Prize trip an eye-opening experience

Dunedin schoolboy Cormac McAvinue (9) was a winner of an annual competition to be able to snorkel at Poor Knights Islands marine reserve off the east coast of Northland. His father, Allied Press reporter Shawn McAvinue, accompanied him on the trip and asks why it is taking so long for Otago to get its own marine reserve for children to enjoy.

Dunedin pupil Cormac McAvinue was one of the 32 pupils and 30 guardians from across New Zealand to win an all-expenses-paid trip to snorkel Poor Knights Islands marine reserve in Northland.

For Otago children to enter the Experiencing Marine Reserves competition, they had to submit a video of a rāhui in their region.

A rāhui is a form of tapu, restricting access to or use of an area or resource by people in the area.

Cormac focused on the rāhui prohibiting pāua harvesting in Warrington.

The other winning children from different parts of New Zealand were selected because of a project they had undertaken, which had included snorkelling at a marine reserve in their area.

Cormac was told he was a winner a week before our flight departed from Dunedin to Whangarei.

The news of the win started the nerves jangling because Cormac had never snorkeled before and I was under doctor’s orders to stay out of the water in the week leading up to the trip, so a wound could heal.

So with no chance to give Cormac any snorkelling experience, we found ourselves on a boat travelling more than 20km to the 11-million-year-old volcanic island to explore its caves and the deep blue abyss surrounding it, including spectacular dropoffs and an abundance of marine life.

Anchored in the marine reserve, we had a minute’s silence for the local boy who died on a school trip to Abbey Caves earlier in the week.

The captain pointed out a gannet colony on top of an island.

He explained how mature gannets pushed their chick of the cliff when they believed it was ready to leave the nest.

If the adult gannet is right, the chick flies away — or it becomes fish food.

It was a close call but I didn’t need to push Cormac off the back of the boat like a gannet chick.

The fish we saw included a school of two-spot demoiselles, several snapper, black angel fish and Sandager’s wrasse.

I had never snorkeled in open water before so it was a magical experience for both of us, especially being able to snorkel in a pitch-black cave, and when snorkelling out, seeing the light enter to illuminate all the sparkling fish below.

I was extremely proud of my boy for feeling the fear and doing it anyway, but I did come away with one feeling of disappointment.

All of the children on the trip shared stories of swimming in marine reserves in their region and we could not.

Otago is the only region in New Zealand without a marine reserve.

I know work is progressing to establish marine reserves in Otago but let’s hope nearly a decade of that mahi will result in at least one marine reserve our children can easily access and see some fish.

Surely, Otago children should not have to experience a marine reserve by winning a competition, which was only made possible by sponsors Dive! Tutukaka and the Bobby Stafford-Bush Foundation.

Department of Conservation regulatory strategy and design senior manager Anna Cameron said a process for developing a network of marine protected areas in the southeast of the South Island began in 2014.

In 2018, after nearly four years of work, including public consultation, the South-East Marine Protection Forum put two network options to the Minister of Conservation and Minister of Fisheries to consider.

In March 2019, the ministers outlined the processes to be followed under the Marine Reserves Act and Fisheries Act.

Doc and Fisheries had been progressing the process for a proposed network of six marine protected areas in the area since May 2019, which included more public consultation.

Doc was finalising advice on the proposed reserves for the Minister of Conservation to consider in this term of government.

‘‘This is a large and complex process which takes time.’’

Four of the six proposed marine reserves could be accessed by foot.

The two other proposed marine reserves were water access only, she said.