Green Party Would Ban Bottom Trawling Under Its Rivers And Oceans Policy Package

Giles
Dexter Political reporter

The Green Party would
ban bottom trawling and lower the nitrate limit for drinking
water, under its rivers and oceans policy package.

The
party said its ‘Drink Swim Fish’ election policy programme
would deliver clean drinking water, swimmable rivers and
beaches, and healthy oceans for all New
Zealanders.

Co-leader Marama Davidson said clean,
healthy water was a human right, but that was being “taken”
from today’s generations by weak rules allowing industrial
scale exploitation.

“It is madness that in Aotearoa,
up to 100,000 people become sick from unsafe drinking water
every year, popular beaches and swimming spots are closed
every summer, and our once common fish like our iconic
tarakihi populations have been fished to the brink of
collapse,” she said.

Davidson said the government had
“continuously rolled back” protections for environmental
spaces.

The programme, made up of eight different
policy ‘interventions’, had many similarities to what the
Greens had been calling for throughout this Parliamentary
term, and what
it campaigned on in 2023.

The party still wanted
to phase out bottom trawling on seamounts, set netting, and
dredging, and it still wants to legally protect 30 percent
of New Zealand’s moana.

Davidson said better
protection for oceans “isn’t rocket science,” and New
Zealand did not need to accept “short-term private profits”
above the health of its water.

“This should not be a
debate, should not even need to be questioned, that our
rivers should be healthy enough to swim in, that our
drinking water should be safe to drink, and that our oceans
are protected.”

In 2023, the party campaigned on a
Green minister of Oceans and Fisheries to ensure its
policies would be implemented.

While the 2026 policy
document does not make a similar call, Davidson said the
Greens would “never apologise” for putting the health of the
environment, rivers, and oceans first, and the party would
be working to ensure it could put those priorities on the
table after election night.

“We can see already that
this is a bottom line from the people. People are standing
up in opposition to the ongoing exploitation and degradation
of their favourite local places, their beaches. People are
loud and clear, against that. So, these are the bottom lines
of the communities, and it is the Greens who will fix the
rules to meet those needs, to meet those
expectations.”

While the Greens wanted to “strengthen
rules for wastewater discharges” to ensure swimmable rivers,
lakes, and oceans, the policy document did not say precisely
how.

Davidson explained the Greens would give the
water regulator Taumata Arowai more power to enforce laws
and compliance, and make it clear wastewater environmental
performance standards were a minimum.

Similarly, the
document did not set out the nitrate limits the Greens would
set.

The current nitrate limit for drinking water is
11.3mg/L NO-N (nitrate-nitrogen).

Greenpeace had lobbied
for the limit to be lowered to 1mg/L
NO-N.

Denmark agreed to lower limits to 1.3mg/L
NO-N. Davidson said the Greens would look to do the
same.

“They just recently changed theirs because they
found also in their research what we are seeing, which is
there is just too much of a risk for bowel cancer and other
health impacts. It’s just not good enough, and reducing
nitrate levels is simply about putting the health of our
rivers and our community first.”

The policy document
also included proposals to support kaitiakitanga Māori in
marine management and iwi-led conservation and restoration
efforts, review the Quota Management System, as well as
phase out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and “reduce stocking
rates” on a catchment basis.

Prime Minister reluctant
to ban bottom trawling

In April, National MPs
accepted a petition calling for a ban
on bottom trawling.

At the time, Northland MP
Grant McCallum said National would “certainly” take policy
in the marine space to the election, and it was “very much”
looking at seamounts.

But Prime Minister Christopher
Luxon said on Monday it would be “very difficult” to move
away from bottom trawling, and a balance needed to be struck
between the economic and environmental aspects.

He
wanted the sector to think about what more it could be doing
to cause less damage to seamounts.

“There’s 9000
people that work in our fishing industry, it generates
almost $2 billion worth of value to the economy, and about
70 percent of all the fish that we consume inside this
country actually comes from bottom trawling,” he
said.

“If you think about our EEZ and our oceans,
we’re not expanding bottom trawling, it sits about just
under 2 percent of the ocean that we’re involved with, but
having said that, on the other hand, I think there is a real
need for the commercial fishing industry to actually start
to embrace more technology to get better environmental
outcomes.”

‘Confusion and panic’ – Federated
Farmers

Federated Farmers said phasing out synthetic
nitrogen fertiliser would significantly hike the cost of
food.

“It’s estimated global food production would
fall by about 50 percent without modern fertilisers. With
over 60 percent of New Zealand’s exports coming from
agriculture, taking fertiliser off farmers would be economic
suicide,” Federated Farmers’ freshwater spokesperson Mark
Hooper said.

While New Zealand’s existing standards
are consistent with international guidelines, including the
World Health Organisation, the European Union, and
Australia, the Ministry of Health is expected to complete a
technical review into the health effects of nitrate in
drinking water by the end of the year, and Taumata Arowai
will include nitrates when it carries out its usual
five-yearly review of drinking water standards next
year.

Hooper said if the Ministry of Health changed
its advice on the link between nitrates and bowel cancer
then Federated Farmers would welcome any change in drinking
water standards.

“The Green Party making such an
announcement without that health advice risks simply
creating confusion and panic in rural communities,” he
said.

Asked whether the government would lower nitrate
levels if the Ministry of Health recommended it, Luxon said
it was a “hypothetical,” and he would wait for the ministry
to complete its review
first.

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