on the draft plan has been a barrier to implementation by agencies. The public engagement that had been undertaken was viewed by some as limited, unconventional and unstructured. Others referred to the ‘fish hooks’ in the consensus, and in particular the clause protecting Treaty rights, which was uncertain in application and made it more difficult for agencies to proceed with implementation.

Some kind of communication, engagement and feedback of what the wider public think of the plan, taking their views into account and saying what we heard and what we did with the comments, would have been very powerful.

A further issue identified was the aspirational nature of the plan, with some seeing it as more of a wish list than a set of implementable actions. There was no prioritisation or costings undertaken and no allocation of tasks to specific agencies. The recommendations had also not considered alignment with existing programmes or agency budgetary cycles.

If we had focused on a couple of things it would have made implementation a bit more possible and practical. The scale of what was asked for in a single document was daunting. Agencies looked at it with dollar signs in their eyes and said, ‘We can’t do all of that so what can we do? Let’s do some things that are cheap and we can tick off.’ You need to pick the top three or five that will have the most impact.

One of the agency criticisms is that the plan is a laundry list and you need to prioritise taking into account time, effort and cost. But you also need to stay true to the whole package concept.

One suggestion to help overcome this difficulty was to make the plan more action-orientated, with actions being developed, tested and refined throughout the plan making process rather than everything being decided at the end of the process. This would provide something concrete to go out to the community with and give some idea of the costs involved, which would help agencies with long-term plan discussions.

This could also help with priority setting as you may find that some actions are going to have a big influence and achieve big results whereas others may be costly or time hungry.

Some suggested that the plan should be legally binding. Others suggested that non-statutory processes can be very powerful if you can generate enough buy-in to drive change. More effort needed to be put into getting industry support so that industry started to implement the plan under its own initiatives.

In my experience, non-statutory processes can be more powerful than statutory ones, if you can achieve a high level of buy-in, as there is empowerment to make change.

Lessons learned• An implementation framework and strategy should

be developed at the outset of the project, including identifying implementation risks and measures to reduce them.

• Actions should be prioritised so agencies are clear on what to focus on first.

• Where possible, some actions should be commenced prior to the plan being finalised to achieve early impetus behind implementation efforts.

• The plan should be well tested with agencies, stakeholder groups and the broader public. This could be achieved through a range of mechanisms such as involving key agency staff in developing up solutions and testing options, asking Roundtables to comment on the draft plan, convening feedback sessions with key stakeholder groups, having public fora or a roadshow and/or inviting public submissions on a draft.

• Key champions for the plan within agencies should be identified at the political and senior staff levels. Where possible, these people should be involved closely in the plan making process. New political representatives should be well briefed on the project.

• Key project bodies, such as the PSG, SWG and project team, should be continued at least for an interim period to provide a transition into the implementation phase. Members can play an important role in socialising the plan within agencies and amongst stakeholder groups and the broader public.


2.7 ConclusionsThe Sea Change MSP process had some notable strengths and also some weaknesses. The two greatest strengths were the power of the collaborative process and integration of mātauranga Māori. There were noted weaknesses in the drop-off in public involvement in the second half of the project, poor agency involvement in the plan making process, and lack of tangible mechanisms for implementation.

Sea Change is the most ambitious marine planning exercise to be undertaken inNew Zealand. It took place in the most contested marine space in the country. Completing the plan through a consensus process is

a major achievement. The integrated planning process enabled a focus to be placed on how to address the strategic drivers of environmental decline in the Hauraki Gulf. The plan itself sets out a roadmap for action to reverse this decline, while providing for use, that will likely endure. What Sea Change has also provided is a rich learning ground which future projects can benefit from by building on the project’s strengths and putting in place mechanisms to address its weaknesses. It provides a useful basis on which New Zealand can move forward to implement MSP more broadly.

We were learning by doing but there was not enough focus on learning as we went.

SWG meeting, Long Bay

413: INTERNATIONAL MSP PRACTICE


Bruny Island, Tasmania


This chapter presents the results of a literature review into international MSP practice. Firstly, it provides an annotated bibliography of recent literature on this topic. This is followed by an in-depth examination of six leading marine plans from around the world.

3.1 International literature reviewThere is now a wealth of literature on MSP. This chapter focuses on reviewing recent material that draws out lessons learned from undertaking MSP in different jurisdictions around the world. Focus has been placed on reviewing literature that provides insight into practical experience rather than the theoretical underpinnings of MSP. Fourteen of the most relevant publications are described below. They are ordered by year of publication, from the most recent to the earliest.

Smythe T C and J McCann, 2018, ‘Lessons learnt in marine governance: Case studies of marine spatial planning practice in the U.S.’, Marine Policy, 94, 227–237

This article sets out lessons learned from MSP practice in the United States based on three case studies (Washington State coast, Rhode Island and San Francisco Bay). It focuses on stakeholder participation and interagency and interorganisational cooperation in MSP. The lessons were drawn from interviews with 50 practitioners and stakeholders involved with the case study processes.

The study found strong agreement that stakeholder participation is central to MSP. It should start early and be sustained through all stages of the process, including implementation. A key consideration is which stakeholders to engage with and how and when to do so. Practitioners reported that informal methods of stakeholder participation were the most valuable and effective as opposed to formal submission processes. Such informal engagement can take the form of meetings, dialogues and joint planning exercises. Whatever process is undertaken, it needs to provide for authentic two-way dialogue.

Interviewees emphasised the importance of trust and pre-existing positive relationships which help facilitate MSP processes. They reported that such pre-existing relationships led to better outcomes, including a reduction in conflict and stronger support for the plan. Such relationships are a form of social capital which can be strengthened during MSP processes. Conversely, trust can be quickly eroded through poor process.

Interviewees also emphasised the importance of setting and managing the expectations of stakeholders and agencies involved in MSP processes. Mismatches between expectations and a project’s outcomes can affect support for the plan.

Kyvelou S S and I V Pothitaki, 2017, ‘Current attitudes and lessons learnt in maritime/marine spatial planning’, in D Kitsiou and M Karydis (eds), Marine spatial planning: Methodologies, environmental issues and current trends, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 71–92

This book chapter identifies lessons learnt from 35 MSP processes undertaken around the world with a focus on relating such lessons to the evolution of MSP in Europe. The projects were identified from the UNESCO database (see http://msp.ioc-unesco.org/world-applications/overview/). The analysis concluded that:

• MSP has been applied to the EEZ, territorial sea and local waters with no particular pattern as to scope. In some cases the shoreline and activities on land have also been included.

• The move towards an ecosystem-based approach is likely to see the spatial extent of MSP projects expand to encompass entire ecosystems.

• The most common driver for initiating MSP projects was perceived conflicts amongst human uses (18%) followed by new and emerging uses (16%), the need for a more integrated approach (14%), marine conservation concerns (13%) and perceived conflicts between uses and nature conservation (13%).

• The completion of plans commonly took between two and four years. Most plans were scheduled to be reviewed within three to five or more years.

• Most plans were regulatory (64%) with less than a third (30%) being non-statutory.

• Only 17% of plans included all sectors. Renewable energy, marine transport, marine conservation and oil and gas extraction were the most common activities included. Coastal land use was only included in 4% of the plans and aquaculture, ports and recreational fishing in 3%.

• Almost all the plans (91%) were developed through the use of participatory planning processes.

• Only 26% of plans sought to coordinate planning of the land with the sea.

Ehler C, 2017, ‘The world-wide status and trends of MSP’, presentation to the 2nd International Conference on Marine/Maritime Spatial Planning, 15–17 March, IOC Workshop Report Series, UNESCO, Paris, 4–5

The Second International Conference on Marine/Maritime Spatial Planning, which was held in Paris on 15–17 March 2017, brought together more than 350 MSP practitioners to take stock of current experience in MSP, lessons learned and the way forward. At the conference, Charles Ehler provided a keynote presentation on the worldwide status and trends of MSP, making the following pertinent points:

• Of the 60 MSP plans that have been initiated in 20 countries, just over half extend over the EEZ, 40 per cent over the territorial sea and 10 per cent have been developed at a local level.


• Only a few countries have legislation that explicitly authorises MSP and most countries rely on existing legislation or other arrangements to undertake MSP planning processes and implement the plans.

• Plans generally take three to four years to complete. The cost has varied from hundreds of thousands to several million US dollars for the first round of MSP. Most funding is sourced from national government general revenues.

• Almost all MSP processes claim stakeholder engagement, but this is widely variable in practice.

• Fishing is often not included and MPAs are often identified and implemented through a separate process. This occurs even though it would be more effective to integrate MSP and MPA planning processes.

• Monitoring and evaluation of MSP plans is elusive.

Ansong J, E Gissi and H Calado, 2017, ‘An approach to ecosystem-based management in maritime spatial planning process’, Ocean & Coastal Management, 141, 65–81

This paper analyses 39 MSP initiatives in Europe, Asia and America through a review of relevant literature and a survey of experts in MSP and ecosystems-based management (with 51 responses). The authors make the following relevant findings with a focus on ecosystems-based MSP:

• The predominant drivers for MSP were conservation (33%) and energy (28%). A third of MSP initiatives in the United States were conservation-driven whereas all the European case studies were energy-driven, reflecting the ‘blue growth’ agenda in that region.

• Only a small proportion of projects used ecosystems to set the plan boundary (14%) and most were restricted by jurisdictional boundaries. Fewer still (8%) considered the coastal catchment when drafting marine plans.

• More than three-quarters (78%) of projects mapped biological/ecological values and seabed characteristics. Slightly fewer (64%) undertook conflict and compatibility mapping. Only around a quarter mapped cumulative impacts (28%) or ecosystem services (24%).

• Just under two-thirds of the projects had monitoring in place, which mainly focused on state of the ecosystem monitoring, while just under a third also measured the performance of management measures. Twenty percent had operative mechanisms for adaptive management.

The authors recommend that future MSP processes should base boundaries on ecosystem patterns, functions and connectivity and include nearshore waters; seek to understand ecosystem services, values and functions; expand participation and empower stakeholders; be future-orientated analysing future conditions and

providing a direction for future development and maintenance of ecosystem services; give ecosystems priority in decision-making processes; seek to reduce threats and pressures on the environment; and use the results of monitoring and evaluation to adapt future planning cycles.

Jones P, L Lieberknecht and W Qiu, 2016, ‘Marine spatial planning in reality: Introduction to case studies and discussion of findings’, Marine Policy, 71, 256–264

This paper explores the realities of MSP in practice, drawing on 12 case studies from around Europe. The authors present the following findings:

• MSP is conceived as a process which achieves a diversity of ecological, economic and social objectives, but the reality is that many MSP processes in Europe are initiated and driven by a specific sectoral objective – often related to energy projects. Although other objectives are considered as part of these MSP processes, the strategic sectoral objective is often the primary driver, main focus and over-riding priority. Any trade-offs and compromises are aligned to ensure that the strategic sectoral objective is achieved.

• There are tensions between promoting integrated use, with an emphasis on the ‘blue growth’ of maritime sectors and promoting an ecosystem-based approach, with an emphasis on good environmental status under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

• Step-wise linear planning processes are rarely implemented in reality. The case studies followed a wide variety of formal and informal sectoral and cross-sectoral approaches, resulting in processes that were complex, fragmented and emergent on an ad hoc basis, rather than cyclical, holistic and prescribed on an a priori basis.

• The planning approach was largely top down, with limited stakeholder participation and influence over decision-making. Although mechanisms were provided for stakeholder deliberations as part of the MPA processes, these were disconnected from the actual decision-making processes. Some stakeholders, particularly those related to strategically important infrastructure development and larger scale offshore fishing, circumnavigated participative processes, instead opting to wield influence through their sectoral connections at higher political levels.

• The tendency to use top-down approaches in European MSP has been noted by others and is probably due (at least in part) to the importance that central governments in the region place on ensuring that strategically important infrastructure and economic development projects are permitted to go ahead, rather than being delayed or rejected on the basis of the priorities of other stakeholders.


