TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AUTHORITY HEARING Chatham Rock Phosphate Limited Marine Consent Application HEARING at KINGSGATE HOTEL, 100 GARNETT AVENUE, TE RAPA, HAMILTON on 30 OCTOBER 2014 DECISION-MAKING COMMITTEE: Neil Walter (Chairperson) Dr Nicki Crauford (EPA Board Representative) Dr Gregory Ryder (Committee Member) Lennie Johns (Committee Member) David Hill (Committee Member)
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Transcript
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AUTHORITY
HEARING
Chatham Rock Phosphate Limited
Marine Consent Application
HEARING at
KINGSGATE HOTEL, 100 GARNETT AVENUE,
TE RAPA, HAMILTON
on 30 OCTOBER 2014
DECISION-MAKING COMMITTEE:
Neil Walter (Chairperson)
Dr Nicki Crauford (EPA Board Representative)
Dr Gregory Ryder (Committee Member)
Lennie Johns (Committee Member)
David Hill (Committee Member)
Page 1729
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
[9.03 am]
CHAIRPERSON: Good morning and welcome to day 17 of the hearing. A
couple of changes to the schedule so far, there may be more. First, the
audio link hasn’t worked and so one submitter this morning and one 5
from yesterday are being invited to link up to us in Wellington during
one the sessions down there.
That leaves us with either three or four submitters this morning and at
this stage we don’t have confirmation I think of three of the four for 10
this afternoon. So we will just work our way through anyway and see
where we get to before lunch. It could be an early lunch. Is that rain
out there? But this is the Waikato, surely.
[9.05 am] 15
All right, so first on the list, Nicole Hancock, welcome and the floor is
yours.
MS HANCOCK: All right, so I have prepared a document and I am just going 20
to read it out.
All right, my name is Nicole Hancock and I have a master of sciences
in marine science from the University of Waikato and 13 years’
experience working in marine science, 10 of those years were at NIWA 25
in Hamilton doing benthic ecology and coastal sedimentation. Now, I
am an environmental consultant among other things. I also worked on
the TTR seabed mining case as an independent consultant helping my
client understand the science and prepare their submission and expert
evidence. 30
I was granted permission to act as an expert in this case specialising in
benthic science and sedimentation but due to other commitments I
chose to remove myself from the expert role and instead today I am
presenting at a general submitter. 35
Benthic ecology. As I am sure you have already heard the Chatham
Rise is an area rich in sea life with many different animal communities
living on and in the sea floor including corals, sponges, bryozoans,
brachiopods, giant isopods and bivalves to name but a few. 40
In their joint witness statement benthic scientists agree the Chatham
Rise is one of the most productive and distinctive ecosystems in the
New Zealand EEZ. It contains unique benthic communities, some of
which are protected by the Wildlife Act, and many of which are used to 45
a low sediment environment and are considered sensitive according to
Page 1730
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
the EEZ Act. Additionally, 90 percent of the seafloor where proposed
mining is to occur is in fact a benthic protected area.
The Chatham Rise seafloor is connected through the food web to the
life in the water just above the seafloor where there are fish, skates, 5
rays and sharks. Higher in the water column we find other species of
fish as well as whales, dolphins, orca and other mammals. The water
column is connected in turn to the air above where we find seabirds
including several species of albatross, gull, petrel and tern so it is not
just the seafloor we are considering mining but a web of life. 10
The proposed mining would take strips out of the bottom half metre of
the seafloor and its life would be sucked up, pulverised and spat out
again. I really don’t like that idea, it upsets me. However, there is no
argument from experts from either side about the fact that this is what 15
would happen if mining were to go ahead.
Some of the largest seafloor species on the Chatham Rise are very old,
much older than any of us are and ever will be. Not only are some of
these species rare and protected many animals, such as corals but also 20
sponges, hydrozoans and bryozoans, also provide important ecosystem
services by providing a three-dimensional structure and habitat on the
seafloor so that other animals may make the seafloor their home.
Seafloor communities depend on these larger older habitat forming 25
animals in a similar way that animals of the forest rely on the trees,
shrubs and grasses. Larger seafloor animals provide shelter, refuge and
something to attach to and grow on. They slow water currents and
create microclimates generally greatly enriching the seafloor
topography. 30
Without this three-dimensional structure animals are left with a flat
two-dimensional plane with few places to shelter, hide or grow thus
reducing their chances of survival. This idea bothers me, these animals
have lived in this part of the world for much longer than us, what gives 35
us the right to destroy this?
