KEY POINTS:
Environmentalist Raewyn Peart loves darting like a guppy around our undersea realm, from fish of all shapes and sizes to colourful sponges, kelps and corals. She's keen to pass on her love of snorkelling to her daughter and, in late summer, headed for Matai Bay in the Far North, where the marine life was reputedly as scenic as the majestic, horse-shoe shaped bay. She was shattered by the degradation.
"It was appalling - just barren. There were no sea eggs and it had been stripped of seaweed. It was a site of devastation and, for me, that's incredibly upsetting."
Peart is doubly concerned at the Department of Conservation's plan to axe its specialist marine conservation unit in a bid to cut costs at head office.
"Our marine environment is in a terrible state," says the senior policy analyst with the Environmental Defence Society.
"We have a well-resourced and politically-powerful ministry [MFish] whose core focus is utilising and exploiting it. We don't have an effective organisation that can really counter-balance that in the policy-making area."
Under closely-guarded restructuring plans, director-general of conservation Al Morrison has proposed "mainstreaming" the marine unit's functions - asking staff in DoC's 13 conservancies to absorb the marine unit's work. The restructuring follows a ministerial directive to trim $8 million a year for the next three years - or 3 per cent of annual funding - from the department's budget.
Morrison signalled the need for savings in February and, by last month, the review he initiated had proposed 56 job losses - 30 from head office and 26 from the regions. Ten of the cuts will come from non-replacement of technical support staff who have left. Staff have until Monday to respond to the proposals.
Those in the firing line include not just marine scientists but biosecurity staff - whose jobs would transfer to Biosecurity New Zealand - and social scientists with archaeological and heritage expertise. But it is the loss of the marine policy unit which is causing most alarm at a time when, experts argue, the Government should be putting more resources, not less, into protecting our marine environment.
The marine unit has been pivotal to the Labour-led Government's drive to expand the number of marine reserves - a tortuous process which pits DoC against the fishing industry, MFish and recreational fishers. Its scientists also provide policy advice on biodiversity and protection for threatened species such as Hector's dolphin and the New Zealand (Hooker's) sea lion.
Mary Sewell, senior lecturer in marine biology at Auckland University, says the move follows the Government's shelving of efforts to develop an overarching Oceans Policy, while attempts to give DoC more clout to create marine reserves have taken six years to be brought before Parliament.
Marine life is under threat from coastal development, sediment and agricultural run-off, aquaculture, commercial fishing and proposed mineral extraction, says Sewell. Marine biodiversity faces additional long-term threats from climate change.
"This is absolutely the wrong time to be taking the marine policy unit away. It's institutional knowledge is badly needed."
Steve Wing, associate professor in marine science at Otago University, says a national policy focus is needed to maintain the momentum made on marine reserves.
"If they give up on that I wonder what ministry would step in to instigate government policy?"
Given the competing interests in developing marine policies - and laws enshrining exploitation from the Treaty of Waitangi to the quota management system - Wing says a national co-ordinating body to consider marine conservation is essential.
The scientists point out that DoC's conservancies, expected to pick up the marine work, focus primarily on land-based conservation and have enough on their plates.
"A tiny proportion of DoC staff are focused on marine as it is," says dolphin expert Liz Slooten, an associate professor of zoology at Otago.
"It's forest and bird oriented. If Hector's dolphin or the Hooker's sea lion were a kiwi or a kokako, a recovery plan would have been put in place within a few years of realising there was a conservation problem. Their plight has been known for a couple of decades and we still don't have anything approaching a proper recovery plan in place."
The marine conservation unit is part of DoC's research, development and improvement division which has a $35 million budget. In its last annual report, DoC trumpeted its efforts to help threatened marine species including the white shark, Hector's dolphins and the sub-species Maui's dolphin, NZ sea lions and the southern right whale. The department also helped establish new protected areas, adding to the area of deep seabed protected from bottom trawling.
In his statement of intent, Morrison says setting aside habitats for at-risk species such as Hector's dolphins and threatened petrels is critical to safeguarding our many marine species. He notes continued threats such as by-catch from fishing to protected species such as the NZ sea lion and seabirds; marine invaders arriving on ship's hulls and the competing uses threaten coastal water quality.
"To this end, the department is contributing to the development of an environmental framework for the exclusive economic zone and working to enhance the rate of establishment of marine protected areas."
It was also working with MFish and the fishing industry to address by-catch.
Just how these challenges will be met without a specialist unit remains unclear - Morrison is refusing to comment until staff submissions have been considered.
A spokeswoman for Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said it would be inappropriate for the Minister to comment on any of the proposed changes at this stage.
However, the Government "remained committed to progressing its agenda for marine conversation, through the Marine Protected Areas Policy".
DoC staff themselves fear for the future. One insider says the conservancies lack the resources to add marine responsibilities to work which has become more hands-on over the years.
It's the rationale for the restructuring which irks Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell. He says the budget blow-out is partly down to overspending during last summer's drought on firefighting, a primary DoC role in rural areas. Another factor is a reclassification by ACC of DoC staff.
"Firefighting and ACC levies are things nobody should be losing their jobs over."
Public Service Association secretary Brenda Pilott met Chadwick last month to ask the Government to seek other ways to cover the deficit.
"We're hoping that DoC will receive the assistance it needs when Michael Cullen delivers the Budget in a couple of weeks," says Pilott.
"DoC shouldn't have to choose between protecting our marine environment and protecting our land-based environment - especially when we're only talking about an $8 million shortfall."
If DoC is pitched as a David battling fishing industry and ministry Goliaths, its marine unit is considered a minnow within a land-focused conservation department. This is at least the fourth upheaval at DoC in its 21-year history.
The marine unit was axed in an earlier restructuring but revived when officials saw that its policy advice and development functions were sorely needed, said Hackwell.
In the most recent review, in 2004, several marine science jobs were lost with experts in seabird conservation.
"Our concern is that they will go through the same experience as last time - there's a real risk marine policy work will lose emphasis and not be adequately co-ordinated.
"Maybe it can be mainstreamed but that will require absolute focus to make sure it doesn't lose the emphasis it needs. History has shown that the focus faded."
Some scientists fear the move signals the Government is putting marine conservation into the too-hard basket after failing to get progress on an Oceans Policy and slow progress on the new Marine Reserves Act.
The Oceans Policy project was an attempt to bring consistency to the handling of issues ranging from coastal development to seabed mining, covered by dozens of laws. But the policy development work embracing several government departments stalled with the foreshore and seabed debate and has floundered since.
Peart says DoC's marine unit, as small as it is, is the only advocate for marine conservation in the public interest when it comes to commercial fishing. "It's just not possible for the conservancies to be effective in this area because most decisions on the big issues are made in Wellington."
Peart says the plan confirms DoC's land-based orientation.
"It shows what we really need is a new entity that actually manages things marine. DoC made an effort to set up this unit but, when it comes to the crunch and the need to save 3 per cent of their budget, the first area they look to is marine."
THE TARGET
Department of Conservation managers have to cut $8m a year from their budget for three years
THE IMPACT
Jobs of scientists and staff in DoC's marine conservation unit are under threat. All up, 56 jobs could go.
THE FALL-OUT
Conservation lobbyists fear work protecting the marine environment is at risk
