Experts visit marine reserve

International marine reserves experts have visited New Zealand's first marine reserve near Leigh, north of Auckland, for a United Nations meeting to foster more marine protected areas around the globe.

The meeting was held under the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and was closed to the public.

The meeting's chairman, a former deputy director-general of the Department of Conservation, Murray Hosking, said it, and another to be held next year, would provide advice on setting up marine reserve networks to 160 countries which were parties to the convention.

* When it came to power in 1999, the Government said it wanted more marine reserves. So far no new reserves have been created but a number of proposals are under investigation.