In their joint witness statement benthic scientists agreed there are
knowledge gaps about the structure and distribution of Chatham Rise
seafloor communities. They also agree they have not been able to fully 40
consider the role of seafloor communities. They have only covered
trophic aspects and left out biodiversity, nutrient cycling and habitat
provision. They agree there is uncertainty about Chatham Rise
biodiversity due to the lack of sampling meaning they may be unaware
of rare or cryptic seafloor communities. They agree there is a lack of 45
knowledge about seabed communities in the area surrounding the
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
mining site including the prospecting area. Benthic experts agree they
cannot predict overall mining impacts with confidence.
Sedimentation. The mining process will also cause an increase in
suspended sediment concentrations, SSCs, and deposition rates over a 5
certain distance beyond the direct mining site. I am concerned that the
animals and habitats outside the mining strips will also be negatively
affected due to indirect effects of increased SSC and deposition.
[9.10 am] 10
My main concern comes from knowing that many of the habitat and
structure providing animals living on the seafloor are suspension
feeders such as sponges, hydrozoans and corals. Suspension feeders
rely on filtering the water to get their food. They are negatively 15
affected by even small increases in SSC and deposition. This is
because they have to spend more time and energy on filtering water and
separating inedible sediment particles from food. This causes them to
lose condition and do poorly or even starve to death. In other words
their resilience is lowered and ecosystem health is negatively affected. 20
Benthic experts agree the reproduction larval settlement and early
development of coral, a suspension feeder, would be negatively
affected.
My second main concern comes from knowing all the work on 25
sediment distribution and deposition thus far is based on modelling.
There are no actual data and the models are not verified.
The benthic joint witness statement says the spatial and temporal extent
of indirect sediment impacts are uncertain and they have insufficient 30
information to assess effects of sedimentation on the seafloor. They
also say they have no information on sensitivities of animals or
communities for changes in the sediment regime. They also say mining
methods have not been finalised.
35
These issues concern me. What also concerns me is that much of the
proposed mining area is not well mapped. This creates a great deal of
uncertainty. It is not possible to determine consequences of mining if
we do not know what is there. This is a tricky environment. Two
major bodies of water one cold from the Antarctic and the other warm 40
from the Pacific of very different density, temperature and character are
converging over a large area of complex bathymetry. This is not an
easy environment to work in or understand.
How can it be? Uncertainties aside, quite frankly I am surprised this 45
case has gone as far as this hearing. How is it possible that a section of
Page 1732
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
a seafloor set aside as a benthic protected area with endemic and
protected species of animals, as well as economic and cultural value,
can even be considered for seabed mining? How did the applicant even
gain a mining permit for this area?
5
The Chatham Rise has been very well known as a very biologically
productive area for a long time, important for fish, bird and mammal
species. Furthermore, while I do not condone commercial fishing
bottom trawling practices because they are also destructive of the
seafloor, I will say I know the Chatham Rise supports 60 percent of 10
commercial fishing in New Zealand. Mining in this area would clearly
put that enterprise at risk with potential negative economic
consequences.
The phosphate argument. But here we are talking about the details of 15
the consequences of seabed mining in the Chatham Rise so what is the
phosphate for? The Chatham Rock Phosphate marine consent
application and environmental impact assessment opens by saying
New Zealand needs to secure its own supply of phosphate for fertiliser
for agricultural productivity for the wellbeing of New Zealanders and 20
the New Zealand economy.
But here’s the thing, New Zealand lakes and rivers have a serious
problem caused by excess phosphate. Regional councils and scientists
have been trying to contain this phosphate problem for a number of 25
years. Not only is it costing us, taxpayers, the New Zealand economy,
a huge amount of time and money the source of the problem, which is
too much phosphate going on the land, is not even being discussed.
So why is phosphate a problem? In brief rain washes phosphate 30
fertiliser off the land and into our fresh waterways including streams,
rivers, wetlands and lakes. Phosphate attaches to sediment and settles
to the bottom of our lakes where it drives toxic algal blooms in lakes as
Rotoiti, Rotorua. Rotoehu and Lake Ellesmere to name but a few. This
causes not only environmental problems but also economic and quality 35
of life ones like not being able to swim, problems with tourism, fishing
and that kind of thing. On top of this phosphate is bound to other
bioaccumulating nasty compounds including cadmium and uranium.
