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A ship full of mussel shells has been sunk off the coast of Marlborough to create a reef that will help revive marine life and a multi-billion dollar industry.
The Marine Farming Association will place 20 tons of live green lipped mussels on top of 12 tons of shells dumped at two locations in Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere to see if it can restore mussel beds destroyed by overfishing in the past 50 years.
Over time, the project could also reignite mussel farming, or juvenile mussels, an industry that once generated between $ 10 million and $ 30 million a year in Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere, but has since become uneconomical. keep.
Association member and co-owner of Clearwater Mussels Limited, John Young, said the project had his “full support.”
TVNZ
Simon Pooley and his family run a thriving mussel business in Marlborough Sounds. (First published June 2020).
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Young had helped establish mussel farming in the Sounds and became a mussel farmer himself in the 1980s, he said.
“Every man and his dog were packing them in wooden boxes … You’re probably talking about tens of hundreds of tons. It devastated the old mussels that were perching on the rocks, ”he said.
Clearwater Mussels owned 110 mussel farms and 20 seed farms between Kenepuru Sound and Golden Bay, some in partnership with Marlborough families.
“Efforts to restore natural mussel beds and the natural green shell mussel population off the coast are a good thing.”
But restoring the beds was an “infinitely complex story.”
“I think there are a lot of environmental and climatic factors to take into account … We like to think that solving things is easy, but it isn’t always easy,” Young said.
Six tons of shells were fired at both Putanui Point and Fairy Bay last month, after the Marlborough District Council gave its consent to the partnership. Ten tons of green lipped mussels would be released in October, once the shells settled.
The sites were chosen for their different seafloor sediments and their distance from popular fishing spots in the Sounds.
Supplied
Researchers use a rake to level sunken mussel shells in August.
The shells would provide a layer that the mussels could adhere to.
Auckland University PhD student Emilee Benjamin, who was researching the project, helped put the shells in place.
“Mussels are one of the bases of an ecosystem. Once they thrive on the seafloor, they will create an environment for fish and all other species to live, help remove suspended sediment from the water column, and stabilize the seafloor. “
The reefs also doubled as outsourcing of mussel shell waste, which often ended up falling under the mussel farms.
Ricky Wilson / Stuff
Havelock’s claim to fame is the “green shell mussel capital of the world.”
Council figures showed that 3,385 tonnes of mussel shells were dumped in Marlborough last year.
The reefs will be investigated for two years, and the results will be reported in a scientific study, based on the consent request.
If successful, the knowledge would be used to accelerate mussel bed restoration in other parts of New Zealand.
The project had received about $ 64,000 in financial support from the Marine Agriculture Association and the mussel industry. Association members also provided $ 200,000 in boat time and experience for the reef project.
SUPPLIED
Mussel farming took off in the Marlborough Sounds after natural mussel reefs were affected in the 1960s and 1970s.
The association’s general manager, Ned Wells, said marine farmers supported the restoration of mussel beds in the Sounds.
“And if it helps increase the number of seeds, it would also be very welcome,” Wells said.
Dr. Steve Urlich, a professor at the University of Lincoln and a former coastal council scientist, said in a letter of support that the wild mussel beds cleared during the 1960s “had never recovered.”
In 2018, Urlich recommended to the council to develop an artificial reef strategy and place reefs in areas to boost marine life.
SCOTT HAMMOND / Stuff.co.nz
NIWA images show an abundance of marine life in a man-made shipwreck in Queen Charlotte Sound.
Since then, a new rule has been added to the proposed Marlborough Environmental Plan that allows for the creation or restoration of artificial reefs. This rule was being appealed in court.
The project was supported by the Mussel Reef Restoration Trust, which had placed more than 130 tonnes of mussels in the Hauraki Gulf, northwest of Auckland, to restore the beds.
The Marlborough Forest Industry Association, the Marlborough Sounds Restoration Trust, and the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge also wrote in support of the idea.
