Laws’ lore
Q&A with Te Ohu Kaimoana Principal Advisor, Laws Lawson
Q) How did you go from working on public water resource projects to helping spearhead Iwi development in the seafood industry?
A) I trained as a water resources engineer and initially got a job with the Water and Soil division of the Ministry of Works and Development (MWD), designing river and flood control schemes, and community water supply and irrigation schemes. I was transferred to the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) when MWD was wound up in mid-1988, where I gained a manager’s role and became involved in local government reform. I was one of three managers involved in the reform of our resource management laws that resulted in the Resource Management Act (RMA). Part of the change was to fold the Marine Farming Act into the RMA. I managed the MfE role in the RMA implementation for the first three years. I then moved onto other resource management issues including the reform of the fisheries legislation, development of New Zealand’s Biodiversity Strategy and was also responsible for New Zealand’s first State of the Environment report. By ’99, I was looking for new challenges. I wanted to move away from talking about sustainability into working in an industry that had sustainability at its base. I have always enjoyed working on what others view as large complex intractable problems involving lots of people. Problems like taking 75 pieces of legislation and merging them into one – or how to get 58 tribes agreeing on how fisheries assets should be shared and set it up in an enduring way. So when the role of Policy and Operations Manager at the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission (which later became Te Ohu Kaimoana) came up, I jumped at the opportunity.
Q) For the uninitiated, can you explain what is Te Ohu Kaimoana (Te Ohu)?
A) Te Ohu is the corporate trustee of seafood settlements between the Crown and Iwi. The Fisheries Settlement was agreed in 1992 and provided Iwi with quota in every fishery (10% or 20% depending when the fishery entered the Quota Management System), a half share of Sealord Group and cash. It is a national settlement and was the first pantribal settlement. Our early work was to facilitate agreement among Iwi over the allocation methodology of the settlement, as well as commercially managing the assets prior to allocation and advocating for improved fisheries management. Subsequently we have assisted individual Iwi to meet the thresholds in the Maori Fisheries Act and also gain agreement with their neighbours on allocation so that the assets can be transferred to them. Today, 56 of the 58 Iwi have been mandated and approximately 95% of fisheries assets are now in Iwi hands. We continue to work with Iwi, Government and industry as Iwi’s specialist fisheries management adviser to advance fisheries management and ensure an ongoing ability for Iwi to use their fisheries settlement assets. There is no national aquaculture settlement – aquaculture settlements are regional and based on aquaculture development within regional council boundaries. Te Ohu’s job in aquaculture is to assist the Crown and Iwi to agree the amount of the Crown’s obligation to Iwi in the region for aquaculture under the M ori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act and in some cases the form it will be received in by Iwi. Once a regional agreement is signed, the assets are transferred to Te Ohu from the Crown. We assist Iwi in a region to reach agreement on allocation of those assets between them and once the allocation agreement is signed, transfer them to Iwi in accordance with that agreement. We also participate in national processes and policy development to help aquaculture develop in an environmentally sustainable manner.
Q)How does it work? How much of the settlement has been settled?