Adding heavy metals to our agricultural land will not benefit the
wellbeing of our agriculture industry and economy. 40
So before I talk any more about the consequence of mining our seabed
for more phosphate, it makes sense to me to spend a moment looking at
alternatives. There are local methods both under development and
currently proven for recovering, recycling and reusing phosphate with 45
Page 1733
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
positive downstream effects reaching harbours and estuaries, the
nursery ground of many of our fisheries.
Here are just a few quick examples. Bruno is a freshwater scientist for
the Waikato Regional Council. He developed a method whereby koi 5
carp, an invasive pest bottom feeding fish that naturally bioaccumulates
phosphate at it feeds, are trapped and turned into a special potting mix
which Raglan Harbour Care use for growing native seedlings. The
trees were then planted around wetlands thereby locking up phosphate,
providing shade over waterways, reducing light to prevent other 10
problem aquatic plants and thus closing the loop.
[9.15 am]
Three weeks ago Bruno won the Kudos award in recognition of his 15
work. With support his work can be turned into a non-commercial
venture that not only removes pest fish from our waterways but also
gives an environmentally friendly phosphate recycling opportunity and
provides jobs supporting the New Zealand economy and people.
20
Rebecca Evers is a PhD student in the final stages of her research at the
University of Waikato. She has been investigating how constructed
wetlands and silt traps can capture and recycle phosphorus enriched
sediment from dairy farm runoff. One of the dairy farmers Rebecca is
working with, Andrew Hayes, is already underway with reducing his 25
farm’s environmental footprint by following a whole farm management
plan created by Alison Dewes, owner of Headlands Agribusiness
Consultants.
Recent analysis of Andrew’s silt trap found an average of 2,000 30
milligrams of total recoverable phosphorus per kilo of dry matter.
Andrew has now been spreading sediment from his silt trap back on his
fields for the last five years reducing the need for additional phosphate
fertiliser and reducing his costs. Before Rebecca’s research Andrew
wouldn’t have considered the sludge accumulating in the silt traps to be 35
a resource. Andrew is one of the top 10 most profitable farmers in the
Waikato region.
Charlie is investigating a way to treat dairy farm effluent using a series
of ponds and constructed wetlands to not only clean the water and 40
recycle phosphate and other nutrients but to actually harness the
nutrients to grow a certain species of algae in a controlled manner that
will then be used as food for an already successful aquaculture venture
to grow whitebait and eels. This venture has been successful in
securing initial funding of about $50,000 from both the Bay of Plenty 45
Regional Council and the Sustainable Farming Fund to start up his first
Page 1734
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
trial. If successful his venture would provide another method of
cleaning water of phosphate and other nutrients and contribute to the
local economy by creating a saleable product and a number of jobs.
AgResearch and Landcare. I wish I had another good story to tell 5
about these guys and their research, however their recent application to
investigate phosphate recycling in Waikato peat soils was declined,
perhaps that needs to be reconsidered.
At the moment New Zealand’s agriculture fertiliser approach is a bit 10
like bucket chemistry, dumping large amounts of fertiliser all over the
land with very little prior analysis of what is required. If we look
overseas we can find examples of precision farming. In the USA and
Japan they are using aerial footage from robotic craft or drones with
normal and infrared cameras to find and target areas of pasture that 15
need nutrients or water. Could this be the future of farming in
New Zealand? Perhaps so. Already in Raglan, New Zealand, we have
Aeronavics, a small business employing almost a dozen staff, who
specialist in robotic craft with the technology to survey our farms. This
technology is here and it is growing fast. 20
If the justification for mining the seafloor with its certain damage and
uncertain risks is to secure New Zealand’s supply of phosphate
fertiliser, but we already have an excess of phosphate in our fresh
waterways that is causing problems plus phosphate carries other nasty 25
compounds onto the land with it. And we already have proven
methods for changing the fertiliser approach and we already have
proven New Zealand based examples of how to recycle excess
phosphate, cleaning up our fresh waterways and providing jobs. Plus
we have more ideas on phosphate recycling if there were funding and 30
the capability to move towards precision farming, why would we dig
up our biologically, economically, culturally, productive, protected and
treasured seafloor? Our planet’s resources are finite, we need to use
them sparingly, thoughtfully and carefully.
