The Green Desk: Sustainable Business Network's GulfX project with Phil Jones: March 17, 2020

Today on the Green Desk, Bronwyn had a kо̄rero with Phil Jones from the Sustainable Business Network about their GulfX project which aims to restore the mauri of the Hauraki Gulf. The recently published State of our Gulf report highlighted the increasingly dire state of the marine park.  Some of the more shocking statistics of the included the occurrence of ten mass mortality events due to fish and shellfish in the gulf in the past ten years, and nine toxic algal blooms. This is due in part to the fact that 3,730 tonnes of nitrogen flow into the Firth of Thames from rivers in Hauraki each year. Crayfish are also functionally extinct in the Gulf, despite once being one of its most abundant species.

While overfishing is undeniable a serious cause of biodiversity loss, the GulfX project chose to focus on some of the lesser-known terrestrial sources of environmental degradation such as sediment, plastic and heavy metals. 

Phil began by telling Bronwyn what we mean when we talk about the Hauraki Gulf: