The growth of the aquaculture industry
Science Centres: Fisheries
Much of the future growth in the seafood industry will come from the expansion of aquaculture. After centuries of practice we have become adept at farming our land. We are now rapidly becoming more adept at farming our waters, making innovative use of new knowledge and technologies.
We are fortunate in New Zealand to have world-class researchers in aquaculture, many of them at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Bream Bay Aquaculture will be a substantial addition to this country’s capacity for innovation in this valuable and immensely promising industry.
Bream Bay’s focus on warm-temperate water aquaculture and its ability to test new techniques at near commercial-scale production will help ensure New Zealand remains at the forefront of aquaculture development. We have the natural advantage of excellent water quality, maintained by high environmental standards. Our future prospects as a top quality source of seafood for global markets will depend to a large extent on our ability to bring new species into aquaculture production.
I am particularly pleased to see NIWA working hard to build aquaculture research partnerships with the seafood industry. The ability to commercialise new discoveries rapidly is essential to market leadership and such partnerships are the way to ensure New Zealand science is used to New Zealand’s advantage.
The growth of aquaculture will benefit the entire New Zealand economy. But it holds particular promise for regional and Maori economic development and NIWA is active in building partnerships that meet those purposes as well. The benefits in new jobs and export earnings will be evident in years to come.
The government is committed to providing the policy and regulatory environment that will enable aquaculture to flourish, while ensuring that growth is sustainable and well managed. To achieve this we are moving ahead with legislative reforms to make the approval process for marine farms simpler and more effective.
Regional councils will be able to define Aquaculture Management Areas and deal with development applications through a streamlined single-permit process. They will have greater powers to manage and control development, providing much better integration between coastal planning, aquaculture development, and fisheries management.
To enable councils to do the necessary planning and constrain the speculative rush for aquaculture space, the government has enacted a two-year moratorium on resource consents for new aquaculture developments. But the industry will continue to grow during the moratorium period, with consent applications covering almost 16 000 hectares exempt from it and other proposals that have received resource consents still under consideration for fisheries permits.
Bream Bay Aquaculture will be a significant source of innovation and expertise for aquaculture’s future. I congratulate NIWA for having the vision and commitment to create it.