Domínguez-Tejo E, G Metternicht, E Johnston and L Hedge, 2016, ‘Marine spatial planning advancing the ecosystem-based approach to coastal zone management: A review’, Marine Policy, 72, 115–130

This paper evaluates 12 MSP case studies from Europe, Canada, the United States and Australia to identify how well they integrated social, economic and environmental values into the spatial planning analysis and how connectivity between these different realms was addressed. The authors noted that it was difficult to access a comprehensive list of supporting documents associated with each case study, and that this hindered their ability to draw lessons from past experience and to inform future initiatives.

The analysis found that, although the majority of cases studies claimed to use an ecosystem-based framework, mixed results were observed in practice. Plans rarely considered human pressures, ecosystem services and the implementation of precautionary and adaptive management approaches. There were important knowledge gaps in the assessment of social values, including the lack of spatial representation of ‘social connections’ to the marine environment and a lack of economic estimates of non-market values. Specific deficiencies identified included:

• Lack of knowledge and information gaps for specific values (especially social values)

• Lack of frameworks, tools and data to standardise human uses and to assess cumulative effects over planning areas

• Lack of quantitative analysis of risks and uncertainties regarding impacts on the marine environment, particularly on ecosystem functions

• A prevalence of descriptive narratives on socioeconomic benefits derived mostly from economic sectors and businesses

• Lack of baseline knowledge regarding the structure, functioning and productivity of ecosystems

• Administrative and jurisdictional boundaries prevailing over ecological boundaries, making it difficult to take account of ecological/coastal processes and connectivity issues that affect MSP areas

McCann J, 2016, Advice from the field: Tools and techniques for facilitating a realistic and effective marine spatial planning (MSP) process, Coastal Resources Center and Rhode Island Sea Grant College Programme, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett

This is one of a series of products from the University of Rhode Island which focus on sharing lessons learned from the practice of MSP in the United States and abroad. This small publication synthesises findings from case studies in Rhode Island, San Francisco Bay and Washington

State and is based on interviews with 50 practitioners and stakeholders who participated in these MSP processes. The results were later published in a different format in Smythe and McCann (2018), which is summarised above. The findings are reported as a series of ‘lessons learned’, the following of which are the most relevant to the New Zealand context:

1. Understand where you are starting from: History matters and if there is a history of conflict between groups or no history of collaborative multi-sector planning then planning goals and expectations should be set accordingly.

2. Stay agile and allow your plan to respond to multiple issues: Even if there is a single driver for the planning process, take the opportunity to address other issues at the same time, as this increases your return on investment.

3. Engage stakeholders informally, but meaningfully, to build commitment and legitimacy: In addition to undertaking formal consultative processes, it is important to engage with stakeholders informally such as through establishing committees, conducting workshops and undertaking educational activities in order to achieve strong stakeholder commitment to the final plan.

4. Allow time to build trust: Trust can facilitate an effective process and takes time to build. Work proactively to build trust and allow adequate time for it to develop, particularly where this is a history of distrust between key players.

5. Manage expectations: Set realistic expectations for the MSP, including scope and role of the stakeholder group, and help others to understand them.

6. Figure out what others have that you need: Collaborate with other agencies and organisations which have complementary goals, expertise and constituencies.

7. Don’t meet your colleagues and constituents for the first time during a crisis: Strong working relationships provide the basis to work through challenges when they arise. Work to cultivate those relationships long before the planning process begins.

8. Listen to the locals: Local knowledge and firsthand experience is necessary to inform realistic and practical decisions that have stakeholder support.

9. Build a broad base of leadership: Build leadership in key constituencies, such as industry and environmental organisations, to help build and sustain broad engagement in, and support for, the process.

10. Create clear policy tools in your plan to support streamlined decision-making: Build tools into your plan that result in concrete outcomes during plan implementation. Policy tools that tangibly inform and streamline decision-making help keep your plan alive and adaptive. They help demonstrate the value and impact of the plan and give stakeholders a reason to continue participation.


11. Prepare to work even harder during implementation: Implementation is the hardest part of MSP processes. It is when decisions will be made, and stakeholder engagement needed, even though resources may be slim and public attention scant. So you need to prepare for this while you are still developing the plan.

Pilot Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Working Group, 2016b, Pilot Pentland Firth & Orkney Waters marine spatial plan: Lessons learned, Scottish Government, Edinburgh

This report sets out the results of a lessons learned study of the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters pilot MSP which was undertaken between 2008 and 2016. The study examined many of the elements of the MSP planning process including governance, project management, resources, the plan making process, preparing supporting documents, and engagement. In many respects the ‘lessons learned’ assessment is similar to the current project being undertaken for Sea Change. Some of the key learnings of particular relevance to designing MSP processes in the New Zealand context include:

• Governance: A ‘governance paper’ that clarifies roles and authorities including who will approve the plan and who will be responsible for its implementation is useful. Ensure clarity on the status of the plan from the outset; that is, whether it is statutory or non-statutory and how it will affect decision-making.

• Timeframe: Ensure that sufficient time is allowed for the plan making process, building in flexibility for sign-off requirements.

• Roles: Be clear at the outset who has overall responsibility for managing the plan making process and who is responsible for providing administrative support. One person with good organisational skills needs to manage the whole project supported by dedicated administrative staff.

• Skills: A small core working group to drive the planning process works well. It should consist of full-time staff and include a range of expertise including planning, project management, stakeholder engagement and environmental disciplines. At the outset, undertake a skills audit to identify the appropriate skills required to produce the plan. Access to GIS expertise is important.

• Advisory groups: Wider advisory groups help keep the process on track and provide a range of expertise. Setting up subgroups to deal with specific topics would be helpful (and was lacking in this process).

• Information base: Start data gathering early to provide the evidence base for the plan and to identify gaps from the outset. Establish a web-based GIS system.

• Engagement: Have at least one person dedicated to stakeholder engagement activities, such as a communications officer for the plan. Establish and

continually update a stakeholder contacts database. Provide regular, short updates on progress via email or newsletter and keep the website up to date. Use of citizen science can be a good way to involve local communities.

Peart R, 2015, ‘Report on the International Marine Spatial Planning Symposium: Sharing Practical Solutions, Rhode Island, United States’, unpublished report, Environmental Defence Society, Auckland

This report summarised the key learnings from an international invitation-only meeting of 47 MSP practitioners convened in 2015 by the Coastal Resources Centre at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, the Rhode Island Sea Grant and the Rhode Island Coastal Resource Management Council. The focus of the discussion was predominantly on the North American experience. Key points distilled from the meeting, and applied to the New Zealand context, are set out below.

• Relationship building and engagement: Careful thought is needed on how to engage with all relevant stakeholders, particularly those not already around the table. Building strong relationships between mana whenua, stakeholders and government agencies is very important for the success of the plan. Time needs to be spent warming agencies up to the plan so that they understand their responsibilities to implement it. Communication early and often is important, otherwise people think you are doing backroom deals. The process is more important than the plan (a point emphasised by many participants). It is the social capital (relationships) built up during the planning process that deliver the most benefits going forward.

• Developing the plan: Ensure the plan is flexible and can be modified in the future to accommodate changing situations. Ecosystems services, and their maintenance and restoration, can provide a useful framing for the plan. It is important to document the value of habitats – why they matter for economic development and people. It is also important to understand and value the marine economies in the area and identify how the plan can support these and add economic value. Scenario-building can help address uncertainty, clarify issues and identify solutions. The identification of broad spatial areas (rather than detailed zoning) can indicate the areas which need to be protected and where uses are best located. Include quick wins that help to build support for the plan and articulate the benefits and value they provide.

• Writing the plan: Communicate the key elements of the plan through simple stories that connect with people’s lives/interests, then back the stories up with a punchy summary of the technical data. Articulate what the plan will do to improve people’s lives. Talk about the ‘benefits’ of the plan rather than its ‘value’ as this enables a broader conversation rather than one


just focused on monetary value. Write the plan so that sector groups can see what it will deliver for them. The plan needs an implementation chapter which sets out the priorities for implementing the strategies. This should also identify indicators to be measured. Don’t plan to plan, plan to implement. Do your best but accept that the plan won’t be perfect.

• Implementation, monitoring and review: Consider implementation when you are developing the plan, including how you are going to fund it. From the outset, build in a process for regular review of the plan and reporting on its outcomes. A strengthened implementation body may be required. Consider providing some form of statutory recognition for the plan so that it has longevity and is applied to decision-making.

Blau J and L Green, 2015, ‘Assessing the impact of a new approach to ocean management: Evidence to date from five ocean plans’, Marine Policy, 56, 1–8

This article reports on a study of five MSP projects in the United States, Australia and Europe. It was based on a review of available information and over 50 interviews with experts and stakeholders involved in the case study areas. The study focused on what the outcomes of the plans had been.

The study concluded that the five plans had created US$310 million in new economic value, primarily through enabling offshore wind developments. A number of industries found that the plans made permitting easier and cheaper. The plans also retained existing economic value through protecting incumbent industries, particularly commercial fishing. However, in some areas fishers and other industries such as sand and gravel extraction lost out, due to the establishment of MPAs and wind energy zones that were off-limits to them. MSP did not have a significant net impact on government agency spending. In most cases, the planning was undertaken using existing agency staff and no additional funds were budgeted for.

In some projects, private philanthropy funded additional activities such as research and stakeholder support.

All of the plans increased marine ecosystem protection, and to the extent that they enabled wind farms they also helped to reduce carbon emissions. In those planning processes that incorporated extensive stakeholder engagement, the social benefits included bringing stakeholders together and creating greater trust. Indigenous peoples benefited from a strengthened voice in decision-making which enabled greater protection of cultural sites. The planning processes also helped to secure greater investment in science.

The authors conclude: ‘If done well, ocean planning can produce net benefits at relatively modest upfront costs, and no net increase in ongoing costs. The distribution of these benefits, however, depends on the context, politics, and goals underlying the plan.’

McCann J, T Smythe, G Fugate, K Mulvaney and D Turek, 2014, Identifying marine spatial planning gaps, opportunities, and partners: An assessment, Coastal Resources Center and Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program, Narragansett

This document reports the results of an assessment designed to identify the requirements of MSP practitioners for information, tools and techniques, and how capacity to undertake MSP could be further developed. The project involved a review of 46 MSP initiatives worldwide, an in-depth analysis of four US projects (Hawaii, Long Island Sound, the South Atlantic and Washington State) and informal consultation with 18 MSP experts.

The research found that, despite there being prominent MSP initiatives in the United States and Canada, broad commitment to MSP in the form of clear legal authority, funding and political will is missing in some cases. Some MSP practitioners struggle to sell the value of MSP to politicians and key constituents who consequently do not demonstrate ‘buy-in’ to the approach. As a result, some MSP initiatives are being led by non-governmental organisations or without clear legal authority. In other

Freycinet Peninsula, Tasmania


cases, MSP initiatives are not fully fledged processes but rather consist of preliminary data collection or pre-planning activities through which coastal managers are attempting to make progress towards MSP without sufficient resources and political will.

The assessment also found that there is a demand for trained MSP professionals who need to have a comprehensive understanding of the MSP process as well as a range of skills in science, geospatial analysis, planning, project management and stakeholder engagement. There is also a need to document and evaluate different stakeholder engagement strategies.

