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Making law to protect the future of our ocean

A future-focused research project co-led by University of Canterbury researcher Associate Professor Elizabeth Macpherson is considering what legal and policy options might exist to protect our oceans for generations to come.

The goal of the 3.5-year project is to provide options for government to improve how we manage and regulate our oceans, taking an interconnected ecosystem approach and ensuring the protection of Māori rights and interests in marine areas. Associate Professor Macpherson, of the University’s School of Law, says the project has a practical focus.

“An ecosystem approach recognises that the ocean is an interconnected system, and people are a part of that system. It doesn’t make sense for our laws to divide the ocean into separate legal frameworks for components of that system that don’t ‘talk to each other’ – like coastal areas and estuaries, fishing, mining, conservation, or transport. There are hundreds of laws and polices impacting on the ocean, from across many areas of policy and practice, which the research team is trying to reconcile.”

“Much of our time is spent engaging with our research partners and collaborators. There are many areas of policy and practice that we need to understand – the Resource Management Act, fisheries law, Māori rights and interests, biodiversity policy, climate change policy, coastal policy – and we have to be across all the new environmental policy proposals being released by the government.”

“This project is intended to support transformational change. The health of our oceans is deteriorating at a rapid rate. There is a real risk that if we don’t change something, New Zealanders won’t be able to use these marine environments in the way that we do today.”

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