35
In summary I think the seabed mining case has given us an opportunity
to look closely not just at the issues around mining the seabed but for
alternatives to our phosphate problem which is far inland and may
require a change in thinking.
40
I think my work in benthic ecology and marine sciences has given me a
different perspective when it comes to understanding and feeling
connected to the seabed. I have observed it for many years through low
tide walks, snorkelling, driving and hour upon hour of underwater
video footage so I have grown fond of the seafloor. 45
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
[9.20 am]
Now when I look out at sea I don’t just see the water surface, I see
seafloor landscapes and communities, shoals of fish and seabirds, a
web of sea life, in the way that someone hiking through the forest or a 5
farm sees familiar trees and hears familiar birds and feels a sense of
connection. I see rocky ridges the size of houses covered in a dozen
kinds of seaweed with starfish, crabs, sponges, crayfish, stingrays,
sharks and the flash of a shoal of 1,000 small fish.
10
I see a sandstone channel covered with sponges and a loan great white
shark. I see inquisitive baby snapper the size of a milk bottle top
hovering above a sandy seafloor.
Like a gardener who is fond of the work of her earthworms, so I am 15
fond of the work of the critters of the seafloor who form the foundation
of the food web reaching all the way to the seabirds. That is their home
and they do good work.
So when I hear about an application to remove the top metre or so of 20
the seafloor I feel distressed, there is no doubt, it has been clearly said,
the seafloor and what lives in it and on it would be destroyed.
I think New Zealand needs to look carefully at opportunities to reduce,
reuse and recycle phosphate. Cultural benefits of recycling phosphate 25
would include reparation to Māori or to its taonga, and the wider
community. Many non-Māori people in New Zealand are also
developing a connection to the environment.
Much of the seafloor where proposed mining is to occur is a benthic 30
protected area for a reason. Experts agree the Chatham Rise is one of
the most productive and distinctive ecosystems in the New Zealand
EEZ, it contains animals protected by the Wildlife Act and has unique
benthic communities that are used to low sediment environment and are
considered sensitive according to the EEZ Act. 35
Benthic experts agree there is a great deal of information about the
seafloor and its contribution to our ecosystem that is not sampled, not
known or not considered in this case.
40
The mining process will also cause an increase in SEC and deposition
rates beyond the direct mining site.
My question to the DMC is from what you have heard about SEC and
deposition modelling, can you be sure you know what the sediment 45
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
effects of the mining would be and do you know for sure how far the
plume will spread?
While I understand this trial has to run within a short timeframe,
preparation time prior to lodging the application was not short, yet CRP 5
have not even finalised their mining methods. There is no excuse for
this lack of data resulting in large uncertainties, making it impossible
for experts to predict potential mining impacts with confidence.
In the expert joint witness statement there is discussion of adaptive 10
management approach methods in the face of uncertainty. However,
considering we are talking about possible effects on our most
productive and distinctive marine ecosystem in New Zealand’s EEZ, I
do not think experimenting is a good idea. More data is required.
15
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, Ms Hancock. That’s a very
thoughtful and very well presented statement. Much appreciated.
MS HANCOCK: Thank you.
20
CHAIRPERSON: And although we won’t respond to the question you pose to
us, because we’re not meant to, I hope you will be prepared to respond
to questions we might pose to you.
MS HANCOCK: All right. 25
CHAIRPERSON: David, do you have any?
MR HILL: Yes, thank you, Ms Hancock, nicely put.
30
Can I just ask you or can I pose, I guess, a rhetorical question to you, I
guess on the basis of what you’ve told us I’m not persuaded that
anymore additional data would make any difference to your conclusion.
MS HANCOCK: I think it really would. Like, from my experience of 35
working at NIWA, we did lots of habitat mapping and there’s a certain
process that you follow when you do habitat mapping, you start out by
getting a broad sweep of the whole area with the most basic form of –
you know, you get the bathymetry, which I think they have, and then
you’d go back and you’d target areas with side scan sonar and 40
multibeam, and I get the feeling from what I’ve looked at – and then
you’d go back again and you’d sample the seafloor, and I realise it’s
very deep water and that’s hard to do, like it’s hard to do in 50 metres,
it’s hard to do in 30 metres, so in 300 metres I can understand it is
really hard to do, but it’s possible. 45
Page 1737
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
MR HILL: That is possible, how would that then give you any comfort about
the project going ahead? It’s simply going to provide more information
about the sort of seafloor that you seem to be opposed to any mining
on.