Ehler C, 2014, A guide to evaluating marine spatial plans, UNESCO, Paris

This UNESCO guide sets out eight steps for monitoring and evaluating the performance of MSP plans (and their related management actions). It argues that consideration of monitoring and evaluation matters should be part of the process from the very beginning and should not be left to the end. It also posits that effective monitoring and evaluation is only possible when management objectives and outcomes are written in a way that is measurable. The eight steps are:

1. Identify the need for monitoring and evaluation and prepare and evaluate the plan.

2. Identify measurable objectives of the MSP plan.

3. Identify MSP actions.

4. Identify indicators and targets of performance for MSP actions.

5. Establish a baseline for selected indicators.

6. Monitor indicators of management performance.

7. Evaluate the results of performance monitoring.

8. Communicate the results of the performance evaluation.

Collie J S, W L Adamowicz, M W Beck, B Craig, T E Essington, D Fluharty, J Rice and J N Sanchirico, 2013, ‘Marine spatial planning in practice’, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 117, 1–11

This article contrasts the experience of 16 MSP processes in Europe, Canada, the United States, China and Australia. The authors concluded that the MSP projects were heterogeneous and there was no single recipe for success. Their findings included:

• Timeframe: Most plans took a minimum of 1.5 years to develop. Intervals for revaluating plans ranged from 2-year updates to 15–20-year planning horizons.

• Funding: National and state governments funded most of the plans whilst one was funded through international government aid and three with public-private partnerships. Costs usually ranged from US$500,000 to US$5 million per year of planning.

• Scale: The spatial scale ranged over four orders of magnitude, from 260 square kilometres to 1.2 million square kilometres. In Europe, most MSP has been conducted at larger spatial scales by national governments. In contrast, MSP in the United States has been initiated by state governments at smaller scales. Some of the MSP projects have split the planning areas into subareas for implementation because they span multiple jurisdictions.

• Objectives: Most of the plan objectives comprised conceptual statements of overarching aspirational goals. The larger the planning scale the less specific the objectives. Only half of the plans identified spatial areas for particular uses.

• Information: Biological, economic and social data were used frequently in MSP; chemical data less so. There was a strong reliance on qualitative data and expert opinion, particularly for economic and social data. A majority of plans used GIS-based mapping tools and expert groups to provide advice. In some cases, decision support tools were used to develop and compare alternative scenarios and least cost solutions. Few plans considered uncertainty and risk.

• Participants: Federal and state government agencies were part of the planning processes for all projects but the level of participation of other entities varied. The methods to identify stakeholders ranged from formal application to various means of self-selection. Few plans included scientific advisors, non-governmental organisations, academics and private businesses as stakeholders in the planning process. In only a few cases were the participants given equal status with the government in the planning process. The US and Australian processes were more participatory than those undertaken in Europe and China.

• Outputs: The outputs for three-quarters of the processes included data sets, maps, the plan document and the legal enactment of policies and regulations. For the remaining processes the output was a zoning plan or a network of MPAs.

• Implementation: All of the plans were implemented through a high level government mandate, with the authority to implement MSP vested in existing institutions and new bodies formed within them. The primary implementation mechanism was zoning for different uses and granting leases and permits for activities in these areas. The responsibility to implement and enforce spatial zones was often decentralised to state and local authorities.

• Monitoring: Most of the plans incorporated some level of monitoring. Some plans used existing monitoring programmes to inform spatial planning, and others initiated monitoring as part of the implementation of the spatial plan. Only half of the plans identified formal metrics to measure success.


Ehler C and F Douvere, 2009, Marine spatial planning: A step-by-step approach toward ecosystem-based management, UNESCO, Paris

This UNESCO publication provides a step-by-step approach to MSP drawing on an analysis undertaken of MSP practice from around the world. The steps identified are:

1. Identifying need and establishing authority: identifying why MSP is needed and who will have the authority to plan and implement the plan.

2. Obtaining financial support: identifying and securing the funding sources for the project.

3. Organising the process through pre-planning: establishing the planning team; developing a work plan; defining the boundaries and timeframe for the MSP process; defining principles, goals and objectives to guide the process; and identifying risks and developing contingency plans.

4. Organising stakeholder participation: identifying who should be involved in MSP and when and how they will be involved.

5. Defining and analysing existing conditions: collecting and mapping information about ecological and oceanographic conditions and human activities and identifying conflicts and compatibilities.

6. Defining and analysing future conditions: projecting current trends for existing human activities and future new demands for ocean space. This can involve

developing scenarios for possible futures for the area and selecting a preferred spatial use scenario.

7. Preparing and approving the spatial management plan: identifying alternative measures, incentives and institutional arrangements; specifying the criteria for selecting MSP measures; developing the zoning plan, evaluating the plan and then approving it.

8. Implementing and enforcing the spatial management plan: obtaining required approvals from government agencies and institutionalising implementation; ensuring compliance and enforcing the MSP provisions.

9. Monitoring and evaluating performance: developing a performance monitoring programme, evaluating performance monitoring data and reporting the results.

10. Adapting the marine spatial management process: identifying what has been accomplished from the project, lessons learned and how the context has changed; identifying future research needs; and starting the next round of MSP.

In practice, these 10 steps are not normally undertaken sequentially, but usually there are feedback loops built into the process. Planning is a dynamic process and planners need to accommodate change as the project evolves over time. For example, goals and objectives identified early on, are likely to be later modified as the costs and benefits of different management measures are identified. Analyses of existing and future conditions might change if new information comes to hand. In addition, stakeholder participation undertaken well, will inevitably change the planning process.

Bergen, Norway


3.2 In-depth review of marine plansThis section reviews six marine plans that have been prepared in different jurisdictions around the world in order to draw generic lessons from the marine plan making process. For each plan we have described the legal framework; how the plan was prepared; what the plan contains; and implementation. The plans reviewed are:

• Integrated management plan for the Barents Sea and the Sea Areas of the Lofoten Islands 2006 (updated 2011) (Norway)

• Belgian North Sea Master Plan 2003 and New Belgian Maritime Spatial Plan 2014 (Belgium)

• Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan 2010 (updated 2015) (Rhode Island, United States)

• Haida Gwaii Marine Plan 2015 (British Columbia, Canada)

• East Inshore and East Offshore Marine Plans 2014 (England, United Kingdom)

• Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Pilot Plan 2016 (Scotland, United Kingdom)

The key components of each plan are summarised in Figure 3.1 located at the end of this chapter. The plans were selected using information from the UNESCO MSP database alongside an international literature review. The selection was based on the plans’ completeness and prominence in the literature. Plans from Western and English-speaking countries dominated the research as information on these plans was readily available and able to be interpreted.

Experts have viewed the US, Belgian and Norwegian plans identified above as good marine planning models.55 Of the European marine plans, the ones prepared in Belgium and Norway have been in place the longest and have been subject to the greatest assessment. The Rhode Island plan is recognised within the ocean planning community for balancing multiple uses effectively and has been in place for some years. The English plan was the first developed under the Marine and Coastal Act 2009 and followed a statutory process. Much has been written about the pilot Scottish plan. The Canadian plan was produced under a joint-management agreement between the Haida Nation and the province of British Columbia, making it unique in its development process and inclusion of indigenous peoples. Other examples from Australia and the United States were included in our preliminary research, but have not been reported on here because they did not add substantively to the lessons.

Integrated Management Plan for the Barents Sea and the Sea Areas of the Lofoten Islands 2006 (revised 2011) This plan applies to the Barents Sea and the areas off the Lofoten Islands, covering almost 1.4 million square kilometres and including areas more than 1 nautical mile off the coast within the Norwegian EEZ. The area contains important fish stocks, internationally important

seabird colonies and marine mammal populations. It has a rich benthic fauna including coral reefs and sponge communities. It also supports one of the world’s most important fishing areas including a large cod fishery.56 The area is expected to come under future pressure from petroleum exploration, shipping and tourism.57 From an ecological perspective, only part of the Barents Sea ecosystem was included in the planning exercise because the remaining area is within the Russian EEZ.58

Legal frameworkThe first integrated management plan for the Barents Sea-Lofoten Area was non-statutory and was developed under the auspices of the ‘Protecting the Riches of the Sea’ white paper adopted by the Norwegian Parliament in 2002.59 This set out Norway’s oceans policy which incorporated integrated oceans management based on an ecosystem approach. The impetus for the plan was conflict over the expansion of the petroleum industry. Planning started in 2002 and the first plan was completed in 2006. It was updated in 2011. The main aim of the plan was to promote economic development by allowing sustainable use whilst ensuring healthy ecosystems.60 In 2008, the Oceans Resources Act was passed, which applies to fish harvesting and marine bioprospecting. The Act explicitly provides for the application of an ecosystems and precautionary approach, and provides for the establishment of MPAs, but does not create a statutory basis for MSP. Rather than being a creature of statute, the marine plan has been formally adopted by Parliament and given the status of a ‘policy rule’, which obliges central government to act in accordance with the plan. Implementation is through tools in various statutes.

Plan preparation In Norway, responsibility for the marine environment is split between several ministries (including the Ministries for the Environment, Trade & Industry, Fisheries & Coastal Affairs and Petroleum & Energy), which made the preparation of an integrated plan challenging. The plan was developed over a four-year period and was funded jointly by the Norwegian ministries. The work was overseen by an inter-ministerial steering committee chaired by the Ministry for the Environment. Key decisions were made at Cabinet level.61

Plan development followed a three-phase process. During the scoping phase, government departments and research institutions compiled status reports about the natural environment, use of the area (including fisheries, aquaculture and shipping) and the social characteristics of neighbouring communities. The second phase involved undertaking four environmental impact assessments which identified the potential impacts of fisheries, shipping, hydrocarbon extraction, and external pressures (such as climate change and pollution) on the environment, resources and local communities. Impacts were assessed in relation to the starting situation and expected future impacts up to 2020. A set of common variables was used to compare impacts between sectors.


In the third phase, an assessment was undertaken of the total human impact on the system of all activities combined. Areas where there were conflicts between human activities, and between human use and ecologically valuable areas, were identified. Gaps in knowledge were also noted. The analysis of total impact proved difficult, as there was limited understanding of the cumulative ecological impact of several interacting human effects. A key part of the project was identifying and mapping the extent of ecologically vulnerable areas, which was then used to propose a MPA network under a separate project. A set of ecosystem state indicators was also developed which included the physical state of water bodies, production of zooplankton and phytoplankton and components of the ecosystem supported by primary production.62

The plan development process was largely top down, with government agencies and scientific institutions undertaking the plan development and revision work. Stakeholders were formally consulted during phase 2 and a stakeholder conference was convened during phase 3 of the project.63 The main issue of contention was whether the ecologically valuable Lofoten area (which was an important coastal cod spawning area) should be opened up to petroleum activities. The initial plan was adopted by Parliament in 2006 with some controversy due to the restriction on petroleum activities within the Lofoten area. The revised plan was adopted in 2011 with further controversy around the provision for the expansion of petroleum activities into the Arctic area, where some areas previously closed to petroleum activities were opened up.

Plan The plan provides a description of the area; main elements of the planning regime; pressures and impacts on the marine environment; possibilities for co-existence between industries; goals, current status and trends; current knowledge and needs for knowledge; and ecosystem-based management. It identifies a set of overarching management goals and operational environmental quality objectives that are monitored annually. These cover climate, ice edge, phytoplankton, zooplankton, commercial fish species, non-commercial fish species, benthic organisms, marine mammals, seabirds, alien species, threatened and vulnerable species, and pollutants. The plan spatially identifies particularly valuable and vulnerable areas and specific targets are set for the management of biodiversity in these areas. It also defines spatial areas where petroleum activity is permitted, where no new petroleum activity is permitted, and where no drilling is permitted during specific months. Fisheries closures have also been put into effect to protect coral reefs from trawl damage. The provisions in the 2011 revised plan are wide-ranging and include requirements that:64

• The hydrocarbon industry operates under a zero emission policy

• Shipping lanes be placed outside territorial waters to reduce the risk of collision and to allow increased time for remedial action

• Further preventative measures are put in place for pollution, both locally and regionally

• Ecological measures are implemented in fishery management including an increased use of multi-species assessment tools and implementation of measures aimed at a reduced bycatch of fish, seabirds and marine mammals, and fewer effects on bottom fauna

• More target species are managed sustainably and under a precautionary approach

• Enhanced surveillance and greater measures against illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing are put in place

• The introduction of alien species is prevented

• Valuable and threatened habitats are protected

ImplementationOverall responsibility for implementation of the plan sits with the Ministry for the Environment.65 To assist with implementation, the Norwegian government has established three advisory groups to report to the inter-ministerial steering group:

• A monitoring group responsible for coordinating monitoring activities and reporting annually on the state of the ecosystem

• A risk group responsible for monitoring and reporting on potential risks to the ecosystem and ensuring dissemination of information

• An expert forum responsible for advice on revisions to the plan

The plan was intended to be reviewed every four years. In 2010 the plan was reviewed and new areas were recommended for petroleum activities. No changes to the framework for commercial activities were proposed. The review suggested new delimitation zones to address particularly valuable and vulnerable areas in the plan affected by climate change and melting ice. The updated plan describes the influence of human activities in the plan area on marine ecosystems, including activities that result in greenhouse gas emissions and may contribute to climate change. In 2020, the government intends to publish a white paper presenting an overall revision of the man agement plan for the entire Barents Sea-Lofoten area.

