05/10/2026
I am so grateful to Mark Lenton and Luella over at Piha and all the thousands (yes thousands) of people who care and have backed this initiative to protect t and shine a light on what’s actually going on around our New Zealand coastlines.
We’ve got a temporary ban for Omaha and Whangaparoa with more coming but education and caring is desperately needed.
I told an able bodied woman to get back in her car and move out of a disability parking 🅿️. She told me she was just getting her bread. No move ! Said I. She did. We’ve got to make a little difference when we can.
Mark Lenton says :
When 'Legal' Doesn't Mean 'Right'
The boundary between what is legal and what is illegal isn’t always a simple reflection of right versus wrong. Instead, laws are usually reactive boundaries drawn by a society when a brand-new problem threatens everyone's quality of life or a shared resource.
Think of an everyday example: spitting in public. In most places, there isn't a specific law that will get you arrested for spitting on a public footpath. It is technically ‘legal’, but not because society thinks it's a great habit. It's legal simply because, for a long time, common sense, social etiquette, and basic manners were enough to keep most people from doing it excessively. The government didn't need to waste time writing a law or hiring ‘spitting police’ because it wasn't a systemic crisis. But if suddenly thousands of people began systematically spitting all over every public walkway, making them unusable and unsafe, a law would be drafted very quickly to stop it.
This is exactly what has been happening across New Zealand’s shorelines with rock pool harvesting. For generations, our legal framework didn't have strict prohibitions against gathering small intertidal invertebrates like starfish, sea cucumbers, whelks and crabs. It wasn't ‘legal’ because the government explicitly evaluated the practice and deemed it perfectly fine for the ecosystem. Rather, it simply wasn't illegal because New Zealand had never experienced systemic, large-scale harvesting of these delicate rock pool environments before.
Until recently, 'beachcombing' was largely casual and low-impact. However, a relatively new phenomenon to NZ - 'gan hai' - has emerged: intensive, systemic foraging, fuelled by a new social media craze on platforms like RedNote, where entire rock platforms are stripped bare of virtually all marine life. Because these tiny creatures form the literal foundation of our coastal ecosystems, their sudden and rapid depletion causes immediate environmental collapse. Like the public spitting example, reliance on social etiquette and common sense has failed, meaning the law now has to step in.
Because the legislative process can be slow to adapt, a gap forms where an activity is technically permitted by outdated regulations but actively destructive to the environment. Fortunately, New Zealand's fisheries laws are beginning to catch up to this modern pressure.
A prime example of this urgent, reactive shift is the Fisheries New Zealand Auckland Coromandel Shellfish Review. Triggered by widespread community distress and ecological alarm over rapidly depleted intertidal zones, this review represents the government reacting to close the legal loopholes. It serves as a direct, urgent mechanism to implement sweeping restrictions and intertidal closures across the region, formally drawing a hard legal line because common sense and ecological respect are no longer enough to protect our coastlines.
Decades of localised temporary bans and closures across the region have simply shifted the problem up the road. The recent ban across Whangaparāoa, whilst great for the area, has displaced intensive harvesting to neighbouring coastlines. These smaller, coastal communities are now scrambling to counter a problem that had never previously existed.
Large-scale restrictions will send a clear message that strip-mining our coastline is not tolerated in NZ. Where common sense has failed, law change is now required.
When we look at the changing rules around our beaches, it helps to remember that new restrictions aren't trying to prevent traditional coastal enjoyment. They are a necessary emergency response, transforming what was technically legal yesterday into something protected today, ensuring our fragile marine ecosystems survive for tomorrow.
Shane Jones Hibiscus Matters We are Ngāti Manuhiri MPI Fisheries - Auckland
