Environment Canterbury asked to take urgent action to protect dolphins

Wednesday, 21 April 2021

At least 13 Hector’s dolphins have ended up as bycatch around Banks Peninsula since 2017.

A Canterbury environmentalist has taken legal action asking the regional council to urgently protect endangered native dolphins, saying it has neglected its obligations.

One of the smallest marine mammals in the world, Hector’s dolphins are only found in New Zealand’s waters and are considered nationally vulnerable, with a population of about 15,000.

Their North Island subspecies, the Māui dolphin, is critically endangered, with just 63 individuals left.

Local Hector’s dolphin advocate Genevieve Robinson has been campaigning for better protection for the Banks Peninsula Hector’s dolphin population for years.

There are an estimated 15,000 Hector's dolphins left nationwide.

* DoC faces questions over ‘hidden’ Hector’s catch

* Robyn Malcolm lobbies Government on Māui dolphin plight

Genevieve Robinson has hired an RMA lawyer to write a letter of legal opinion asking ECan to take urgent action.

But she said submissions to Environment Canterbury’s (ECan) short and long term plans for more funding or district plan changes to protect their homes had fallen on “deaf ears”, so she had taken the next step.

Robinson’s Resource Management Act lawyer penned a letter of legal opinion to ECan, requesting it take urgent steps to protect the dolphins or face further legal action.

The letter stated that under the New Zealand coastal policy statement, ECan had a legal obligation to “protect indigenous biological diversity in the coastal environment”.

MAUI63 and WWF-New Zealand have developed a tracking drone to find, follow, and identify Māui and Hector's dolphins.

In the 2019 Motiti Decision, the Court of Appeal ruled regional councils could use the Resource Management Act to control fishing to protect biodiversity.

Robinson said under the Fisheries Act, commercial crews could trawl for fish as close as two nautical miles (3.7 kilometres) from the shore.

“It’s totally unacceptable, especially when they have the power to do something.”

Robinson wanted ECan to push trawling and gill-netting activity out at least 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometres) from the shore around Banks Peninsula, or put a moratorium on fishing in that area, until its 10-year coastal plan had been set.

According to the Department of Conservation’s Hector and Maui dolphin incident database, at least 13 Hector’s dolphins had died in commercial fishing nets near Banks Peninsula since August 2017.

In one February 2018 incident five dolphins were killed, and twice – in December 2018 and February 2019 – three dolphins were caught.

A Hector’s dolphin caught in a fishing net during the level 4 Covid-19 lockdown last year was not publicly disclosed until Robinson made an Official Information Act request to the Ministry of Fisheries five months later.

“I just want them to perform their duty of care to these dolphins,” Robinson said.

“We’re just asking them to do what they’re bound by law to do anyway, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

An ECan spokesperson confirmed the council had received the letter and was in the process of responding to it.

They said due to the complex nature of the matter, and the questions in the letter, they were not yet able to comment, and staff intended to respond to it before discussing the details with media.

A timeframe for the response is unknown.