Most of the provisions of the initial plan have now been implemented, despite the plan being non-statutory and the implementation task being shared amongst multiple government agencies. Agencies now cooperate, through an inter-ministry ‘management forum’ to monitor the state of the environment and assess the need to update the plan. In accordance with the plan, the Lofoten area was closed to the petroleum industry, although later expansion was permitted further north when the plan was revised. A traffic separation scheme was established for shipping and fishing damage to cold-water corals and sponges was reduced. The largest gap in implementation has been the failure to establish MPAs in the area.66


Sander (2018) attributes implementation success to a number of factors including:67

• Good policy design: The plan contained a robust description of the status of the area and challenges faced. It established environmental targets supplemented with indicators and environmental quality objectives in an integrated monitoring system. This meant that the desired outcome for the ecosystem was clear and measurable. The plan contained concrete actions rather than just high level strategies. Responsibilities were not assigned to these actions but there was an assumption that the Norwegian government would be the implementing body.

• Political leadership: The plan engaged strong political interest because of the high level of controversy over the expansion of the petroleum industry in the area and the potential of the planning process to help resolve the conflict. This led to a ‘whole of government’ approach to plan development with cabinet being the key decision-maker.

Belgian North Sea Master Plan 2003 and New Belgian Maritime Spatial Plan 2014The Belgian North Sea area covers 3600 square kilometres and, though only a small proportion of the entire North Sea, is one of the most intensively used marine areas in the world. The area extends 83 kilometres out to sea, is 20 metres deep on average, and stretches 65 kilometres along the Belgian coast. It encompasses the entire Belgian EEZ and is utilised for shipping, tourism, fisheries, sand exploitation and wind energy.

Legal frameworkBelgium was amongst the first countries in the world to implement a multiple-use MSP system that covers its territorial sea and EEZ. Over the past 10 years, MSP in Belgium has evolved from a ‘Master Plan’ (primarily a zoning plan, focused on sectoral interests and with no legal authority) to an integrated, multiple-use plan with a statutory basis.

There was no overarching legal framework for the 2003 Belgian North Sea Master Plan. However, the ‘Law on the Protection of the Marine Environment in Marine Areas under Belgian Jurisdiction’ enacted in 1999 (Marine Protection Act) created a licensing and environmental impact system for a range of marine activities. The legislation also enabled the creation of MPAs and thereby provided a legal tool through which parts of the plan could be implemented.

In 2012 the Marine Protection Act was amended to provide an explicit legal framework for MSP, with its formal title changed to ‘Law on the Protection of the Marine Environment and on the Organisation of Marine Spatial Planning in the Sea Areas under Belgian Jurisdiction’. The legislation now sets out the process to prepare such marine plans including stakeholder participation, public consultation and the use of strategic environmental assessment. The plan is approved through Royal Decree

(which is similar to an Order in Council in New Zealand). The plan is to be reviewed every six years.

The specific steps that are now required by statute in order to prepare the plan include:

• The Minister prepares a preliminary draft of the plan

• The preliminary draft is given to an advisory committee which provides advice within 30 days

• The preliminary draft is adjusted if necessary based on the advice received

• The Council of Ministers approves the draft in principle and the Minister adopts it as the ‘draft of marine spatial plan’.

• A public inquiry into the draft plan is undertaken over a 60-day period. This includes public consultation, seeking advice from a range of other bodies and undertaking cross-border consultation.

• A strategic environmental assessment of the plan is undertaken during the same time period as the public inquiry

• The Minister adjusts the plan as necessary in light of information received from the public inquiry and strategic environmental assessment

• The plan is adopted by the Council of Ministers as a Royal Decree.

In 2012, a Royal Decree initiated the development of a revised plan through the establishment of an advisory committee and procedure for adopting the plan. In 2014, the revised plan was approved by Royal Decree. A process is currently under way to review and revise the plan for the 2020–2026 period.

Plan preparationThe main drivers for MSP in Belgium were demand for offshore wind energy and EU requirements for the protection and conservation of ecologically and biologically valuable areas.68 Most activities at sea are managed through a system of environmental permitting which includes a scientific evaluation of the impact of the proposed activity on the marine environment.

Responsibilities for marine management are split between 17 agencies at the federal, regional and local levels. In 2003, a federal ‘North Sea Minister’ was given responsibility for the integrated management of the Belgian portion of the North Sea. A set of objectives provided the basis for the first Master Plan. These included the development of an offshore wind farm, the delimitation of MPAs, a policy plan for sustainable sand and gravel extraction, enhanced financial resources for the prevention of oil pollution, mapping of marine habitats, protection of wrecks valuable for biodiversity, and management of land-based activities that have an impact on the marine environment.69

The Master Plan development process took three years. Ecological and socioeconomic studies were undertaken and draft maps were prepared which delineated spawning


grounds, fishing areas and initial proposals for MPAs. The Minister held confidential meetings with different stakeholder groups to discuss proposed MPAs and management measures. Commercial and recreational fishers, marine transport, sand and gravel mining, tourism, governmental agencies and non-governmental organisations were consulted. The Minister personally visited fishermen, coastal mayors and water sport enthusiasts in order to gain support and legitimacy for the process. Members of the public were invited to comment on the draft Master Plan and environmental impact assessment.70

A university-led interdisciplinary research project, known as the GAUFRE project, was used to inform the MSP process. Scientific data was collected and transferred to 76 GIS maps to show ecological and geologically homogenous zones. The infrastructure and historic, current and future uses were described for each zone. The GIS layers were further utilised to analyse possible compatibilities and interactions between the environment, infrastructure and human activities. A series of schematic structural maps were then developed to provide a strategic vision of the potential and desired spatial development for a particular area. These structural maps were used to generate various scenarios for potential futures. A scientific study of the biological values of the North Sea was also completed. This resulted in a set of maps showing the intrinsic biological value of different subareas.71

The Master Plan was subsequently amended during 2008–2010 to provide for shipping interests and to designate a new MPA. The process to prepare a new statutory plan began in 2012. An Advisory Commission involving all federal authorities was established by Royal Decree and regional authorities were invited to contribute. A draft plan and future spatial visions were approved by the Council of Ministers in 2013, after a process of consultation and advice from a newly established advisory commission on MSP, in addition to expert consultation, stakeholder participation and preparation of a strategic environmental assessment of the plan. Cross-border consultation was also carried out with the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom.72

Plan The first Master Plan addressed the following sectors: aquaculture, fishery, military, mineral extraction, nature protection, offshore renewable energy production, ports, scientific research, shipping, submarine cables and pipelines, tourism, and underwater cultural heritage. It identified new management zones for sand and gravel extraction. It also delineated MPAs and provided for an exploration zone where potential future uses could be investigated, particularly offshore wind projects. In 2004, phase 1 of the Master Plan became operational and this identified locations for sand and gravel extraction and wind farms. Phase 2, which identified nature conservation areas, became operational in 2005.73

The Master Plan was largely a zoning plan which lacked an integrated policy approach or transparent process for stakeholder involvement and public participation.74 The

revised 2014 Plan has a broader ambit and provides a more detailed zoning basis for managing the marine area. This includes:75

• A series of MPAs where activities are restricted

• Provision for energy infrastructure including wind farms, a ‘plug at sea’ high voltage station for cables running from offshore windfarms; two ‘energy atolls’ where surplus wind energy is stored through water storage; and cable corridors

• Designation of specific shipping routes, anchorages and marine areas for disposing of material dredged to maintain shipping access

• Restricting bottom disturbing fishing gear in sensitive areas and providing areas where new techniques to reduce benthic impacts can be tested

• Providing for aquaculture to be established on wind farm infrastructure

• Identifying exploitation sites for sand and gravel exploitation and a location for coastal protection experiments such as raising sand banks to protect coastal land

• Identifying areas for military exercises

ImplementationThe Master Plan had legal effect once adopted by Royal Decree. Several single-sector authorities are responsible for monitoring and there are clear monitoring and evaluation processes for certain activities (sand and gravel extraction, wind energy and MPAs).

Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan 2010 The Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan 2010 applies to the 3800-square-kilometre area off the coast of Rhode Island in the United States. The area is used for recreational boating, commercial and recreational fishing and shipping. It is located on the convergence of two bio-geographic areas and is important for migratory fish, marine mammals, birds and sea turtles.76

Legal framework The Special Area Management Plan was created under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act 1972 which encourages states to develop coastal zone management programmes by providing federal funding for their implementation. Such plans are identified in the legislation as a mechanism for achieving coastal zone enhancement objectives, and applicants for federal licences or permits are required to be consistent with the plans. In state waters, the Rhode Island General Laws 2013 provide for the adoption of special area management plans and requires the state Coastal Resources Management Council (the state government’s regulatory agency for the coastal area) to undertake its activities in a manner consistent with such plans.


Plan preparation The plan was developed by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council with assistance from senior advisors and researchers from the University of Rhode Island. A senior management team guided the process. The key driver for preparing the plan was interest in developing offshore wind farms in the area. The original budget for the project was US$6.5 million, but this was subsequently increased to US$8 million.77

The plan making process officially commenced in 2008 and took two years. Five advisory committees were established for legal, scientific, stakeholder, state agencies and federal agency matters. Around 50 organisations, in addition to the general public, participated in the process. Over 100 formal public meetings were held as well as numerous informal meetings and interactions. The Narragansett tribe, a federally recognised tribe in Rhode Island, was invited to partner and participate in the process. The planning process also relied heavily on input from both commercial and recreational fishermen to further refine the site selection process. Numerous meetings were held with fishermen and they were given access to specialised maps, charts and research.78

Strong efforts were made to keep stakeholders informed during the project. Transparency and honesty was seen as critical to building trust. Stakeholders received information produced during the process before other parties.79 An independently chaired stakeholder advisory group, which comprised 49 members from councils, universities, user groups and conservation organisations, met monthly during the process. The meetings began with an update, followed by a presentation on the findings of technical and scientific work, and then open discussion of stakeholder issues and concerns. The group established the initial goals and principles for the plan and received a comprehensive overview of the ecology and human use of the area. Members considered and commented on each

draft chapter of the plan but were not able to formally accept or reject it.80

While the stakeholder process was under way, researchers completed multiple projects to fill knowledge gaps. These covered matters such as geology, phytoplankton productivity, seabirds, archaeology, spatial location of fishing activities, and models of acoustic and wave environments. In addition, a technology development index was constructed to help identify potential sites for offshore wind farms.81 The science advisory task force provided expertise and input into the science and research-based aspects of the plan.

At the outset of the chapter writing process, three technical advisory committees were established. One involved state agencies, one involved federal agencies and the Narragansett tribe and the third comprised subject area experts. A separate expert technical advisory group was established for each chapter comprised of scientists, government representatives and resource users with particular expertise in the chapter focus area. These groups were key in providing information and ultimately ground-truthing each chapter.

