Improving our national plan for shark conservation in Aotearoa - our submission
Fisheries NZ (FNZ) and the Department of Conservation (DOC) on behalf of the NZ Government recently consulted on the Draft National Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks 2022 (NPOA Sharks 2022).
New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is home to at least 113 species of shark, more than 70 of which have been recorded in NZ’s fisheries. Sharks play an important role in maintaining healthy marine ecosystems, but face a litany of significant threats, most of which are human induced. With one of the largest EEZs in the world, the NZ Government has a moral and reputational responsibility to mitigate human-induced threats to sharks and take concrete steps to reduce shark interactions with NZ fisheries and other human activities. As such, the updated NPOA for sharks is a welcome development.
The previous National Plan of Action – Sharks 2013 (NPOA Sharks 2013) provided some useful guidance and direction to the Government for the conservation and management of sharks in NZ but is now considerably out of date. It was also a relatively unsuccessful plan: many of the goals outlined 9 years ago have yet to be realised. Of the 35 objectives or subobjectives listed in NPOA Sharks 2013, only three were completed, with a further five on track. The remainder were either partially completed or ongoing, with a further six items recorded as not having been started.
It is often the case that strategic and policy documents do not always deliver on their aspirations, especially given the unpredictability of climate change and known biodiversity loss. However, in ELI’s view, it’s important to acknowledge why NPOA Sharks 2013 achieved such a low level of objective delivery to ensure that NPOA Sharks 2022 does not repeat history and create further inertia.
In our submission, we offer revisions to the current draft plan to ensure that the updated version is outcome-focused, and uses clear, measurable, and enforceable performance measures.
These include:
Strengthening the objectives identified in the plan and making sure that they are SMART (i.e.:; specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound)
Conducting more regular reviews of progress and action against these objectives to ensure progress is being made
Providing more detail about how the plan will be implemented and monitored, particularly in relation to different agencies’ roles and responsibilities (e.g., DOC; MfE; Regional Councils)
Providing a formal budget to allow for the implementation of the identified work in the NPOA
Clarifying how non-fishery related threats to sharks will be mitigated, including sedimentation, pollution, climate change, etc.
Removing descriptors such as ‘promote’ and ‘encourage’ from the NPOA when discussing objectives, which are too non-specific to measure effectively, and suggest that issues are passively advanced
Read our full submission at the link below.