5
[9.25 am]
MS HANCOCK: I am not opposed to mining entirely, I’m opposed to mining
that can’t be proven to be sustainable and I’m concerned about mining
areas where we haven’t mapped it properly and we’re not sure what’s 10
there, like in the joint witness statement, the benthic scientists agreed
that there could be rare and cryptic species that haven’t been
discovered because not enough mapping has been done and I’m of the
same opinion that there could be things there because there isn’t yet
enough data to be able to rule out that they’re not. 15
MR HILL: Yes, all right. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Good of you to answer a rhetorical question. Someone
once said where would the world be without rhetorical questions. 20
Greg?
DR RYDER: Yes, thanks. I had a similar question to Mr Hill really, so he’s
stolen my thunder to some degree, but I presume your concerns about
the mining would remain regardless or not of whether the benthic 25
protection area is present, so if there was no BPA in that area, your
concerns about mining the seabed would remain? It wouldn’t change
your view at all?
MS HANCOCK: Well, it would probably would, I mean I think the benthic 30
protected area is really there for a reason, you know, it’s a heavily
fished area, and it’s a highly productive area and they’ve set that aside
since, I think it was 2007, for no fishing. When they do the bottom
trawling they’ve got really, like weights as tall as me rolling along the
seafloor and that also breaks the structure of the seafloor and rips it up 35
and knocks it over, and so they’ve set that aside for a reason, because
they know that there’s, you know, important communities there, and in
order to be able to continue fishing they need sort of like a bit of a park
where things can remain the same. I can’t really wrap my head around
the idea of if it wasn’t there. 40
DR RYDER: I mean the seabed would still be destroyed by the mining
process that’s being proposed. When I mean destroyed, up to half a
metre or so of the bed is going to be removed, along with everything in
it. 45
Page 1738
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
MS HANCOCK: That would be destroyed, yes.
DR RYDER: So given the way you’ve written your submission here about
your concerns about the seabed and protection of it, it seems to me that
whether or not the BPA is there wouldn’t make much difference to 5
your views on that.
MS HANCOCK: Well, I think it’s a matter of scale. Like, if you have a huge
area which you’ve mapped and you know what’s there and you know
that there’s repetition of the communities over a large area, thousands 10
of square kilometres, and you want to take some of that, I’m actually
okay with that because I can understand, you know, like it’s the same
as farming, you have lots of forest, you understand what’s there, you
don’t go in willy nilly and rip it out and then go “oh, woops, that was
actually really unique”, you go in, you map it, you know what’s there, 15
which is easy to do on the land.
DR RYDER: Yes, well, that’s interesting about the scale issue. So in terms of
mapping, what area of seabed, in your view, would be required to be
mapped before you had confidence of what is present within the 20
proposed mining area is either representative or found elsewhere quite
extensively or not?
MS HANCOCK: Yes, well, I know it’s a big ask because it’s a really difficult
area to work in because of the depth, but I think – well, for a start I 25
think the benthic protected area needs to be really well mapped and the
whole prospecting area really needs to be well mapped. It’s a lot, which
I can understand, and you can’t – I know that when we did our
mapping you don’t sample every single spot, but you do do the broad
scale stuff, you do the sonar and the multibeam because it gives you an 30
idea of where to go next with your more intensive sampling, your grab
samples, your ROV samples or your video samples.
But, you know, ROV and video, you can only look at what’s on the
surface, you can’t see what’s in the seafloor, and you know all the 35
critters in the seafloor are also providing important information, so you
do, you need samples, and I know it’s a hard place to work, but if
you’re going to rip parts of it out, you need to be pretty sure that it’s
living somewhere else so that it can be kept alive somewhere.
40
DR RYDER: Okay.
MS HANCOCK: Does that make sense?
DR RYDER: Yes, thank you. 45
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
DR CRAUFORD: I’m interested in what you’ve put here regarding reusing
phosphate and phosphate recycling, can you tell me a little bit about the
AgResearch and Land Care application that was declined?