The writing teams met with stakeholders, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, academics and others to gather as much information as they could for each subject area. As chapters were put together, draft material was sent back to the originators of the information to ensure it was used appropriately. The chapters were then reviewed by the senior management team and signed off by the project manager, before being sent to the technical advisory groups for review. Comments from the groups were then integrated into the chapters and these were subsequently sent to stakeholders for review and comment.

After the stakeholder comments were addressed, a final draft of each chapter was produced and sent to a special

Vancouver, British Columbia


subcommittee of the Coastal Resources Management Council for review, and then to the full council for rule making. The rule making process consisted of a public notice for formal comment, a workshop and then a full council public hearing. After final council consideration at the public hearing, all chapters were given initial approval, but they were not forwarded to the Secretary of State until all the chapters were completed and an extended comment period was given for the entire document. Finally, there were three public hearings on the entire document and it was formally adopted by the council in 2010.

The draft chapters were also sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This federal agency worked with the writing team and the project manager to review and guide the development of the enforceable policies. Additional changes were also requested by several federal agencies. Additional meetings with stakeholders were held regarding these changes, and several iterations were drafted. An amended document was approved by the council in early 2011 and NOAA formally approved the document as part of the state’s coastal management programme in late 2011. The adoption by NOAA gives the state a much more robust policy framework for reviewing federal activities and licenses and/or permits.82

PlanThe plan includes goals, principles and policies as well as some spatial delineation. The spatial element of the plan separates the ocean area into three broad zones: renewable energy, areas of particular concern, and areas designated for preservation. The renewable energy zone is where large scale renewable energy projects can occur. The plan sets out rules which applicants for such projects need to comply with.

A number of ‘areas of particular concern’ have been mapped, including historic shipwrecks, offshore dive sites, fish habitat areas, and areas important for recreational boating and military activities. Applications for offshore developments are required to avoid areas of particular concern. If they cannot be avoided, activities are required to mitigate any significant impact. ‘Areas designated for preservation’ have high ecological values and include sea duck foraging habitat. Development which is in conflict with the intent and purpose of these areas is prohibited. There are also areas designated as ‘areas of mutual interest’, which acknowledges that any development will result in joint benefit and impact to the Rhode Island and adjacent Massachusetts governments. The plan includes detailed chapters on various sectors which describes the sector, its economic effects, and effects on existing users and resources. These are followed by sectorally based general policies and regulatory standards.

The plan is accompanied by a ‘science research agenda’ and a ‘progress assessment and monitoring process’. The plan is revised every five years. In 2012 a future uses and climate change chapter was included. The plan was completely revised in 2015 and scientific data was updated. In addition, a new recreation and tourism chapter was inserted.

ImplementationIndustry is said to have significantly benefited from the Rhode Island plan. The plan simplified the permitting process for two wind projects which have enabled annual gross revenues of $5–10 million and $50–100 million respectively,83 and the fishing industry has benefited due to its interests being represented in decision-making.84

A new fishermen’s advisory board was established in 2011 with nine members representing the range of fishing activities taking place in the area. It has assisted the council in further site selection, micro-siting, habitat evaluation and mitigation planning. In addition, a new habitat advisory board was established to provide a forum where researchers and environmental groups could discuss the potential impacts of development on wildlife habitat and ways to avoid them.85

Every two years, a public forum is held to maintain stakeholder engagement with the implementation of the plan. The forum provides an update of projects, new research findings and progress towards goals and objectives. The forum also addresses any emerging issues and needed changes to the plan. In 2013 the first biennial assessment was undertaken of the plan. A five-year update was commenced in 2015.

The plan has been credited as being successful due to three key attributes:86

• Partnering with the federal agencies and the Narragansett tribe

• Having an open and transparent stakeholder process where the stakeholders did not just provide comment but actually helped write the plan

• Undertaking significant research in order to understand the system and the potential impacts from future uses; science drove the decision-making process

Haida Gwaii Marine Plan 2015This plan applies to the Haida Gwaii archipelago situated on the edge of the continental shelf off the north coast of British Columbia and covering an area of 102,000 square kilometres. The Haida Gwaii area is located at the transition area between the Alaskan and the California currents, making it highly productive. The islands are home to 13 species of nesting seabirds and it is estimated that 1.5 million seabirds breed in colonies on more than 150 islands around Haida Gwaii. Numerous marine mammals are also found there including grey and humpback whales, northern fur seals, porpoises and dolphins.87

The current Haida Gwaii population numbers about 4400 people who reside primarily within six communities. Roughly half of the residents are of Haida ancestry. In 2010, about 30 per cent of Haida Gwaii residents relied on the marine sector for their living. Currently, the waters in and around Haida Gwaii support numerous commercial fisheries. Recreational fisheries are also popular and recreational activity in Haida Gwaii waters is increasing.88


Legal framework The Haida Gwaii Marine Plan was developed under the ‘Marine Plan Partnership for the North Pacific Coast’, a collaboration between the Province of British Columbia and 17 First Nations governments. The Haida Gwaii plan is one of four marine plans developed as part of this initiative. All the plans are non-statutory and only provide recommendations for provincial decision-makers and guidance for other resource users.

Plan preparation The plan making process was formalised by a letter of intent signed in November 2011 which established a bilateral governance structure for the planning process between the Province of British Columbia (represented by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations) and Coastal First Nations. A ‘marine caucus’ was created in the provincial government, with membership from a broad range of provincial ministries, to engage in the planning process. Members of the caucus and other agency staff were actively involved in providing planning input. The Council of the Haida Nation had established a marine work group in 2006 to identify its priorities for the development of a marine plan. The group was supported by a Haida oceans technical team and oversaw a Haida marine traditional knowledge study and a Haida marine market sector analysis. The formal planning process built on this earlier work.89

A marine advisory committee was established in 2011 to provide advice to the Council of the Haida Nation and the provincial government on the development of the plan. It consisted of members with backgrounds in marine tourism, marine conservation, marine science, community interests, commercial fishing, recreational fishing, seafood processing and marine transportation. Two members of the Haida marine work group also participated on the committee. Over the course of the planning process, the committee met 12 times to review documents and provide input.90

Information meetings were held with key stakeholders to help inform the development of the plan. These involved representatives of environmental non-governmental organisations, commercial fishing associations, recreational fishing bodies, marine tourism, and shellfish aquaculture operators. In 2014, public meetings were held in four communities to seek feedback on the draft plan.

Members of the public were able to provide feedback online, in writing or in person. A wide range of other tools for engaging with local communities and the general public were utilised, including local newspaper articles, circulation of marine planning brochures and other outreach material, promotion and use of websites, electronic distribution of newsletters, and planning team participation in community events to raise the profile of the Haida Gwaii marine planning process.

Planning was informed by ecological, cultural and socioeconomic information. This identified nearshore and offshore ecological values, areas of importance, current and historical use and stewardship by the Haida Nation, and areas of importance and use for a variety of marine

activities. A workshop was held to consider possible future scenarios for the area, taking into account future trends, challenges and opportunities, and a preferred marine future is articulated in the plan.

Prior to plan approval, an assessment of the potential ecological, socioeconomic and cultural implications of the plan was completed using a multiple-accounts analysis approach that considered both spatial and aspatial planning objectives, strategies and associated recommendations. The results of this assessment were used to further refine planning outcomes and to help inform decision-makers tasked with approving the plan.

The plan was completed in 2015 and was endorsed by both the Council of the Haida Nation and the province of British Columbia. A total of about Can$10 million over four years was spent on the four plans (of which the Haida Gwaii plan was one). The majority of the funds was provided by a US philanthropic foundation and the rest (Can$1.5 million) by the province of British Columbia and the First Nations.

Plan The plan describes a long-term vision and outlines objectives and strategies for the protection, conservation and management of the coastal and marine area and resources. It includes recommendations to inform Haida Nation and provincial decision-making on uses and activities in the area.

The vision of the plan is for ‘a future for Haida Gwaii that has healthy, intact ecosystems that continue to sustain Haida culture, all communities, and an abundant diversity of life, for generations to come. We will respect the sea around us and restore a balance between marine resource use and the well-being of life of the ocean.’

Related to this vision, the overarching goals guiding planning are conservation of marine ecosystems; protection of Haida rights, title and interests; sustainable ocean uses and activities; best information; balanced economy; collaborative oceans management; and effective communication of marine-related issues. The goals include examples of how they are to be applied. The plan also posits a preferred scenario which is drawn from a workshop and direction from the work group and advisory committee. It describes a broader vision and addresses the environment, economy, community and governance.

The plan has four main sections that provide future management direction and implementable actions: general management, economic development, spatial zoning and plan implementation, monitoring and amendment. General management sets out objectives and strategies to guide the sustainable management of marine resources captured within eight key subject areas. For each component, objectives and strategies are identified and address specific issues. For example, the marine economic development direction contains objectives and strategies aimed at promoting sustainable growth and marine economic development opportunities on Haida Gwaii. These include marine tourism, shellfish


aquaculture, community-based fisheries, marine research and monitoring and marine renewable energy.

In addition, the plan proposes three overarching zone types:

• The General Management Zone comprises the majority of the plan area (72.4%) and is where the full range of sustainable marine uses and activities occur within an ecosystem-based management framework.

• Special Management Zones (0.5%) are areas of high priority and/or high potential for sustainable marine uses and activities, including economic development and/or cultural uses and activities that require specific environmental conditions or locations.

• Protection Management Zones (19.6%) are areas identified primarily for conservation purposes or objectives.

A further 7.5% of the area was not designated in the plan as it was dealt with through a separate planning process. The special and protection management zones have an accompanying table that identifies marine uses and activities that are considered acceptable, conditionally acceptable, or not acceptable within the area. Haida traditional uses continue for all areas including practices for food, social and ceremonial purposes.

ImplementationThe marine plan itself contains a chapter on implementation, monitoring and amendment. This identifies key outcomes and priority actions, including establishing a governance framework for implementation. The Haida Gwaii Marine Plan Implementation Agreement was signed by the Haida Nation and the provincial government in 2016.91 The agreement establishes a governance structure – the Haida Gwaii marine management board – to oversee implementation. This consists of four senior representatives, two from the Haida Nation and two from the provincial government. It is supported by a Haida Gwaii marine implementation technical team which prepares annual work plans, including timeframes and budgets, which are approved by the board. The goal is to implement all strategies in the plan over the longer term as funding and other resources permit.

The status of performance indicators are to be reported each year in an annual report and a comprehensive monitoring report on the status of ecological and human wellbeing indicators will be published every five years. The plan is intended to be revised every 3–5 years to reflect changing circumstances and conditions as they arise.

East Inshore and East Offshore Marine Plans 2014 Moving to England, the East Inshore and East Offshore Plans (which were developed as one document) cover the territorial sea (6,000 km2) and EEZ (49,000 km2) in the region respectively. The inshore area supports tourism, recreational activities and fisheries. It also has a very large cluster of ports, significant aggregate extraction, aquaculture and a nuclear power plant. There are many important wildlife habitats and spawning grounds, with several internationally designated sites. The offshore area

supports petroleum activities, aggregate extraction and offshore wind energy production. It also has high levels of shipping movements. It includes important spawning grounds and nurseries for fisheries and 35 per cent of the area is designated as special areas of conservation.

Legal framework In 2009, the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act established a statutory marine planning system which encompasses a Marine Policy Statement, marine plans and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) as the delegated authority. Marine plans in England are prepared by the MMO within the framework provided by the Act and the Marine Policy Statement and are approved by the Secretary of State. Once approved, the plans have statutory effect through requiring that permit decisions are taken in accordance with the plans in most cases. In 2011, the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs recommended 11 marine plan areas. The MMO is currently producing two plans at a time for these areas. The East Inshore and East Offshore Marine Plans were the first two plans completed under the Act.