A) Since 1992 there have been three different legislative regimes for creating aquaculture space – from September 1992- December 2004, from January 2005 to September 2011, and since October 2011. Each regime has had different ways of delivering the Crown’s aquaculture settlement obligations for that period. 1992–2004: With the Crown recognising its obligation in 2004 this phase is referred to as precommencement space. That phase inevitably meant settling with Iwi after the space was approved. The statute provided that the 20% could be provided through three ways – new space, existing farms or cash. In late 2008 agreement was reached between the Government and Iwi in all regions in the South Island and the east coast of the Waikato Regional Council region over the value of the pre-commencement obligations in those regions. This represented more than 80% of the space approved across the country in the period. Since then agreement has been reached in nearly all other regions so that more than 95% is now settled. 2005–2011:This legislation created new aquaculture space through the establishment of Aquaculture Management Areas (AMAs). In this phase, Iwi were to receive a representative 20% of the AMA at the time the space was approved. In practice this only affected two regions– In the Wilson’s Bay AMAs in Waikato and the proposed interim AMAs in Tasman and Golden Bay. The AMAs in Wilsons Bay mean that Iwi have authorisations available for 104hec in Wilson’s Bay B and 18hec in Wilson’s C. We’re yet to see anything happen in Tasman District while the Court processes continue. In this phase, the Settlement is delivered only through authorisations for space –Iwi must still apply for resource consents like everyone else. 2011 – onwards: The 2011 reforms created special challenges – if we had stuck with the AMA equivalent it would have meant Iwi getting 20% of each consent or variation. This would have been thin slivers of space everywhere that would have been uneconomic for Iwi and ‘forced marriages’ with other aquaculturalists. This obviously wouldn’t work for anyone so another approach was needed. For this development called ‘New Space’ the Government and Iwi agreed to do this as a prospective settlement. This means Government, industry,Iwi and expert consultants forecast the amount of space expected to be developed over the next 20 years for the key species of mussels, oysters and salmon in all regions. Iwi have the choice to take authorisations for space inside gazetted Aquaculture Settlement Areas (ASAs) or cash or a combination. To allow for this,Iwi and the Crown had to agree on the value of future space. The Iwi collectively in each region then need to agree on a mix of assets and sign a regional agreement with the Crown. In July 2015 Ministers signed Regional New Space Agreements with Iwi of Tasman, Marlborough and Auckland. We also have Iwi in the East Coast of the Waikato region, Canterbury and Southland regions actively working with the Crown to identify appropriate sites for ASAs. In Northland once the legislated deadline was passed and it became clear that not all Iwi in the region would sign a regional agreement, the Minister for Primary Industries transferred the agreed settlement assets to Te Ohu for allocation to Iwi. Overall we’ve made huge progress with this phase of the settlement -it’s also more than 60% complete.
Q) How do you determine who is entitled to what?
A) We don’t. The Aquaculture Settlement Act doesn’t have a detailed allocation methodology in it – it requires the Iwi of a region to develop and agree their own. There is a headline default model based on each Iwi’s coastline shares of the regional council boundary but that may not be adequate where the assets are spatial – we all know one patch of water is not necessarily equal to another in productivity. The Iwi of a region must develop and agree a model of allocation that all agree with. In Northland that will involve nine Iwi, in Auckland four Iwi and in Marlborough nine Iwi that must all agree and sign the allocation agreement. Once we have that we can then transfer each their agreed share.
Q) Do you encourage Iwi to take the money or the space?
A) No, that’s not our job. It must be entirely a decision for each Iwi. Our job is to provide them with all the information they seek and leave them to make the business decisions on what option suits their aspirations – they are their assets!
Q) For Iwi that go into aquaculture, should Iwi ‘go it alone’ or act in partnerships?
A) Again that is a decision for Iwi and it will depend on what their aspirations and skills and capacity are. There could be benefits for both parties and it’s something to assess but they must make sure there’s a good fit with any partner in terms of values and aspirations.
Q)How do the consenting processes of the RMA and Coastal Policy Statements affect Iwi aquaculture development?
A) The same as what’s happening to the rest of industry. The current processes and the uncertainty involved make Iwi hesitate in terms of the high cost with possible low reward - there needs to be improvements to those processes and considerations to improve certainty. We are supportive of the work being done on improved national directions.
Q) You’re a director of the Deepwater Group, and Aquaculture New Zealand – and the current chair and founding CEO of Fisheries Inshore New Zealand – where do you think the opportunities are greatest for Iwi.
A) There are exciting opportunities in all of those and it’s a matter of getting a right mix for each Iwi that suits where they want to go. There are plenty of challenges in fisheries and in aquaculture. I think it’s not a matter of simply looking at a business case. It’s also about what fits with how an Iwi wants to develop and in what areas. That’s really not my business, it’s their’s. My job is to make sure management of all those things creates or maintain conditions that allow sound businesses that care for the environment and can be profitable in doing so. n
Te Ohu Kaimoana annual report