[9.30 am] 5
MS HANCOCK: Not a lot really because I was aware that I was going a little
bit beyond the scope when I started talking about phosphate recycling, I
am a marine scientist not a freshwater scientist, so I kept it pretty short
and really I only put that example in there just to show that there are 10
people who would really like to work on this and that people are
thinking about it and that we do have options to do that kind of work.
So what I know is that was pretty recent I think and they wanted to
look at phosphate recycling in peat soils because I think peat has 15
particular issues with phosphate. I am not a soil scientist so I do not
really know sorry, yeah. I could find out for you.
DR CRAUFORD: Well no I am just interested because I mean it would
impact say the market for phosphate over the next 25 years. 20
MS HANCOCK: Yeah, I think these are all affected.
DR CRAUFORD: The other comment you make in fact in the last sentence,
you refer to Chatham Rise as the most productive and distinctive 25
marine ecosystem within New Zealand’s EEZ. Can you just explain
the evidence you have for that?
MS HANCOCK: That is taken from the Benthic Expert Joint Witness
Statement. 30
DR CRAUFORD: Okay.
MS HANCOCK: Yeah.
35
DR CRAUFORD: Thank you.
MR JOHNS: Thank you Chair. Hello Ms Hancock.
MS HANCOCK: Hello. 40
MR JOHNS: I am interested in your statement on page 7 and I will just read it
because it just caught my attention, just if you would like to offer any
sort of detail around it. Cultural benefits of phosphate recycling would
include reparation to Māori etcetera, so what do you actually mean by 45
that?
Page 1740
Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
MS HANCOCK: My understanding is that water is taonga to Māori and it is
an area that is pretty new to me because I have been really focussed on
being a very databased scientist for a really long time, and now I am
starting to enjoy working more in science communication with Māori 5
in the wider community. So it is still new to me but I am getting the
sense that keeping the water clean isn’t just about ecology and science
for Māori – correct me if I am wrong but this is my understanding – it
is also quite a culturally important treasure to keep water clean.
10
Yeah my understanding is still pretty rudimentary but that is what I was
trying to get across there.
MR JOHNS: Okay, thanks very much.
15
CHAIRPERSON: Any questions from the floor? If not, thank you very much
Ms Hancock, much appreciated.
MS HANCOCK: Thank you.
20
CHAIRPERSON: Next on the list is Tui Allen, is possibly here in spirit but
not – you are, okay, oh yes.
MS ALLEN: Excuse me, I am a bit flabbergasted, I expecting to be the first
one after morning tea, but I will cope. 25
CHAIRPERSON: Just take your time and we will be listening.
MS ALLEN: Okay, I am Tui Allen and I am speaking on behalf of the
ultimate indigenous people of our planet, the cetaceans. My friend 30
Geoff Phillips invented that term, ultimate indigenous people, for his
marine themed film that he made. In this talk I am hoping to convince
you to begin to think of cetaceans as just that, the ultimate indigenous
people of planet ocean. I will mention some other special marine
beings also. 35
[9.35 am]
I am coming at this from a very different angle from your previous
speaker because I am a fiction author, here is my dolphin book Ripple.
It sells all over the world and has been translated for sale in Europe 40
quite recently. It is very relevant to this whole consent application. I
am here to ask you to consider not just all the facts about dolphins that
you would already have heard from scientists like Liz Slooten and so
on, but also to think way beyond them. I want you to think about all
the many, many facts that we don’t yet know about these beings and 45
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
their environment. It is those facts, the ones we do not yet know about
that are my business as a fiction author.
I promise you there is far more to know than what we already do. We
discover new facts every day and there are no signs of that process 5
slowing down. We did not know about the effects possums would have
on our forests when we introduced them but we stupid humans
introduced them anyway. It was only ignorance – only – think of the
damage that one piece of ignorance caused. And our human ignorance
of the oceans is huge – why? – because we are land animals, the ocean 10
is not our patch.
Consider this, an old family has lived in harmony during centuries of
residence, sharing the produce of their orchards and gardens fairly
among many neighbours. A new family moves into the street and sets 15
up camp in the orchard belonging to the old family. The new family
has no idea of the importance of this produce to the old family and its
surrounding community so they steal all the fruit and sell it without
permission from the owners. They then decide the old family may
have treasure buried in their backyard so they start digging up the vege 20
garden, destroying its delicate balances in the process, and poisoning
everything growing there. The old family and all its neighbours must
starve because of the ignorance and blind greed of the new arrivals.