Plan preparation A joint plan for the two areas was developed over three years following the legislated process. The steps are: select the plan area; agree how and when interested people will be involved (Statement of Public Participation); initial preparation (identify issues and gather evidence); agree vision and objectives; develop options; produce a draft plan; consult on the plan; carry out an independent investigation; adopt and approve the final plan; then implement, monitor and review. In addition, a Sustainability Appraisal and Habitats Regulation Assessment was undertaken of the draft plan.

An evidence and issues report reviewed important activities that take place in the areas as well as the economic, social and environmental considerations for the plans. The MMO also produced a seascape character assessment.

The stakeholder process engaged sectors with a recognisable interest in marine planning including aquaculture, defence and national security, energy production and infrastructure development, fisheries, local communities and elected members, local authorities, marine aggregates, marine conservation, marine dredging and disposal, ports and shipping, telecommunications and cabling, tourism and recreation, and wastewater treatment and disposal. The diverse range of stakeholders brought together was in itself seen as positive and helpful in supporting more integrated consideration of the marine environment.92

A consultation draft of the plan was then approved by the Secretary of State, which was followed by 12 weeks of formal consultation including nine public drop-in sessions, two decision-maker workshops with public authorities and regulators, and numerous presentations and meetings with stakeholder groups. The MMO and Secretary of State then decided an independent investigation into the plan was not warranted as only a small number of stakeholders had concerns about very specific issues. Overall,


although there was a high level of public consultation and engagement of relevant stakeholders, the plans were largely written by the MMO in a top-down process.93

The final plan was published and an interactive tool was created to show how the marine plans apply to different marine sectors and geographic areas. In addition, the MMO has established marine planning data portals which host a wide range of spatial data. The process of bringing this information together in one place is seen as important in facilitating application of a more integrated approach to decision-making in the marine environment.94

PlanThe aim of the plan is to help ensure the sustainable development of the marine area over a 20-year timeframe. It is intended to contribute to economic growth in a way that benefits society whilst respecting the needs of local communities and protecting the marine ecosystem. The plan addresses a wide range of activities including defence, oil and gas, renewable energy production, carbon capture and storage, shipping, dredging and disposal, cabling, tourism and recreation, aquaculture and fisheries. It also addresses environment and climate change as well as economic and social/cultural matters.95

The plan contains 11 objectives which are followed by sections setting out the context, evidence base and links to existing policies and measures. They are followed by 38 more detailed policies on how the objectives will be implemented. Each policy is supported by a section containing a justification and explanation. The policies are expressed spatially where possible. For example, there is a map showing MPAs and recommended marine conservation zones. But where there is not sufficient confidence in the data, indicative maps are used instead of firm designations in order to provide a ‘signal’ towards what is required or to be avoided, rather than a prescription, thereby enabling a degree of flexibility. For example, there are indicative maps of heritage assets, character areas, habitats and species of conservation importance and seabird foraging ranges. The plan also includes specific policies relating to economic and social impacts but the practical application of these policies is unclear.96

ImplementationThe principal means through which the plans are applied is through the decisions made by public authorities under the Marine and Coastal Access Act. The plan provides the context for case-specific assessments, informing the assessment of likely impacts of proposals and providing an indication of suitable locations for particular activities or developments.

Section 61 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act requires that, at intervals of not more than three years after each marine plan is adopted, there is a duty to report on:

• The effects of policies in the marine plan

• The effectiveness of those policies in securing plan objectives

• Progress towards achieving any objectives set out for that region in a marine plan and the Marine Policy Statement

The reports will be published and relevant Ministers must decide whether or not to amend or replace the marine plan.

Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Pilot Plan 2016 This Scottish pilot plan covers the territorial sea in the region. The waters are rich in biodiversity and support a wide range of valuable and important habitats and species, many of which are threatened. The area is important for seabirds and marine mammals, with 19 cetacean species recorded. It also supports commercial fisheries, marine renewables, aquaculture, oil and gas, shipping, recreation and tourism.97

The plan was selected by the government as a pilot because of the high level of existing and proposed marine renewable energy development in a relatively pristine area of coastal waters where traditional activities and habitat protection are already important. The area lies between two tidal systems of the North Atlantic Ocean and North Sea and as a result experiences some of the fastest tidal currents in the world.98 A priority issue for the plan was marine energy.

Legal framework The Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Pilot Plan process was initiated in 2008 in response to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive and forthcoming Scottish legislation providing for MSP. The planning process was non-statutory and was designed to test implementation of the new marine planning provisions in the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. These provide for the development of a National Marine Plan (finalised in 2015) and regional marine plans as well as a streamlined process for development licensing and ministerial powers to designate MPAs. The Act sets out a process to prepare statutory regional marine plans in Schedule 1, which includes:

• Providing a ‘statement of public participation’ including when consultation is likely to take place, with whom, its likely form, and steps taken to involve the general public. This must include a proposed timetable.

• Making available a ‘consultation draft’ for public representations

• Considering the appointment of an independent person to investigate the proposals in the draft plan and make recommendations which must then be made public

• Considering any recommendations, revising the plan where necessary, and publishing the final plan

Plan preparation Marine Scotland, which is responsible for maritime affairs in Scotland and is the licensing authority for marine developments, initiated the plan making process in 2008. This initially focused on developing a marine spatial framework, which defined a three-stage process


to develop the plan. It also included an ‘interactions matrix’, which identified interactions between different marine sectors, and regional location guidance for marine renewable energy developers.99

In 2012, a working group was established consisting of three staff, one from Marine Scotland, one from the Orkney Islands Council and one from the Highland Council, to drive the plan making process. A few months later the group released a proposed indicative timeline and process for developing the plan. A governance paper set out the respective roles of the agencies and confirmed that Marine Scotland had the final decision-making authority. An advisory group was also established with representation from governmental bodies (such as Marine Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency) and commercial and recreational organisations to review and provide advice on the outputs of the working group.

A planning issues and options consultation paper was produced in 2013. This was consulted on through public events and roundtable workshops with representatives of key sectors. A draft marine plan was then produced by the working group in 2014 and further consultation undertaken. The final plan was released in early 2016 and was followed by a study undertaken to identify lessons learned (which was reviewed in Chapter 2 and is not too dissimilar to the focus of this report in respect of Sea Change). The planning process was accompanied by ongoing research to fill data gaps and included studies into fishing activity and value-added, vessel movements, monitoring of seabird populations, development of a hydrodynamic model, economic analysis of tourism and recreation and a review of future development opportunities for aquaculture. A sustainability appraisal of the plan was also undertaken.

Around 200 organisational and individual stakeholders were identified as having interests in the plan. They were consulted through information events, informal and formal consultations, interviews and questionnaires, workshops and public ‘drop-in’ sessions, participatory mapping

of activities, additional research in response to public/traditional knowledge, and press and radio features.

The plan utilised around 2 FTEs for the 4-year planning process (after the working group was established) and cost close to £450,000.

Plan The plan sets out an integrated planning policy framework to guide marine development, activities and management decisions. It adopted an overall vision that the ‘Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters will be a clean, healthy, safe, attractive and productive marine and coastal environment that is rich in biodiversity and managed sustainably to support thriving and resilient local communities.’

The plan consists of a suite of general policies and sectoral polices. The general policies apply to all development and activities. The sectoral policies are designed to support the sustainable development and management of specific sectors and are relevant to the determination of authorisation or enforcement decisions for a particular type of development or activity. The sectoral policies concern commercial fisheries, aquaculture, oil and gas, renewable energy generation, recreation, sport, leisure and tourism, marine transport, ports, harbours and dredging, pipelines, electricity and telecommunications infrastructure, marine aggregates and defence. The plan does not include zoning or identification of spatial areas for future marine activities.

ImplementationThe plan has been approved by Scottish Ministers for use by the Marine Scotland licensing operations team as a ‘material consideration’ in the determination of marine licences. The Highland and Orkney Islands Councils have adopted the plan as non-statutory planning guidance. The Orkney Islands Council has also adopted it as a material consideration in the determination of works licence applications in the Orkney Harbour Area. As already indicated, the pilot planning process has been reviewed to identify lessons learned for future statutory regional marine plan.

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MSP

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614: KEY LESSONS FROM INTERNATIONAL MSP EXPERIENCE


Salmon farm, Norway


In this final chapter we distil the lessons learned from international MSP experience as described in Chapter 3, contextualise Sea Change within this international best practice, and provide guidance for the configuration of future MSP projects in New Zealand. The presentation of lessons learned is organised around the following generic components of MSP:

• Impetus

• Scope and scale

• Regulatory framework

• Management and advisory bodies

• Timeframes

• Funding

• Methodology

• Public and stakeholder involvement

• Role of science

• Contents of plans

• Provision for traditional use and management

• Implementation and monitoring

4.1 ImpetusA range of factors have provided the impetus for undertaking MSP, including a desire to resolve conflicts between activities, to provide new marine space for a growing sector (such as wind energy or oil and gas production), and/or to better conserve the marine environment.100 This is consistent with the impetus for the Sea Change process, which (as described in Chapter 2) was initially marine conservation concerns (i.e., the desire to reverse ongoing ecological deterioration), but with additional support gained due to the desire of the conservation and aquaculture sectors to obtain new marine space. Suitable locations for future MSP processes in New Zealand are likely to have a combination of such factors.

• The impetus for initiating MSP processes varies from place to place, but usually includes a combination of intersectoral conflict, growing demand for marine space, and conservation/ecological concerns.

4.2 Scope and scaleMSP has been successfully applied at very different scales, from small localised marine areas to large expanses of the EEZ.101 This indicates that MSP could be successfully applied at different scales within New Zealand depending on the need, including to harbours (such as the Kaipara), inland waters (such as the Marlborough Sounds) or parts of the EEZ (such as the Chatham Rise). Usually, the smaller the scale, the more detailed the planning provisions, so expectations need to be configured accordingly. For example, in the case of Sea Change, it could be argued that some of the expectations for detailed provisions (and zonings) in the plan were

unreasonable given the relatively large scale of the Hauraki Gulf.

The growing application of ecosystem-based thinking to MSP indicates that the planning boundaries should be broadly aligned with ecological systems and include the land-sea interface where possible. However, in practice, the spatial scope of plans is more commonly based on jurisdictional boundaries and only a small proportion of plans include catchments.102 MSP is also touted as a means to achieve integrated management of marine space, and this indicates that all sectors should be included in the planning exercise to promote integrated management. Fully integrated processes are relatively rare internationally, with the Sea Change project being world-leading in this respect.

• MSP can be applied successfully at different scales.

• The smaller the scale the more achievable it is to develop detailed plan provisions.

• Planning boundaries should align with ecological systems where possible, and include catchments where land-uses impact on the marine environment.

• Planning should include all sectors where possible, including fisheries and marine protection, to enable integrated management.

4.3 Regulatory framework The majority of plans developed overseas are regulatory, with one recent study of 35 MSP projects putting the split at around two-thirds regulatory and one-third non-statutory.103 Of the six plans we further investigated, two were developed under a legal framework (in Rhode Island and England), two were non-statutory (in Norway and British Columbia) and two were a precursor to statutory provision being made for marine planning (in Belgium and Scotland). In this sense, they acted as pilot projects. Statutory frameworks can simplify implementation by giving the plan provisions legal effect. But they can also constrain innovation. This suggests that New Zealand could usefully consider developing a statutory framework for future MSP projects, and could use Sea Change as a useful pilot to inform this exercise (a matter that will be investigated by EDS in a follow-up study).

• Providing a legislative framework for MSP helps to ensure implementation but can also constrain innovation.

• A legislative framework is not essential for implementation if there is strong political leadership (as in Norway).

• Undertaking a pilot marine spatial planning project can help guide and test future legislative provisions (as in Belgium and Scotland and potentially in New Zealand with Sea Change).


