This power point presentation has been put together to support and - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• This power point presentation has been put together to support and provide explanation to the submission made by:- • The Wellington Recreational Marine Fishers Association • To the Wellington Regional Council Proposed Natural Resources Plan • Presentation has been researched by myself Jim Mikoz President WRMFA • Honorary Vice President New Zealand Angling and Casting Association • Introduction to myself. • My expertise is under standing the marine environment and value of the inter tidal zone to marine specie. Marine scientists at DOC, NIWA and WRC admit they have no knowledge of this environment and inform the public they can not use my marine knowledge as I am not a scientist. You will not find the information I am presenting in a book so I will stop and explain some of the photos as it would be impossible for you to have acquired the marine knowledge I have been given. • We are submitter number S32 • Hearing day 6. Wellington Hearing Day 7.6.2018 at 9.30am at Westpac Stadium • As at 9.04pm 4.6.2018

Slide 2 INTRODUCTION TO SUBMISSION We have identified issues and omissions in the Draft Natural Resources Plan relating to 5.7.2 “Coastal management general conditions”. It is totally unacceptable for the Wellington Regional Council (WRC) to not know marine species travel into streams and rivers to feed and spawn throughout our region. We have a huge wetland system that is unique to the region yet the council continues to misrepresent its value. These wetlands can be found below the 39 th parallel which is in a line from Ohiwa on the east coast to Kawhia on the west coast. Wellington lies in the 40 to 41 st parallel yet not one marine specie has been named in the inter tidal zone. The Regional Council has produced a Draft Natural Resources Plan that fails to describe the function of our native inter tidal plants or how marine specie use these plants. The Plan will be totally inadequate if this information is not described in the final version. The Council has failed to protect the food source for our native Hector Dolphins who come into Wellington Harbour every year looking for yellow eyed mullet which is their major food source. Yet the birds that eat them have been named. The Plan has failed to name the 56 different marine species over 500 grams found in Wellington Harbour or inform through the Plan this is the most specie found in any harbour in New Zealand. The Regional Council by not describing the inter tidal zone has failed to comply with the 2010 New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS) Objective 1. Which states:- “To safeguard the integrity, form, functioning and resilience of the coastal environment and sustain its ecosystems, including marine and intertidal areas, estuaries, dunes and land, by: maintaining or enhancing natural biological and physical processes in the coastal environment and recognising their dynamic, complex and interdependent nature;” Further Objective I of the NZCPS requires councils to be “protecting representative or significant natural ecosystems and sites of biological importance and maintaining the diversity of New Zealand’s indigenous coastal flora and fauna” The Plan as written has failed to provide any information that describes the council has recognised the “dynamic, complex and interdependent nature” of “the coastal environment” in our region. The Plan must comply with the NZCPS.

Slide 3 There are other issues and omissions in the Draft Natural Resources Plan relating to 5.7.2 “Coastal management general conditions”. The Plan fails to describe the life in the inter tidal zone after dark. A recently hatched school of two centimetre yellow eyed mullet were found in a puddle of the Korokoro Stream after it was diverted by the WRC, the fish were identified at Te Papa. I have watched yellow eyed mullet spawning and when asked to prove they spawn in the inter tidal zone it only took two weeks to capture one of them with ripe running roe. This was the first time anyone had captured one. The Council must find a way to accept informal marine knowledge as NIWA in a number of publications state they know nothing about the inter tidal zone. There has been no scientific study of the inter tidal zone as a marine scientist study stops at the river mouth and a fresh water scientist study stops at the extent of the salt water wedge. I have described the inter tidal zone through a power point to six Natural Resources Hearings and in a number of stories published in the magazine NZ Fishing Coast to Coast. At the 2009 Wellington City Council waste water resource consent hearing the WRC scientist instructed the resource consent commissioners to dismiss the information I and the DOC scientist were bringing describing the inter tidal zone as she and the regional council has no knowledge of its value or function. The Commissioners hearing submissions to this Natural Resources Plan must require the WRC to obtain the information to describe the value of the inter tidal zone in the final version of the Plan.

Slide 4 Further issues and omissions in the Draft Natural Resources Plan relating to 5.7.2 “Coastal management general conditions”. When the WRC blocked off access to the Pencarrow and Fitzroy Lakes for marine and fresh water species including eels all would die unable to return to the lakes. For five years yellow eyed mullet would gather along the lake outlets wanting to return to their traditional spawning grounds but water from the lakes never flowed to sea. In 2015 WRC produced a Parangarahu Lakes Area Co-Management Plan for the lakes but those involved lacked any marine and inter tidal knowledge as they failed to ensure access to the lakes for any fish or eel specie. The Plan fails to acknowledge yellow eyed mullet had been using theses lakes since before man arrived. WRC staff visited the fish ladders built into the South Island Wainono Lagoon in 1910 as part of the Waihao River catchment but then failed to build ladders for the Pencarrow or Fitzroy Lakes. The Lakes co-Management Plan fails to acknowledge our native mysid shrimps which would be in the lakes in the millions which confirms the Plan lacks input from those with inter tidal knowledge. The dolphins are feeding off Owhiro Bay with scouts guiding the pod until reaching the Moa Point waste water slick visible in the fourth photo and they turned the pod out to sea. You will never see this activity in Wellington Harbour as there are very few bait fish schools left. The remaining bait schools were soon sucked into the Fast Ferries that were allowed to travel over the Falcon Shoals by the WRC.

Slide 5 Point 566 5.7.2 Coastal Management General Conditions The quoted spawning times for the regions native fresh water fish is incorrect. Water temperature determines when fish spawn. Some seasons are warmer than others which changes when spawning will occur. Making a hard and fast rule on a calendar seriously questions the research. We captured this inanga spawning in the inter tidal zone of the Makara Stream on 16.1.02, where we have seen them spawning before. A display board has just appeared at the Queen Elizabeth Park Paekakariki where the WRC and DOC inform the public that “Adult galaxiids lay their eggs on grasses hanging in the water at high tide”. Obviously no one in the WRC or DOC have ever observed fish spawning as they do not sit on grass to lay their eggs nor do they have the ability to place the eggs on grass hanging in the water. There will be no science paper that supports this inter tidal misinformation and the board should be removed. Science describes the inter tidal zone is 20 times more productive than the sea and 4 times more productive than the land yet it has not been described in the WRC Draft Natural Resources Plan. This is a major omission and must be corrected by the Commissioners by describing its value in the final version of the Natural Resources Plan. This will require a new section as the WRC must acquire the knowledge to describe the regions native plant function to the many marine and fresh water fish species that live, feed and travel into the inter tidal zone. The WRC will have to upskill to acquire inter tidal knowledge as producing a display board describing fish sit on grass to lay eggs is a joke. But it is describing the Wellington Regional Council has a serious lack of marine and inter tidal knowledge.