New Marine Reserves, NZ

Wonderful News for NZ's Marine Protection.  Five new Marine Reserves have just been created for the South East Coast of Te Waipounamu, New Zealand's South Island.

Looking forward to them being officially individually named, currently grouped under "The Long Wake of Te Rakihouia", after the first Maori person to make the journey down the South Island.

The reserves cover over 300 square kilometres of Otago's coastal marine area and from 1 July this year, all fishing, harvesting, and mineral extraction will be prohibited.

Always a tough call on biotechnology - whereby new resources are constantly being sought to create new sustainable materials for products; and an area we hope will not hurt our marine-food sustainability in event of NZ requiring self-sufficiency.

Natural skincare and beauty products using eg. marine collagen, marine extracts; algae-based products; new fabrics made from fish scales and leather; and everyday plastic compostable bag replacements - are all counting on it.   The Reserves need to allow for enterprises already set up and catering for all of the above - being they are quite close to our Coastlines.

The Reserves are integral however, to our endangered species, a lot of lesser-known or unacknowledged sea life including mammals.  Getting deep south - whether they are migrating north to evade ice-floe changes; or south to vacate warming channels - the quandary is real for these species, we need to do all we can to protect them, and our rich marine-ecology.

It is heart-warming to know all New Zealanders (Ngai Tahu and DOC inclusive) are working together as one for all looking forward.  We applaud your culminative efforts.

You can read the article, some extracts were created from, here in todays news update.

https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/06/23/ngai-tahu-doc-launch-five-new-national-parks-of-the-sea/