4.4 Management and advisory bodies

Overseas, plan making is predominantly led by government ministers, agencies or regulatory bodies. Of the six plans studied, the European and Scandinavian plans followed a more top-down process strongly led by government agencies (such as in Belgium, England and Norway). In Scotland, responsibility for plan development was shared, with Marine Scotland forming a partnership with two local councils. In Rhode Island, the plan making process was led by a state government agency, but it involved several advisory groups and closely involved stakeholders, the Narragansett tribe and the general public. The Haida Gwaii marine plan adopted a co-governance structure between the province of British Columbia and the Haida Nation.

Several of the processes utilised multi-sector advisory groups made up of varying combinations of local councils, academics, users (such as commercial fishers, marine transport and petroleum) and conservation groups. For the Rhode Island plan, technical advisory committees were also established for each chapter of the plan. The committees included scientists, government agency representatives and stakeholders who focused on refining the content of each chapter.

In terms of project oversight, the Sea Change process was closest to that developed for the Haida Gwaii marine plan, with the establishment of a co-governance structure. In terms of stakeholder engagement in the planning process, the Rhode Island project went the furthest of the projects investigated, with close involvement of stakeholders in the plan development process through a series of advisory groups. However, none of the MSP processes studied adopted a fully stakeholder-led collaborative process for the development of the plan, which indicates that Sea

Change was breaking new ground internationally and is probably unique in this respect.

• Both top-down and bottom-up planning processes can succeed depending on the local context.

• Whatever process is adopted, close involvement of indigenous peoples and key stakeholder groups is vitally important. This can be achieved through the establishment of co-governance arrangements, collaborative processes, formal advisory groups or through informal meetings and consultation.

• Where multiple parties are responsible for the plan making process, it is important to formally clarify roles and identify who makes which decisions (such as approving the plan and implementing it).

4.5 TimeframesInternationally, MSP projects typically take around 2–4 years (with some that have struggled to get traction taking considerably longer). For the six marine plans investigated in more detail, the timeframes are set out below:

• Norway – 4 years

• Belgium – 3 years

• Rhode Island – 2 years

• British Columbia – 4 years

• England – 3 years

• Scotland – 4 years (plus 4 years’ preparation)

The Rhode Island process was the shortest, but it also had a very large budget. This indicates that the three-year timeframe for Sea Change was about average within an international context and could provide a useful benchmark for future projects.

• The planning process will likely require 3–4 years.

Herne Bay, England


4.6 FundingThe typical costs of MSP projects have been variously been reported as between hundreds of thousands to several million US dollars for the first round of planning104 and between US$500,000 (NZ$750,000) and US$5 million (NZ$7.5 million) per year of planning.105 The cost of Sea Change (likely over NZ$4 million) would therefore not seem out of kilter for a three-year planning process. The Rhode Island plan, for example, cost US$8 million (NZ$12 million) for a two-year project.

Only one study reviewed sought to identify the offsetting benefits of MSP, and these were considerable.106 They included the new economic value created by enabling marine industries to grow (through easier and cheaper permitting), protection of established industries (such as commercial fishing) from adverse impacts, increased marine protection, increased social capital, a stronger voice for indigenous peoples in marine decision-making, and securing greater investment in science.

• The cost of developing a MSP is likely to be in vicinity of several hundred thousand to several million NZ dollars, depending on the scale and complexity.

• These costs can be significantly outweighed by the benefits that MSP can bring.

4.7 Methodology The various marine planning processes adopted different methodologies, but they all included a mix of scientific assessments and stakeholder engagement. In Norway, the government agency compiled status reports on the state of the environment, carried out environmental assessments of the impacts of activities, and assessed the total human impact of all activities. Ecologically vulnerable areas were mapped and ecosystem indicators developed. In Belgium, ecological and socioeconomic studies were undertaken and draft maps were prepared which delineated spawning grounds, fishing areas and initial proposals for MPAs.

The English plan followed a legislated process. It commenced with the lead agency identifying the plan area, producing a statement of public participation, issuing evidence and issues reports, and finally consulting on the plan. In Scotland, the lead agency and councils reviewed known data, commissioned research to fill gaps in knowledge, and then prepared a plan. Both the English and Scottish processes involved undertaking a strategic environmental assessment of the plan.

The Rhode Island plan was developed through an intensive stakeholder process which operated at the same time as a sizeable research programme. Writing teams used stakeholder inputs along with scientific information to compile drafts of each chapter. In British Columbia, a working group was established and met regularly to review documents and data and discuss issues. The technical team and provincial government provided data

for the plan. Prior to plan approval, an assessment of the implications of the plan was completed.

As can be seen, several of the processes undertook an assessment of the impacts of the plan. Hall has suggested that projects should conduct formal, rigorous cost-benefit analysis for management alternatives and identify and quantify trade-offs amongst objectives, as this will improve the specificity and effectiveness of marine plan policies.107

• An initial stocktake of information can be useful in identifying knowledge gaps.

• Research to fill key information gaps can be undertaken at the same time as stakeholder engagement.

• An assessment of alternatives, and the impacts of the plan, can help support confidence in implementation.

4.8 Public and stakeholder involvement

Broad stakeholder engagement is often highlighted as an important element of MSP. Collaborative processes in particular are seen as more likely to result in plans that incorporate the needs of a broad range of stakeholders.108 However, in practice, many process have adopted a top-down approach to participation, with the deliberative processes being undertaken largely disconnected from actual decision-making.109

Practitioners have emphasised that both informal and formal methods of engagement are important, as is building up a relationship of trust.110 For the six plans investigated, members of the public were involved in the development of all the plans, to varying degrees. In some cases, public members were included from the beginning of the process and in others they were only consulted when the draft plan was finalised. In England, there is a statutory requirement to write a Statement of Public Participation, formalising the process and principles for engagement. European ocean plans generally included less public input, in line with European planning efforts generally.111 The mechanisms used to engage the public in the planning process included:

• Awareness raising through press releases, radio features, email notifications and newsletters

• Conferences

• Involvement in advisory groups

• Workshops on specific issues

• Community meetings

• Drop-in sessions

• Day or multi-day forums

• Open council hearings

• Web-based consultations

• Written, oral and online submissions on plan proposals


Each process usually had a website with details about the aspects of the plan and plan making process. Public comments were incorporated into the plans to varying degrees. For example, public comments resulted in small changes to the Belgian plan. In Norway, after receiving very few submissions on its first plan, the government did not solicit input on its later ocean plan.112 In contrast, the Rhode Island plan emphasised proactive outreach and incorporated public input into the final plan. These varying approaches largely reflect the different political culture in each country. In Norway, for example, there is greater trust in the government to make decisions in the public interest.

Unlike the overseas examples of plan making, in the Sea Change project, stakeholders wrote the plan. This created a very different dynamic around stakeholder and public engagement. The collaborative process built up strong support for the plan amongst stakeholder groupings and developed crucial social capital to support implementation. A draft version of the plan was not made available for public comment prior to finalisation, which reflected the collaborative nature of the plan making process, where the plan provisions were the result of a stakeholder consensus rather than a public consultative process.

• The plan making process can be more important than the plan itself. The social capital built up during the planning process can deliver significant benefits going forward.

• A framework for public participation should be developed at the outset of the planning process and the public should be included throughout the process. This should define who should be involved, when to involve them and in what fora.

• A separate key stakeholder engagement strategy may also be required.

• Decision-making should be clear and transparent, creating realistic perceptions amongst stakeholders and the public of their role and influence.

4.9 Role of science One shared principle guiding the design of MSPs was that they were to be based on the best available science. Plans often identified gaps in the data and where further information was required. The Norwegian and Canadian plans also acknowledged the adoption of the precautionary approach. Many of the processes established science advisory groups, comprising experts in relevant fields with particular expertise in the local area. The advisory groups provided insight, data and information to the management group.

For the Rhode Island plan, a science advisory task force was established and met periodically while the plan was being developed. Scientists were also members of the technical advisory committees which were in charge of ground-truthing each chapter. A science research agenda sits alongside the plan. The Norwegian plan was informed by governmental scientific status reports and environmental impact assessments of each activity.

A conference was also held during the development of the plan where all the scientific work was scrutinised. In addition, this information was made available to the public. The British Columbia plan was assisted by a marine advisory committee which comprised diverse members including marine scientists. The committee provided input into the plan and reviewed outputs.

The management of science in the Sea Change process was more informal, with no science advisory group established. With one exception, no research was undertaken during the planning process to fill key information gaps. Scientists were also not specifically included on the SWG. However, the quality of science drawn on was very high and science conduits were appointed during the later phases of the project to help integrate the science during the plan writing process. In addition, the plan did identify a list of research topics to help inform a future science research agenda.113

• Science is a critical part of the planning process.

• An initial stocktake of available information is useful in identifying key gaps.

• Research to fill gaps in knowledge can be undertaken while the stakeholder engagement process is under way.

• Science advisory groups can help with collating, peer reviewing and ground-truthing the information base underpinning the plan.

4.10 Contents of plansMost of the plans did not result in hard zoning; rather they identified ecological areas and areas suitable for new development (such as for petroleum and wind development), then recommended a suite of policies to guide management of the activities. For example, the non-statutory Scottish plan only outlines general and sectoral policies and does not refer to any maps. The English plan goes slightly further and has general policies and spatially sectoral policies referencing maps for locational guidance. Four new spatially explicit policies provide an indication of what activities should be avoided in specific areas.114

The Rhode Island plan identifies three broad zones within the broader marine area – a renewable energy zone which is the preferred site for large scale wind farms; areas of particular concern which must be avoided where possible; and areas designated for preservation where most development is prohibited. The Belgian North Sea Master Plan also identifies three main zone types within a larger unzoned area – areas where sand and gravel extraction can take place; a zone for offshore wind farms; and delineation of MPAs.

The British Columbia plan is the most comprehensive and separates the entire area into three zone types: a general management zone which is the majority of the area where all activities can occur; special management zones where specific conditions are imposed; and protection management zones where areas are primarily


for conservation purposes. Each of the zones has an accompanying table that identifies marine activities that are allowed and not allowed in the area. This plan also identifies specific actions.

The approach taken in the Sea Change plan is not inconsistent with this international experience. The plan did not contain hard zoning, but it did indicate suitable and unsuitable areas for aquaculture and prospective locations for MPAs. It also identified focus areas for catchment management efforts. The bulk of the plan consisted of objectives, strategies and actions.

• Plans may be a mixture of objectives, polices, specific actions and spatial delineations.

• Hard spatial delineation of marine space for future activities is difficult, particularly where planning processes are undertaken within short timeframes, and plans may more realistically aspire to including indicative areas, policies and actions.

• Accept that the plan won’t be perfect.

4.11 Provision for traditional use and management

The Canadian plan was the only plan reviewed which made provision for traditional use and management. In British Columbia, First Nations have been actively involved in integrated marine use planning for many years and the Haida Nation has had an active marine work group operational since 2006. The planning process was undertaken as a partnership between the Haida Nation and the provincial government. The Haida oceans

technical team assisted in providing information on traditional Haida knowledge for the plan. The plan itself makes provision for Haida traditional uses in all areas in accordance with legal obligations, including practices for food, social and ceremonial purposes. The plan includes a disclaimer: ‘This plan and its supporting documentation and appendices do not in any way define or limit the title and rights of the Haida Nation of British Columbia …’115 to protect any customary or treaty rights.

There are close similarities between the Haida Gwaii plan and Sea Change. The Mātauranga Māori Representative Group focused on integrating indigenous knowledge into the plan, similar to the role played by the Haida oceans technical team. In the Haida process, work had been undertaken for some years prior to the formal planning process to bring together relevant indigenous knowledge. In Sea Change, the mātauranga Māori component lagged behind the plan development process, and this caused difficulties for the project. The Sea Change plan contains a similar disclaimer regarding impacts on Treaty rights.

• The contribution of indigenous peoples to MSP can be strengthened through establishing co-governance structures.

• Advance work should be undertaken, where possible, to draw on indigenous knowledge and identify indigenous priorities for the plan.

