Ocean worth $3.3b to NZ

Marine recreation is worth at least $50 million. Picture / Richard Robinson

The value of the marine economy to New Zealand has been put at $3.3 billion a year in a report from Statistics New Zealand.

Of that total, measured in the March 2002 year, the shipping category made up 27 per cent, or $885 million. More than 45 per cent of that came from port operators, including 22 per cent from boatbuilding and 14 per cent from coastal water transport.

The second largest category measured was fisheries and aquaculture, which made up 26 per cent, or $875 million, of the marine economy.

Almost 60 per cent of the category came from seafood processing, with finfish trawling at 12 per cent, aquaculture at 8 per cent and fish wholesaling at 7 per cent.

Offshore minerals, more than 95 per cent of them oil and gas extraction, were worth 23 per cent, or $750 million. Government and defence uses, including activities to protect the marine environment, made up 22 per cent, worth $718 million.

The Statistics NZ report is part of an environmental series measuring the reliance of New Zealand's economy on natural resources. It is the first time the agency has measured the contribution of the marine environment.

It said the report did not try to value natural capital. Nor did it distinguish between marine-based activities that were extractive or non-extractive, or whether they enhanced or degraded the marine environment.

The report was a first, and a "good", estimate of the country's marine economy, with trends in figures considered to be indicative.

Not all activities that took part in the marine environment could be counted.

The report calculated the marine economy contributed 2.9 per cent to GDP. Growth between 1997 and 2002 was at the same rate as for total GDP - 28 per cent, or $720 million - although the increase for fisheries and aquaculture was 54 per cent.

The marine economy provided 21,000 jobs, 10,000 of them within the shipping category, the report said.

Marine tourism and recreation was said to be worth more than $50 million, but Statistics NZ described that figure as a "significant undercount". It was not able to isolate all marine components from the tourism and recreation industry.

The report said New Zealand had one of the most complex seabeds in the world, containing numerous utilisable resources.

Those were likely to be extensive, but there was uncertainty about exact quantities as only 3 per cent of the seabed under this country's jurisdiction had been surveyed.

The marine environment also included a fertile source of genetic information and natural compounds.

Nationally the exploitation of the resource was at a development phase from which expansion was expected, especially as the continental shelf was largely untapped.

- NZPA