05 April 2003 By KAREN CLARK
The Environment Court has declined to
rule on a request to allocate iwi marine
farm space in Tasman Bay and Golden Bay.
The court said in a just released
interim decision that the request was
outside the scope of its jurisdiction.
The decision - the second to be issued
by the court on the marine farming case
- follows a ruling in 2001 that
aquaculture in the bays should be
confined to three specific zones.
The zones provided for about 3400ha to
be set aside for mussel and scallop
spat-catching, much of which already
exists, plus another 2900ha for mussel
farming, most of which will be new.
Details such as how the space would be
allocated and how developments would be
monitored were left up to the Tasman
District Council to sort out with the
various parties involved.
But the parties - including mussel
farmers, scallop harvesters, iwi and
environmental groups - could not agree
on various key issues, prompting the
court to get involved again.
The issues included a claim by local iwi
that 30 percent of the space set aside
for marine farming should be allocated
to them. But the court said in its
decision that its task was to identify
zones for marine farming, not allocate
parts of those zones to specific
parties.
Iwi representatives could not be reached
for comment.
The court also said that parties
currently involved in spat-catching
could not automatically convert that
space to mussel farms, because that
would be giving them priority access to
available space.
It said spat-catching could take place
in areas set aside for mussel farming,
but ruled that no species other than
mussels and scallops could be farmed.
It also said new mussel farm
developments would have to be staged,
with only 50ha to 75ha of a 250ha block
being able to be farmed at first.
Further development of the block would
depend on environmental assessments.
Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company
said it was pleased with both the
staging provisions and the ruling
against giving spat-catchers priority to
mussel farm space.
Mussel farming representatives could not
be reached for comment, and
environmental group Forest and Bird said
it had not analysed the decision yet. |