• A dedicated indigenous work group can help strengthen contributions to the plan.

• Plans may need to include a provision protecting indigenous rights in order to provide comfort to indigenous groups.

Montrose coast, Scotland


4.12 Implementation and monitoringImplementation of plans has often proved problematic, with more attention typically being placed on whether plans are based on rigorous science and have public legitimacy rather than on their future implementation.116 But implementation is now recognised as one of the most difficult parts of the MSP process, and preparation for it needs to be undertaken while the plan is still being developed.117 In some cases, plans are regulatory and have immediate legal effect, usually through being applied to consenting decisions. In other cases, plans are matters to be considered. In many cases, the plans have been implemented incrementally.

In British Columbia, implementation of the plan is guided by an formal implementation agreement between the Haida Nation and the provisional government. Implementation is overseen by a marine technical team. A marine coordination team helps to coordinate the Haida Gwaii plan with other planning initiatives in the area. During the implementation of the Rhode Island plan, an Ocean Special Area Management Plan Public Forum has been held every two years to maintain ongoing stakeholder engagement, including providing updates on progress and identifying emerging issues.

The plans have varying approaches to monitoring. The Scottish plan was a pilot and does not contain monitoring provisions. However, an extensive ‘lessons learned’ assessment was released in 2016.118 In Belgium, single-sector authorities are responsible for monitoring. The Norwegian Government has set up three advisory groups to report back on the plan: a monitoring group, a risk group, and an expert group responsible for revisions to the plan. The British Columbian plan is monitored and the status of performance indicators reported on each year. The Rhode Island plan has the most extensive monitoring process. It is accompanied by a ‘progress assessment and monitoring process’ which takes note of decisions, captures lessons learned, highlights achievements, documents policy and makes management adaptations. A case study and lessons learned report was released in 2016.119

Most plans are to be reviewed every 4–6 years. Both the initial Norwegian and Belgian plans have been reviewed and updated plans have been produced, upholding the adaptive management principle enshrined in the documents.

The Sea Change plan does not include the prioritisation of actions, identification of responsibilities or an implementation strategy and this arguably has hindered it implementation. No one agency or Minister is identified as being responsible for overall implementation, and strong political leadership has been lacking.

• Giving the plan statutory support may aid implementation.

• Strong political leadership will likely be required to drive the implementation of non-statutory plans. This may need to be built during the process.

• Clear provisions, concrete actions and measurable outcomes in the plan aid implementation and monitoring.

• A well-developed implementation plan is important and responsibility for implementation should be clearly delineated.

• Time should be spent with agencies warming them up to the plan so they understand their responsibilities for implementation.

• Plans take time to implement. They are usually implemented on a phased, priority basis.

• A monitoring programme should accompany the plan.

• Lessons learned assessments are useful to build on the experience of MSP to date and inform future planning processes. A ‘lessons learned’ log should be established at the start of the plan making process so that relevant issues can be captured at the time they arise and are not overlooked.

4.13 ConclusionsCountries have adopted different approaches to MSP depending on their legal, political and socioeconomic contexts. In all cases, MSP has been considered a valuable exercise, with marine planning processes now becoming formalised by statute in many jurisdictions. This variation in approach highlights the desire to develop a process which aligns well with the local context.

The international experience both validates the Sea Change process and provides useful indications of how MSP might be developed in New Zealand for the future. The impetus for MSP is typically a desire to resolve conflicts over marine space, provide for new uses, and conserve the marine environment, although the weighting of each of these differs between countries. The impetus for Sea Change reflected all of these factors to some extent.

MSP can be applied at varying scales but should where possible align with ecological systems, include the land-sea interface, and embrace all sectors. Sea Change encompassed such an integrated scope with its inclusion of all sectors and its boundaries based on the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park and associated catchments.

The majority of overseas plans are regulatory in nature, with some acting as a testing ground before regulation is finalised. In this way Sea Change can be seen as a ‘pilot’ project, the learnings from which can inform any future regulatory developments to provide for integrated marine planning in New Zealand. There is a growing wealth of regulatory MSP models to now draw from if the country decides to go down this track.

Most MSP processes cut across the jurisdiction of multiple agencies. Typically a single agency is put in charge of the planning process, with mechanisms developed to engage across government. The Sea Change project took a different approach, establishing


a co-governance entity to represent four agencies and 26 iwi and hapū groupings. This created difficulties with implementation when that entity was disestablished on the completion of the plan. Consideration should be given to identifying one agency as being the lead for marine spatial planning projects in New Zealand.

Most planning processes incorporate multiple ways of engaging with key stakeholder groups and the general public. None reviewed here went as far as Sea Change, which empowered stakeholder representatives to develop the plan. The project was breaking new ground internationally in this respect. Collaborative processes, by necessity, include a small number of iwi and stakeholder representatives. This means that broader public engagement around the collaborative process is an important component of such projects. Sea Change could have done more in this respect.

The three-year time period it took to develop Sea Change is about typical for international projects and the cost was in line with international experience. Collaborating between iwi/hapū groupings and multiple stakeholders, and integrating mātauranga Māori into the plan, require longer than traditional planning processes. Adequate time needs to be provided for this. Time could be saved if relevant scientific and mātauranga Māori information was brought together prior to the formal plan making process commencing.

Many international MSP processes established formal scientific advisory bodies and scientific work was often commissioned during the process to fill key gaps. The management of science in the Sea Change process was less structured and could have benefited from a Chief Scientist or similar to help order and curate the science and communicate it effectively to the SWG members.

Most international MSP processes did not result in the development of hard zonings. Rather they identified

ecological areas and areas suitable for new activities and then recommended a suite of policies to guide management of the activities. The approach taken in the Sea Change plan is broadly consistent with this international experience. The plan did not contain hard zoning, but it did indicate suitable and unsuitable areas for aquaculture, prospective locations for MPAs, areas for phasing out trawling and Danish seining, and focus areas for catchment management efforts, with the rest of the plan consisting of objectives, strategies and actions.

The Canadian MSP experience was the only one identified where indigenous knowledge was actively incorporated into the plan. The planning process was overseen by a partnership body between the Haida Nation and the provincial government and a Haida oceans technical team helped bring together indigenous knowledge. In Sea Change, the Mātauranga Māori Representative Group played a similar role. Both plans included disclaimers to protect Treaty rights.

Implementation is generally regarded as the most challenging part of MSP projects. Where plans are statutory, implementation generally follows as a matter of course. For non-statutory plans, various mechanisms have been put in place to promote implementation. The Sea Change plan did not have either of these; no one agency or Minister was identified as being responsible for overall implementation and strong political leadership was lacking. Much more considered thought needs to be given to the implementation phase of planning if MSP is to succeed in the New Zealand context.

The need for strategic and integrated marine planning is only likely to become more acute in New Zealand, as pressures increase on our marine environment. There is now a wealth of international MSP experience to draw on, and Sea Change has provided a rich learning ground for application within the local context.

Herne Bay, England

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1 Merrie and Olsson, 2014, 373

2 Merrie and Olsson, 2014

3 Ehler and Douvere, 2009, 18

4 Jay et al, 2012

5 Merrie and Olsson, 2014, 373

6 Anson et al, 2017, 65; Katsanevakis et al, 2011

7 Domínguez-Tejo et al, 2016

8 Rodriguez, 2017

9 See http://msp.ioc-unesco.org/world-applications/overview

10 Kyvelou and Pothitaki, 2017

11 Council of the European Communities, 2014

12 Kyvelou and Pothitaki, 2017

13 Kyvelou and Pothitaki, 2017, 89

14 Merrie and Olsson, 2014

15 Kidd and Ellis, 2012, 55

16 Hauraki Gulf Forum, 2011a

17 See Peart 2017a, 2017b and 2019; Majurey and Beverley, 2017

18 For example, see Chapter 4 of Peart, 2018

19 Peart, 2017c


21 Hauraki Gulf Forum, 2011a, 40

22 Hauraki Gulf Forum, 2011b, 10

23 Davison, 2011

24 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, 2017

25 Waitangi Tribunal, 2011

26 Hauraki Gulf Forum, 2018

27 Peart, 2009

28 Salmon et al, 2008

29 https://www.mpi.govt.nz/funding-and-programmes/fisheries-and-aquaculture/aquaculture-planning-fund

30 Auckland Council, 2012

31 Auckland Council, 2012

32 Harmsworth et al, 2016

33 Iorns Magallanes, 2016

34 For example, see Dickey, 2015, in which Councillor Lee is reported as claiming that the PSG ‘wouldn’t put the park first’.

35 SNA1 Strategy Group, 2016

36 Ministry for the Environment, 2016

37 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, 2013b, 2–4

38 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, 2014b

39 Independent Review Panel, 2015



42 Morrison et al, 2016

43 Green and Zeldis, 2015

44 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, 2014a

45 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, 2014c

46 Jarvis et al, 2014; Jarvis et al, 2015

47 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, undated

48 Green and Zeldis, 2015, 40 and 49

49 New Zealand Government, 2016

50 Taylor, 2016

51 Morton, 2016

52 Fox, 2016

53 Bradley, 2016

54 Hogan and Swannix, 2018

55 Blau and Green, 2015

56 Royal Norwegian Ministry of the Environment, 2006, 13

57 Olsen et al, 2007

58 Transboundary threats are dealt with in the plan; see Olsen et al, 2007

59 Hoel et al, 2008


61 Olsen et al, 2007; Olsen et al, 2016

62 Hoel et al, 2008

63 Hoel et al, 2008


65 Olsen et al, 2007; Olsen et al, 2016

66 Sandar, 2018a

67 Sandar, 2018b

68 Douvere and Maes, 2007

69 Bossu and Plasman, 2004

70 Cliquet et al, 2007; Douvere and Maes, 2007; Olsen et al, 2014

71 Douvere and Maes, 2007

72 Belgian Government, 2014; Olsen et al, 2014



75 Belgian Government, 2014


77 Grover, 2012

78 Smythe et al, 2016

79 Grover, 2012

80 Grover, 2012


82 Grover, 2012

83 http://dwwind.com/press/ri-supreme-court-upholds-block-island-wind-farm- power-contract/



86 Grover, 2012

87 Marine Planning Partnership Initiative, 2015




91 http://www.haidanation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/HG_IA_Signed_2016.pdf

92 Hull, 2015

93 Hull, 2015

94 Hull, 2015

95 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2014

96 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2014

97 Pilot Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Working Group, 2016a

98 Smith, 2015

99 Pilot Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Working Group, 2016a

100 Ansong et al, 2017; Jones et al, 2016; Kyvelou and Pthitaki, 2017

101 Collie et al, 2013

102 Ansong et al, 2017; Kyvelou and Pathitaki, 2017

103 Kyvlou and Pothitaki, 2017

104 Ehler, 2017

105 Collie et al, 2013


107 Hull, 2015

108 Kidd and Shaw, 2013; Dickinson et al, 2010

109 Jones et al, 2016

110 See McCann, 2016



113 Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari, 2017, 184

114 Hull, 2015

115 Marine Planning Partnership Initiative, 2015, 2

116 Kidd and Ellis, 2012

117 McCann, 2016

118 Pilot Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Working Group, 2016b


ENDNOTES

This report explores the utility of marine spatial planning as an approach to strengthen marine management in New Zealand. It contains an in-depth review of the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari project undertaken in the Hauraki Gulf between 2013 and 2106. It reviews recent international literature on marine spatial planning and investigates six leading overseas marine plans. Finally, it contextualises the Hauraki Gulf project within this broader body of marine spatial planning practice and draws out lessons applicable to future marine planning exercises in New Zealand.

Turning the Tide Integrated marine planning

in New Zealand

Raewyn Peart

Documents

Turning the Tide - EDS Home the Tide_FINAL.p… · iv TURNING THE TIDE 1 INTEGRATED MARINE PLANNING IN NEW ZEALAND LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Components of the Sea Change project assessed