This is exactly what any kind of seabed mining may do in our oceans. 25
We humans are the new neighbours on ocean street and we do not give
a damn about the ones who were there before us and who own the
whole place. It makes me ashamed to be human.
Digging up the sea floor makes a lot of noise. Dolphins and other 30
cetaceans depend on hearing for their very lives. They have ten times
the human brain capacity for processing sound. They literally see with
their hearing. For a dolphin to be forced to listen to loud unnatural
noises is the exact equivalent of forcing a human to stare open-eyed
into the sun. But they cannot close their hearing the way we can close 35
our eyes. Noise is a strongly suspected cause of many cetaceans
strandings.
As a fiction author I put myself into the mind of a cetacean victim of
unnatural undersea noise and describe it this way – there came a great 40
noise like a clap of thunder, but not from the sky, it struck us from
under water so there was no escape. We scattered at the first terrific
blast, shocked into disarray and isolated in the void created in the
aftermath, our equilibrium shattered, hearing gone, navigation lost. It
was a kind of death. To lose sound was to lose the sea itself, to drift 45
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
loose among stars. There was no time to recover before the second hit
and then too many more. We lost all reason in that hour.
[9.40 am]
5
We fiction authors often concern ourselves with the what-ifs of the
world. I have concerned myself for years with what if the dolphins are
smarter than we are, so here are the facts that we do know – three, three
facts – cetaceans have brains the size of ours or bigger. Cetaceans
evolved 50 million years before humans stopped squabbling over 10
bananas in the treetops. Thirdly, those cetacean brains have whole
zones inside them that scientists admit to being mystified by. Fifty
million years before we evolved – what has been going on in those
great brains all this time? We do not have a clue. Ought we not to give
these beings the benefit of the doubt? 15
Humans dream of one day finding company in the universe. We
wonder if out there in the stars somewhere there is someone else
perhaps even smarter than we are. We look through great telescopes,
we include messages to aliens in our spaceships, we read stories, watch 20
TV programmes and movies about what it will be like when we finally
discover intelligence out there. Meanwhile we may be missing
something right here on planet earth as we call it – earth! – why ever
did we give it such a name? Doesn’t earth mean soil or dirt? Is that
how we treat it? But perhaps we humans can forgive ourselves this 25
naming error. This is a marine planet and we are only land animals.
Ocean is surely a more appropriate name. Perhaps here in the waters of
planet ocean there is intelligent life more fascinating than anything we
might never find out there. For 50 million years the great whales ruled 30
our pristine prehistoric oceans and since oceans cover most of our
planet you could argue that they rule the world. Down all those
millennia their huge brains have been working, thinking, creating,
perhaps even calculating and rationalising, but always evolving in
directions unguessed by humanity. 35
Have you ever considered how much we expend our human intellect on
matters material? Cetaceans evolve their intellects without this vast
distraction because they have no hands. No hands, no handicap. So
whatever they are thinking of other than food must be beyond the 40
material. No need either to waste brain power on fine motor control of
complicated limbs like legs, arms, fingers and toes. All that brain
power freed up for the consideration of matters perhaps social, abstract,
romantic, mathematical or even spiritual. No written language, thus
memory must be vital. Yet we were all so surprised to discover 45
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
recently that dolphins recognise old friends and relations even after 20
years of separation.
Goodness even we newly evolved humans have been known to
recognise people after longer spans than that. Why should we be 5
surprised? We could try to be like them. Prepare ourselves beforehand
for days, hours, weeks, by thinking non-materially, watch film of them,
study their different breeds and incarnations until we have soaked up
all human knowledge of these beings. Then travelling in imagination
only – I can help you with that because I am a fiction author – go into 10
the silence of the ocean and feel their world until we start to live it –
and this is how I write. Feel their water on our skin, dream our minds
and bodies into theirs, feel their presences and return the love and
respect they give to us, drift, relax and allow the ocean to support and
caress us as it does them. 15
[9.45 am]
When we have done all this often in mind we may be ready to meet
them in person, go out on the real ocean to a place they inhabit. In time 20
there may be a great flowering of understanding and they may teach us
to escape our human rigidity to let our intellect float into the universe,
exploring beyond all our previous abilities.
