A natural history

• Published date: 11 May 2022
• Publication title: Kapiti News

With Kāpiti Island being one of New Zealand’s most important nature reserves, it connects to the marine reserve, providing a corridor to the mainland of land and sea, protected from pests and human pollution

HISTORY

A baseline survey was done around Kāpiti Island in 1992, before the reserve was established, identifying the habitats, quantities and size of fish and other species present.

This enabled any changes to be measured and identified.

Chris Battershill, who led the survey said, “The state of marine protection in the 1990s was parlous, not so much in terms of the numbers of protected areas, but in terms of their size.

“The survey was designed to establish a baseline dataset for fish, kina, pāua and reef habitat biodiversity/structure on both sides of the island and in areas that would become marine protected areas together with comparable areas that would remain outside of protection.

“Kāpiti was important and only the second temperate marine offshore island protected area for New Zealand (the other being the Poor Knights Islands), areas that are heavily fished/visited.”

“It was one of the largest at the time and is still one of the largest,” Guardians of Kāpiti Marine Reserve chairman Ben Knight said.

“With it being so early in New Zealand’s history of marine protection conversation, at the time it was a nationally significant and quite contentious public and political conversation.”

The reserve has played a role in protecting biological communities in Kāpiti, but just as significant is the role it has played in developing conversations about marine protected areas and how to manage coastal marine areas nationally.

IN THE RESERVE

Some of the species and habitats protected, while not as charismatic as dolphins and whales, are rhodolith and anemone beds.

Rhodolith beds are plants that form a pink, calcium-based structure on the sea bed. Some form like round boulders and as they get older, they grow bigger, building up a structure in the same way coral reefs do.

“This can have fingers and lattice framework to it and can be quite deep, providing shelter for juvenile fish species which are really vulnerable to natural predators,” Ben said.

“They’re effectively habitat-forming, providing a place for other things to shelter and reside in.”

Around the island are the largest known rhodolith beds in the country which the marine reserve plays a large role in protecting.

Their presence in the marine reserve is an indicator of good ecosystem health.

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