The objectives were to create an assessment methodology to identify maladaptation in adaptation strategies and develop a decision-making, education and communication tool for diverse communities to understand and evaluate how effective specific adaptation projects will be. This initial attempt at tackling a complex problem included three case studies and unearthed some significant gaps in the current state of knowledge and practice.

Keywords: climate adaptation; maladaptation; climate resilience; community adaptation;

Grüss, A.; Datta, S.; McGregor-Tiatia, V.; Holmes, S.J.; Davis, J.P.; Fulton, E.A.; Sainsbury, K.; Plagányi, É.E; Dolder, P.J.; Parsa, M.; Dambacher, J.M.; Gaichas, S.K.; Townsend H.; Pascoe, S.; Blanchard, J.L.; Parsons, D. (2025). Towards ecosystem-based fisheries management in New Zealand: an ecosystem approach to fisheries management case study in FMA 7. New Zealand Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report No. 360. 80 p.

Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to progress integration of broader ecosystem and environmental considerations in fisheries management. These efforts can start with an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, where these broader considerations are explicitly considered in analysis focused on management settings for individual fish stocks.

The research reported here identified and reviewed tools that could support greater analysis of ecosystem and environmental considerations in New Zealand’s current fisheries management framework.

The Fisheries Management Area 7 (west coast South Island) inshore mixed bottom trawl fishery was used as a case study for this research. Meetings with managers and key fishery stakeholders were held to establish key management questions around ecosystem and environmental considerations. This included understanding the effects of single species catch limits on other species in a mixed fishery, the ecosystem effects of environmental stressors such as sedimentation, and key predator-prey interdependencies. An international expert workshop was then held to identify tools which have been applied overseas to inform management advice on ecosystem and environmental considerations for fisheries.

There exists a diverse range of ecosystem simulation models, with different configurations, levels of complexity, information requirements, and management applications. Qualitative ecosystem models and ecosystem models of intermediate complexity are the most suitable ecosystem simulation models to assist the ecosystem approach to fisheries management in New Zealand, primarily because of their more limited data requirements and their ability to strongly engage resource managers and other stakeholders. Beyond ecosystem simulation models, tools called “métier analysis”, “principal component analysis” (“PCA”) and “heatmaps” provide additional technical options for supporting the ecosystem approach to fisheries management in New Zealand.

Our report also includes recommendations to facilitate the inclusion of ecosystem and environmental considerations in resource management, which were provided at the international expert workshop, and directions for future research.

Paul-Burke, K.; Burke, J., Gerrity, S. (2025). Piri Pāua: Mātauranga Māori and marine science approach to growth rate and length of maturity of pāua in the Bay of Plenty, 2022–2024. New Zealand Fisheries Assessment Report 2025/28. 20 p.

Pāua is a highly regarded taonga (culturally important) species. Mai i ngā Kurī ā Whārei ki Tihirau (the Bay of Plenty Regional Iwi Customary Fisheries Forum) raised concerns about the current state of pāua in Te Moana-a-Toi (Bay of Plenty). This project utilised localised intergenerational observations of population dynamics in traditional harvesting areas to assess pāua productivity in the Tauranga Moana Mātaitai Reserve in Tauranga and Te Rohe Moana o Ngāti Awa in Whakatāne. The project combined mātauranga Māori alongside marine science field methods.

Results were compared with previous iwi-led research at Tauranga in 2013 and Whakatāne in 2010. The pāua population in 2023 had declined by almost half in Tauranga but remained relatively consistent across all sites in Whakatāne. However, pāua were small sized in both locations, with less than 1% of individuals reaching the Minimum Legal Size (125 mm) for harvesting. Growth rate surveys were conducted in the wild at both locations from June 2023 to the end of May 2024 and identified pāua as slow growing and, as a result, sexually mature at smaller sizes than in other regions of Aotearoa New Zealand.

People in New Zealand enjoy the collection of seafood as a recreational and customary activity along the country’s coastline. Two important seafood species in coastal areas are cockles and pipi, which occur in intertidal sediments of beaches, estuaries, and large tidal inlets and harbours. In northern New Zealand, cockles and pipi have been regularly monitored for several decades across different sites in Northland, Auckland, Waikato, and Bay of Plenty. This monitoring aims to ensure the persistence of their populations, providing information of the abundance, density, and population size structure of cockles and pipi. Presented here are the survey findings from the summer of 2024–25, with population information for Pataua Estuary (Northland), Cockle Bay, Kawakawa Bay (West), Mill Bay, Ōkahu and Okoromai bays (Auckland and its wider region), Ōhiwa Harbour, Otūmoetai (Tauranga Harbour), and Waiotahe Estuary (Bay of Plenty), and Whangapoua and Whitianga harbours (Waikato). Both cockle and pipi populations across these northern sites were generally large, consisting of millions of individuals. Their densities varied dependent on the site, but were a minimum of over 140 individuals per square metre for cockles, and over 180 individuals per square metre for pipi, except at one site (Pataua Estuary). At several sites, small-sized individuals made up most of the population, highlighting strong recruitment events that preceded the data collection.