6 Marine Farming

Principal Reasons for Adopting: Marine farming can be a sustainable use of the CMA if it is appropriately located and managed. However, the management of marine farming is complex because of the potential to conflict with a range of other uses and values in the coastal environment. The above objective allows for the development of new marine farms, while at the same time ensuring adverse effects on the coastal environment are avoided as far as practicable. Where it is not practicable to completely avoid adverse effects, they must be remedied or mitigated, and this is reflected in Policy 6.1.1.

Marine farms can have adverse effects on the coastal environment either individually, or cumulatively. These effects can include loss of natural character and landscape values, navigation hazards, changes to the nature of benthic communities, impacts on marine ecology (both at the marine farm site and over a larger geographic area), interference with natural coastal processes, loss of open coastal space, and impacts on cultural, amenity, recreational and aesthetic values. The objective provides for marine farming development which is sustainable (s5 RMA) and efficient in terms of the use and development of natural and physical resources (s7(b) RMA). The objective is consistent with the provisions of the RMA and NZCPS (Policy 3.3.1) which allow Environment Waikato to take a precautionary approach to the use and development of the CMA where the environmental effects (including cumulative effects) of the activity are unknown or uncertain.