Northland Regional Council: Ratepayers Not Providing Huge Money Needed For Caulerpa Fight

Wednesday, 28 May 2025, 8:25 pm
Article: Susan Botting - Local Democracy Reporter

Northland Regional Council says its ratepayers will not be putting up the huge amounts of money needed to continue the local and national $25 million fight against invasive caulerpa seaweed.

Northland Regional Council (NRC) chair Geoff Crawford said his council had already put $1.25 million into the fight since the exotic pest was confirmed in the Bay of Islands in 2023.

The council would continue to work on the Government-funded $6.2 million development of the industrial-scale underwater tractor caulerpa removal tool in the Bay of Islands Omākiwi Cove until the end of 2025.

And there would be continued low-level ratepayer funding towards the council’s active and important marine biosecurity surveillance and education roles for the next two years.

But Crawford told an online Conquer Caulerpa Trust hui on Tuesday night (SUBS: May 27) that major funding was needed to continue the national caulerpa fight and the sort of money needed was not the regional council’s role to provide.

He said the question now became who would pay and how the battle was going to proceed.

The fight against caulerpa was an expensive one.

An NRC spend of $500,000 equated to a 1% regional council rates increase.

Biosecurity New Zealand director of pest management John Walsh told the hui the Government had already put $24.9 million towards fighting caulerpa – 21/22 $1.2m, 22/23 $1.2m, 23/24 $8.5m and 24/25 $14m.

But there was no Government spending for the 2025/2026 year that starts on July 1 outlined in his spend data provided to the hui.

Crawford said later funding a major response such as caulerpa was not the council’s role. That needed to be done by the Ministry for Primary Industries or co-funding with community-led groups such as Conquer Caulerpa.

He said NRC had dug into its reserves to fund to date, so that ratepayers wouldn’t be burdened,

Walsh told the hui that although caulerpa was first confirmed in New Zealand at Aotea/Great Barrier Island in July 2021, it had been present there for several years prior to that.

And the Bay of Islands’ caulerpa confirmed at Te Rāwhiti almost two years later in May 2023, had in fact already been present when the pest seaweed was first confirmed at Great Barrier Island in 2021.

The toxic seaweed, which competes with other species for space and affects the balance of local ecosystems, has spread to Northland, Auckland and Waikato since first being detected.

NRC has played a key role in the battle against caulerpa for the last two years, pushing for and in part funding major innovation, surveillance, education and eradication efforts.

This included the giant lawnmower-style unit being developed at Omākiwi Cove with an Opua-based marine company.

Omākiwi Cove in the eastern Bay of Islands has been the epicentre of the caulerpa fight tool’s development.

The world-first underwater tractor is being developed with two other promising caulerpa fight tools – a rehabitat caulerapa chlorine treatment chamber and ultraviolet light treatment unit (for which a 40% bigger model was currently being manufactured in China).

More than 70% of the Government’s caulerpa spend this financial year has gone towards developing these tools.

There were 437 people registered to attend the Northland-focused Conquer Caulerpa Trust hui.

It was the first of its type in New Zealand with attendees from iwi, hapū, boating clubs, tourist operators, councils, universities, marine research institutes and community groups.

A large swathe of Bay of Islands tourist operators registered for the event.

More than two dozen iwi, hapū and/or marae from across Northland and the Hauraki Gulf were also among those registered to attend.

But major technical issues with getting into the online meeting meant that only about a third attended and the meeting began almost 15 minutes late.

Conquer Caulerpa chair Verdon Kelliher said caulerpa had the potential to permanently alter life in Te Tai Tokerau.

It now covered about 280 rugby fields around 20 Bay of Islands locations.

The seaweed could mean no boating, no fishing and/or no diving which would in turn impact many other businesses.

“That’s what makes it a very serious thing,” Kelliher said.

Growing concern over future fight funding comes as the problem seaweed continues its march.

In the last couple of weeks it's been confirmed at Little Barrier Island, with the Government considering a fifth anchoring ban there to add to more than 12,000 hectares of coastline shut to boat anchoring, most sorts of fishing and/or kaimoana gathering.

National exotic caulerpa national advisory group Te Tai Tokerau representative Natasha Clarke-Nathan (Patukeha, Ngati Kuta) said the seaweed was now found in Northland, Auckland and Waikato.

She said it was important all people, across New Zealand, were singing from the same hymn sheet when it came to caulerpa.

The battle was about kotahitanga.

“We have to do things together,” Clarke-Nathan said.

She said the issues facing the Bay of Islands were part of the bigger picture for the whole country.

Ngati Kuta ki Te Rawhiti charitable trust trustee Glenys Papanui (Ngati Kuta) said the goal was to eradicate caulerpa.

The battle was not just about Ipipiri, the Bay of Islands.

“It’s about all of our coastline,” Papanui said.

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