This year we have the opportunity to make an impact on the recovery of the Hauraki Gulf. We can effect change by putting enormous pressure on the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries to remove trawling and dredging from the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.
Find out more on the Hauraki Gulf Alliance website
Kia ora Hon Stuart Nash,
We call upon you as Minister for Oceans and Fisheries to ban all forms of mobile bottom contact fishing including bottom trawling, scallop dredging and Danish seining within the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.
Bottom trawling, scallop dredging and Danish seining are destructive fishing methods that have been ripping up the Hauraki Gulf seafloor for decades. Seafloor species and habitats are being decimated and whole ecosystems have disappeared. It’s a violation of our environment at the hands of a few.
New Zealanders do not want to see any more bottom trawling or scallop dredging in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park. We have already lost so much. We ask you to remove bottom-contact fishing methods from the Hauraki Gulf as part of the upcoming Fisheries Plan, as originally outlined in the collaborative Sea Change proposal.