Dive Pacific 175 Dec2020 Jan 2021

Titiro kit e Moana - EMR will take you under
Celebrating 20 years!
The Experiencing Marine
Reserves (EMR) programme
started in Taitokerau/Northland
in 2001 with the idea of taking
students from local schools to
see unprotected marine areas
and comparing them to a fully
protected marine reserve. Since
then seeing huge Tamure/snapper
swimming by in a marine reserve
has inspired thousands of kids
to take action for the marine
environment and exercise kaitiakitanga.
Over the past 20 years EMR has
guided 70,928 people through
marine reserves with a total
of 132,478 snorkelling with
us all over Aotearoa. We offer
community guided, snorkel day
events and school programmes
throughout our nine New Zealand
regions.
Latest goings on
The 2020/21 season is already
underway with our first ever
Ma – ngere Kayak Day in Auckland.
Participants got to explore the
meandering mangroves of the
Manukau Harbour, and learn about
the history and biodiversity of the
area. We partnered with Friends of
the Farm to make sure locals could
explore their own backyard from
a different perspective, and due
to a great success we plan to do
many more kayak days around the
Manukau to highlight the importance
of protecting this unique
part of Ta – maki Makaurau’s marine
environment.
In mid October 35 lucky participants
also joined us to explore Te
Whiti Rahi, Poor Knights Island
with Dive! Tutukaka. We were
treated to incredibly clear water
and a beautifully sunny day,
discovered large schools of blue
mao mao, trevally, haku, and even
a sunfish! A rare treat!
We try to make all our events as
accessible as possible so people
from all backgrounds can get to
enjoy our wondrous moana. For
this trip we were able to offer four
fully sponsored spots to deserving
rangatahi so we could get them
out experiencing this very special
marine reserve first hand. Freshly
inspired these rangatahi are now
determined to take action for our
oceans, and they will be working
on marine conservation projects
over the next couple of months as
well as volunteering at upcoming
events.
EMR over the past four years
has also been involved with the
Matai Bay rahui helping the iwi,
hapu and community monitor it’s
success, and recently we had a
wonderful day visiting the rahui
with Kaingaroa school.
The kids were super excited to see
lots of snapper, large red moki,
crayfish, sandagers wrasse and a
diverse range of other colourful
invertebrates and seaweed. Over
50 people came to experience and
be inspired by the Maitai Bay rahui
through this event.
In January next year EMR will be
hosting a larger community guided
snorkel day at Matai Bay, which is
always super popular and a great way
for locals to celebrate the ongoing
protection of their watery backyard.
Upcoming events
& plans
EMR has big plans for the rest
of our 2020/21 season - over 40
events are coming up around the
country from Northland all the
way to Stewart Island. One of the
Auckland events in late November
is our annual Rotoroa Island
Snorkel Day.
For this event participants will
be exploring the rocky reef
surrounding the pest free island
sanctuary that is Rotoroa. With
support from the Rotoroa Island
Trust participants will get to
discover what lives on the land as
well as under the sea. Due to the
hard conservation work done on
this island, land based rare and
endangered wildlife have flourished.
Whilst Rotoroa is fully protected
on the land unfortunately the
same cannot be said for the water
around it. We have noticed over
the last three years of running this
event the decline in biodiversity on
the reef as well as an increase in
marine pests like Mediterranean
fan worm. These observations
highlight the need to protect more
of Ti Kapa Moana’s offshore islands
under the waves as well as on the
land.
14 Dive New Zealand | Dive Pacific