Managing our wetlands in the coastal marine area

My recommendation is that option 1 is the most sensible one for the Ministry to retain.
Choosing option 2, under pressure from the Councils, is a risky approach that I would compare the pressure put in the 90s by some business lobby groups onto the Minister for the Environment for justifying not putting climate actions in place at a time where they were badly needed. Look at the situation we are in today!...That Minister is currently our PCE and he is making again a sensible recommendation with regard to the management of estuaries (see below); please listen to him!
<There are several general issues that the Ministry will need to (re) consider before making a final decision:
< At its 50th NZFSS Annual Conference in Nelson in December 2018, Minister Parker more or less blamed the Regional Councils for poorly implementing freshwater policies that were supposed to enable effective sustainable development without affecting the extent and health of freshwater ecosystems, including wetlands.
< In its report "Managing our Estuaries", the Parliamentary Commissionner for the Environment made what he called " two modest recommendations". The first one was that "all estuaries should be included in 'freshwater management units' under the NPS-FM.
<This view is backed up by Clark et al (2022) when they state:
"The New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS 2010), on the other hand, focuses on the entire coastal marine area, of which estuaries form only a small part. Furthermore, as lamented by Gerbeaux and Hume (2022), there is ‘no consistent agreement of a definition of a ‘coastal zone’ and what types of habitats are included in such a zone’. This lack of definition contributes to difficulties in linking freshwater policy to estuarine management in Aotearoa. Policy shortcomings are not assisted by the fact that the NZCPS sits under the Minister of Conservation while the National Policy Statement – Freshwater Manage- ment (NPS-FM) sits under the direction of the Minister for the Environment. Two separate Government agencies with differing agendas, therefore, deal with policies concerning highly interlinked estuarine ecosystems. Estuaries, which sit on the policy peripheries, tend to fall through the cracks because the coverage, interaction and harmo- nisation between policies are often not sufficient to protect them (PCE 2020)."
< The High Court, in its decision related to a Northland case (the Minister of Conservation v Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society Incorporated [2021] NZHC 3113), noted it was unlikely that the NES-F wetland provisions were intended to apply to the entire CMA (ie, from mean highwater springs to the outer limit of the territorial sea). But the physical extent of what constitutes a natural wetland within the CMA was not specified by the Court.
<The High Court however concluded that The Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Freshwater) Regulations 2020 apply to natural wetlands in the coastal marine area. This enabled a clear decision that provided legal protection for mangroves in particular.
<Prior to that decision, the importance of mangroves as a type of wetland often found within the CMA had also been recognised by the Environment Court, although only for areas located with riverine hydro systems. It more specifically stated:"
"The Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Freshwater) Regulations 2020 (NES-F / Regulations) apply to the coastal marine area (CMA) only to the extent that they cover the area of CMA upstream of the "river mouth" as defined in the Resource Management Act 1991. In particular, they do not apply to the general CMA, open oceans, estuaries, bays and other areas not falling within the definition of"river or connected area".
< The Ministry published six years ago (Hume et al 2016) a report clarifying a lot of the terminology associated with estuaries and providing a list of estuarine hydrosystems around New Zealand. Under the status quo, while the NES-F could be interpreted to apply to over 15,000 kilometres of the New Zealand coastline, out to a depth of several metres, the authors only recommend it to be applied to those hydro systems identified in the report - not the 15,000 kilometres of the New Zealand coastline.
<Hume et al (2016) had also recommended that, for management purpose, and for each type of hydrosystem, values, threats and effects to those coastal ecosystems should be recognised and identified locally and regionally. All management agencies (most notably Regional Councils) had therefore six years to follow up on that recommendation and the question may be asked by the Ministry why such important work has not yet been implemented.
< The delineation of the inland CMA boundary, despite considerable improved tools for mapping, has only been done in most regions using a very simplistic manner to date (often following the edge of rivers for instance - rather than mapping the line of mean high water spring tide along their margins, which experts tell me can now be done more easily),
<The Ministry says it "has a work programme focussed on providing better outcomes for estuaries, which is currently in the planning stage. Within this work programme there will be scope to further consider protections for wetlands in the CMA. This is a separate work programme and will therefore have its own public consultation process.
This development of estuaries policy will also clarify the relationship between the NPS-FM and the NZCPS, and provide for better integration across freshwater and coastal management". No timeline is however provided on when all this might be completed. It is my view that in the meantime, the status quo should be the preferred option as it remains based on strong legal advice.
< Gerbeaux and Hume (2022) have since published an important publication "What constitutes a wetland in the CMA - a scientific perspective". I note that while a definition is provided, the publication and the link to it has not been referenced in the discussion document which is highly regrettable considering that it had been provided to the Ministry before the release of the consultation document! I note however that the working group had indicated some agreement with the definition from a scientific perspective.
<Based on that publication and its scientific credibility, I believe that option 1 is the only one that should be retained by the Ministry. I note that Councils have been given till 2030 to map their inland freshwater wetlands. Why not using then such opportunity to ask them to also map coastal wetlands?
< By not referring to the Gerbeaux and Hume (2022) paper, the Ministry is not helping Councils with issues associated with some types of coastal wetlands (e.g. Waituna-type lagoon) that are artificially opened to the sea, often for short periods of time but with increased frequencies. Their natural functioning lend them to be treated as inland freshwater wetlands - even though they are brackish; and therefore not lakes under the RMA, as some people sometimes treat them.
< A final point I wish to make is that the disconnect between the national legislation you are proposing and our international commitments (notably under the Ramsar Convention) will become inherently blatant and puts at risk the good record that New Zealand has internationally under implementing effectively the Convention.

