Te Ao Tūroa helps us to care for all coastal and aquatic ecosystems through active kaitiakitanga practice and precautionary, adaptive, integrated stewardship. Doing all we can to support a naturally regenerating ocean is essential to protect its health, provide for us, and assist climate stability. The Green Party will promote Te Tiriti-based governance of the seas of Aotearoa New Zealand to regenerate mauri, prevent damage from human activities, increase resilience to climate change, and support the thriving marine ecosystems that underpin a healthy, well-managed blue economy.
Vision
The ocean’s life force and life-supporting capacity are vibrant and vigorous. All human relationships with the marine realm are mutually regenerative.
Values and Principles
- Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi: Kaitiakitanga, led by tangata whenua, should guide human relationships with the sea, ensuring that it is better cared for. Māori regard all life forms within Te Ao Tūroa as taonga that require appropriate consideration through kawa and tikanga.
- Ecological Wisdom: Protecting the mauri, mana, and tapu - the intrinsic vitality, potency, and sanctity of the ocean and of all who dwell within and around it - is fundamental to the enduring life-support system of planet Earth.
- Social Responsibility: We should equitably provide for the sustainable livelihoods and recreational and spiritual opportunities valued by New Zealanders that healthy oceans and coasts offer.
- Appropriate Decision-Making: A range of interests at both local and national levels must guide decisions concerning coastal and marine management. Decisions must include consideration of the needs of future generations and of the wider environment and ecology.
- Non-violence: Human activity should be restorative, not harmful, to the intrinsic mauri, mana, and tapu of all life in the marine environment.
- Urgency: Given the biodiversity crisis, the declining health of ocean ecosystems, and climate change impacts such as acidification and increasing sea temperatures, significant increases in investment and pace of implementation are urgently needed to regenerate coastal and marine ecosystems.
- Interconnection: Ki uta ki tai - from the mountains to the sea. Marine management requires integrated management of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, including the vital role of wetlands in coastal and estuarine zones. The health of people, land, and oceans are inextricably linked.
Strategic Priorities
The Green Party’s strategic goals include:
“All our waters will be in transition to becoming clean and able to support healthy ecosystems.
All native species and their habitats will be thriving or on a path to recovery in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.
Our laws and practices will respect the biological integrity of all life while prioritising the health of indigenous species and ecosystems.
The customary and decision-making roles of whānau, hapū, and iwi will be integral to decisions about resource use.
Decision-making about resource use will provide for community participation and environmental justice.”
Actions from this policy that work toward these goals include:
- Establish a well-resourced and politically independent Ocean Commission to develop and establish Te Tiriti-based ocean governance of the entire marine area, including the Exclusive Economic Zone, and advise the Government on legislative, policy, and institutional reform. (1.1)
- Reform fisheries and marine protection legislation, including establishing a national, comprehensive, and coherent system of no-take marine protected areas. (2.1.1)
- Supporting the use of marine cultural health indices, shaped by mātauranga Māori, to inform policy, management, and operations. (2.1.4)
- Ending bottom trawling, prioritising seamounts and areas with high levels of sequestered carbon and biodiversity for protection. (5.1.2)
Connected Policies
This policy is one of several that focus on Biodiversity and Environmental Regeneration, alongside Freshwater and Land Use and Soils. The mauri of the oceans is connected to human activity on land, notably Agriculture, Forestry, Housing and Sustainable Communities, and Waste and Hazardous Substances. Climate Change also impacts marine health. For acute marine crisis response, see our Emergency Management Policy. See also our policies on coastal Transport and wave and tidal Energy.
