The Breaking Wave: Oceans Reform in Aotearoa New Zealand – Summary Report

Over the past 18 months, the Environmental Defence Society (EDS) has been conducting a first principles policy project looking at the future of our oceans management system. The purpose of the work is to encourage and support a wide-ranging conversation in advance of government reform efforts, and to present a number of ways in which the country could do things differently in the future. We are deliberately not making recommendations (we anticipate a phase 2 of the project in which we do that). For now, all options are on the table for discussion, be they a collection of relatively small-scale changes (for example, clearer policy direction for new industries like offshore energy, or the rollout of more nuanced marine protected areas) or a staggered programme of revolutionary reform (for example, creating a new integrated Oceans Act and new institutions like an Oceans Agency).

This paper is a summary of the project’s final report and refers extensively to its more detailed analysis. We encourage readers to delve into that more comprehensive discussion, and throughout this summary report we provide endnotes that identify the places where further explanation can be found in the main report.