What is a wetland within the CMA needs to be specified in a way that those wetlands can be easily mapped, like what Councils are asked to do for freshwater wetlands.

I have submitted some details in my general comments section but in essence, I believe that the task of mapping wetlands in the CMA is not as broad as what Councils suspect. It is actually probably easier for coastal wetlands than it will be for inland freshwater wetlands. I also believe that until the Ministry provides a timeframe for the work programme focussed on providing better outcomes for estuaries, it is unwise to remove wetlands from the scope of the NES, especially more so in the light of the recommendations made in 2020 by the PCE for the management of estuaries. I also believe that the CPS is in need of revisions as well, especially in relation to the terminology used in that policy document that should use most up-to-date terminology developed by Hume et al (2016). Solely relying to the NZCPS for managing activities in estuaries is unwise as they form a relatively small component of the coastal environment.

It is actually too clear and gives a free hand to lots of developments detrimental to aquatic fauna and flora in our coastal wetlands.

Here again, I have provided some rationale in my general comments. Of most relevance is:
The Ministry published six years ago (Hume et al 2016) a report clarifying a lot of the terminology associated with estuaries and providing a list of estuarine hydrosystems around New Zealand. Under the status quo, while the NES-F could be interpreted to apply to over 15,000 kilometres of the New Zealand coastline, out to a depth of several metres, the authors only recommend it to be applied to those hydro systems identified in the report - not the 15,000 kilometres of the New Zealand coastline.
Hume et al (2016) had also recommended that, for management purpose, and for each type of hydrosystem, values, threats and effects to those coastal ecosystems should be recognised and identified locally and regionally. All management agencies (most notably Regional Councils) had therefore six years to follow up on that recommendation and the question may be asked by the Ministry why such important work has not yet been implemented.
The delineation of the inland CMA boundary, despite considerable improved tools for mapping, has only been done in most regions using a very simplistic manner to date (often following the edge of rivers for instance - rather than mapping the line of mean high water spring tide along their margins, which experts tell me can now be done more easily),
The Ministry says it "has a work programme focussed on providing better outcomes for estuaries, which is currently in the planning stage. Within this work programme there will be scope to further consider protections for wetlands in the CMA. This is a separate work programme and will therefore have its own public consultation process.
This development of estuaries policy will also clarify the relationship between the NPS-FM and the NZCPS, and provide for better integration across freshwater and coastal management". No timeline is however provided on when all this might be completed. It is my view that in the meantime, the status quo should be the preferred option as it remains based on strong legal advice.
Gerbeaux and Hume (2022) have since published an important publication "What constitutes a wetland in the CMA - a scientific perspective". I note that while a definition is provided, the publication and the link to it has not been referenced in the discussion document which is highly regrettable considering that it had been provided to the Ministry before the release of the consultation document! I note however that the working group had indicated some agreement with the definition from a scientific perspective.
Based on that publication and its scientific credibility, I believe that option 1 is the only one that should be retained by the Ministry. I note that Councils have been given till 2030 to map their inland freshwater wetlands. Why not using then such opportunity to ask them to also map coastal wetlands?

The 2022 special issue of NZJMFR on estuaries, the PCE's report on estuaries need to be properly considered. The preferred option does not make much sense in the context of the biodiversity and climate change crises. What Minister Parker stated at the 50th NZFSS Annual Conference re the responsibility of Councils in the degradation of our freshwaters is likely to now also apply to coastal wetlands if you go with your preferred option. It will only enable more development in our estuaries and add to the pressures already coming from the catchments they belong to. Perhaps not a good call in an election year?!