Marine Conservation and Restoration

New Zealand led the world in marine conservation, when we established our first, fully protected, marine reserve in 1976. We are now looking at new models for marine conservation and recently began work on the active restoration of marine habitats. Our staff have a long involvement with marine reserve research and monitoring, and are now actively involved in active marine restoration efforts.  

For instance, we assisted with deployments and monitoring of around 90 tonnes of live mussels, starting the journey towards re-establish historic mussel beds in the Hauraki Gulf. We also helped obtain resource consents for trialing the use of waste shell as a substrate for mussel deployments and monitored mussel survival and growth on restored beds. We have conducted habitat surveys for the selection future deployment sites, and our staff have obtained biosecurity permits for mussel restoration and have co-supervised MSc and PhD students studying mussel restoration.