Sounds property owners , Tourism operators, recreational users, Sounds property owners, tourism operators, recreational users, fishermen, divers, walkers all need to be aware of the Councils current intent to have a variation to change the Sounds plan to get rid of the current Tendering process. This will enable any company applying for an AMA area can be assured they are successful in the resource consent process that they will be granted that area.

The government have instructed local government to create AMA (aquaculture marine areas.) This would be an unpopular move, council have collaborated with the aquaculture industry and told them if they get rid of the tendering process and give them surety the industry can then apply for whatever areas they want as AMA’s (eg areas which are currently prohibited)

This will facilitate another gold rush of applications. I realise the current state of the economy is not conducive to growth but it will pick up. As soon as demand exceeds supply the private plan changes will flood in. At the moment rules in the current plan are not robust enough to regulate or do compliance properly.

Council know and has said later this year they will have a variation to rewrite the Aquaculture laws.

This is fundamentally wrong, they are going to get rid of the tendering process. This will allow industry to choose their own AMA areas and have surety. Knowing that the public won’t be able to affect the process and later after the damage is done they will have an upgrade of the Aquaculture laws.

You say that the industry need surety; the public need surety as well.

This is the cart before the horse.

Council says it is user pays and why should the public have to fund AMA applications for the benefit of industry. That sounds reasonable, unfortunately we know what the end result of these changes will be. The establishment of AMA areas should have been a process instigated by council through a public consultation round so that the public have a chance to say if, where or not at all, with this process Industry chooses and the public have to use a very expensive process using lawyers to object.

The Sounds will become one great big aquaculture farm. We will be unable to stop it, at the hearings the applicants will have a couple of lawyers, RMA consultants, landscape architect, expert witnesses and if the public cannot match their line up, and of course we cannot, the economic argument will win every time. It will allow for privatisation of our sea bed.

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Open letter from the Pete Beech of the Guardians to the Marlborough District Council

Kia Ora,

I’m disappointed that I was unable to attend your workshop to discuss long term strategic planning of the Sounds. As you know my whanau are the sixth generation to have lived here in Totaranui, the name means that the Sounds is our Mother, she gives us birth feeds us shelters us and protects us.

She has provided generations of my whanau with livelihoods from her bountiful resources, none of them ever thought that those resources would ever run out but within our generation they have.

Marlborough people have to take ownership, and acknowledge that we and our tipuna are the ones who are responsible for the collapse and have a moral responsible to restore and enhance the natural environment.

The sounds has never been managed properly, its been a succession of mono cultures, including Maori period, sealers, whalers, commercial fishing, dredging diving. Pastoral farming, gold mining, forestry & aquaculture.

Mother nature wasn’t designed to support monocultures, she’s designed to accommodate biodiversity of hundreds of trees, plants, shrubs, birds, insects, fish, kiamoana and benthic communities.

Sooner or later all monocultures collapse, we need to learn from the lessons of the past and the only way the natural environment of the sounds can be restored given the huge pressure that it is under from population , commercial , recreation and customary fishing diving , aquaculture, forestry, commercial, shipping, recreational use and tourism is through long term Strategic planning.

Council of course needs to balance the protection of the environment against the residential rights and constraints, as well as the need to provide for economic growth and development (economic argument) so we appreciate that it is a balancing act.

However in the past the economic argument has always held precedence over the environment.

I believe that we need to regard the environment in business terms, and refer to it as our Natural Capital .

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We have made our position very clear to the Port Company and district council that the Picton community find methyl bromide fumigations on the scale and volume of up to 3 tons of Methyl bromide at a time is a completely unacceptable health and safety risk and we will keep campaigning to achieve those ends.
The only acceptable form of fumigation is to use recapture and destruction technology, or to fumigate with other gas that is able to be used at sea.

We don’t know what the standard or parts per million are that you have set, but if they are any less rigorous than Port Nelsons then they should be brought into line with them.
However we suspect that no matter what the Picton community wants you are going to go ahead regardless, profits ahead of people.
Here we have the bazaar situation where a company is poisoning its own shareholders.
However community participation is an important element in the assessment of human health safety and environmental risk as stated in Chapter 17.2.2 of the Sounds Plan. So have drawn on our local knowledge to come up with a section that could be added to your Code of Practice that is Site specific to Port Shakespeare.

We look forward to working together to lobby central govt to bring an end to fumigations in our town. Have gotta say though all it would take is for you guys to say NO fumigations on Port company premises!

Our Sounds Plan states 17.2.3 as its first objective.

“Avoidance or mitigation of adverse effects on the environment and community health presented by the disposal of hazardous substances.”

The Draft Code of Practice can be viewed here