Visit their world at night. I have crossed oceans under sail, in the little 25
wooden boat that was my first marital home. This is what gives me my
link to the ocean. On the night sea the near silence is beautiful and the
stars can feel close enough to touch. Do cetaceans have intellectual
links to those stars perhaps beyond our understanding?
30
Thinking we can understand cetaceans might be like some newly
evolved small rodent thinking it can understand human thought
processes. Perhaps one day we could learn from the cetaceans how to
transcend the limits of our materialistic lives and discover spiritual
wonders that send all our technologies to the trash can. Or, we could be 35
like the new family in neighbourhood ocean and just barge out there
into their home and rip it all up with our big noisy machines and just let
the old family starve.
One other thing, I have been told about the tiny octopus that is at risk 40
from this particular mining operation. There is a scene in my book
where a tiny rare octopus found somewhere in the oceans near New
Zealand saves a life because chemicals in its ink have healing
properties. We do not know enough about what we are about to
destroy to just barge ahead and destroy it just for money. If it means 45
the world must have less fertiliser that might mean we must eat less
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
meat and dairy and that will only help human health and save
thousands of innocent land animal lives. Not only that, octopuses are
another highly intelligent species about whom too little is known, and
there may be a million other marine species we know even less about.
We risk it all for bad fertiliser and money. 5
Please, in respect for the ultimate indigenous people of this marine
planet, I beg you to decline this consent application. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Ms Allen, it is a most interesting and 10
thought provoking and refreshing approach to the matters under
consideration. We have heard from a wide range of scientists,
economists, lawyers, many of them with quite polarised different
views, they cannot all be right, but you are the first person to have
confessed to being an author of fiction, congratulations on that. And I 15
will check whether the committee has any fictional questions to address
to you.
MR HILL: Yes, thank you Ms Allen, a very evocative submission, thank you
very much. 20
MS ALLEN: Thank you.
DR RYDER: No, no questions but I agree about the intelligence of octopus.
25
MS ALLEN: Oh good, thank you.
DR CRAUFORD: Thank you Ms Allen I have no questions but I like the idea
of calling the earth ocean, I think that is good.
30
MS ALLEN: Thank you.
MR JOHNS: Thank you very much, I enjoyed that.
CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thanks very much Ms Allen. Next on my list, Linda 35
Sylvester. Just to clarify, Linda is - - -
MS PENN: I am not Linda.
CHAIRPERSON: No, so you are presenting for her? 40
MS PENN: Yes, she asked me, she emailed Gen and said could I please just
read for her.
CHAIRPERSON: Okay, see how much of this you can pack into the allocated 45
time. Go for it.
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Kingsgate Hotel, Hamilton 30.10.14
MS PENN: Mine and Linda’s you mean?
CHAIRPERSON: Yeah, do you want to do the two in sequence and then be
open to questions? 5
MS PENN: Yes, good as gold.
CHAIRPERSON: That is fine, okay.
10
[9.50 am]
MS PENN: Okay, so my name is June Penn, I am reading on behalf of Linda
Silvester.
15
Linda says, “I oppose the application for the following reasons. Since
my original submission which spoke of concerns around the
uncertainty of effects of the proposed activity on the receiving
environment nothing much as has changed. If anything the
uncertainties have been further highlighted during the expert evidence. 20
My view is supported by the recent EPA Staff Report.
“These concerns are in the areas of trace metal concentration and
sediment in the water column; potential toxicity of mine tailings and
benthic fauna; the levels of uranium and other radionuclides in the 25
water column; radiological risk associated with the release of uranium
and radionuclides; current state of the area with respect to oxygen
concentrations; the effects of noise generation from the mining vessel
and equipment on marine mammals; impacts on seabirds from vessel
lighting and mining equipment; information about microbial groups 30
and the biogeochemical cycles they regulate; validity of the sediment
plume model, particularly with respects to inputs into the model; rate
and recovery of benthic habitats, economic impacts on fisheries; effects
on Māori and Moriori existing interests and effects on human health.
35
“Too many of the effects cannot be adequately if at all mitigated. The
negative effects this open cast seabed mining operation will have on the
Chatham Rise is expected to leave an irreparable dead zone in the total
area mined with further destructive consequences to the adjacent areas.
Even the stage 1 part of the operation of 820 square kilometres of our 40
seabed would be too much to put at risk. Consenting this application
would be at cost to our healthy marine ecosystems to the point where it
would, among other implications, have disastrous impact on our