Have you ever gone fishing and come back empty-handed? Have you ever been snorkelling and there's not much to see? There used to be seven times as many sea creatures in New Zealand oceans than there are today. Just think, how many years is it going to take until there are no more sea creatures left?
Why don't we make a change? Why don't we create a marine reserve in the Far North?
A marine reserve is a place where you can look, but not take. It is a place where the marine creatures are safe in a natural, undisturbed area of the ocean. It is a place where our marine creatures can breed and repopulate the area.
Here are the main reasons why we should have a marine reserve in the Far North.
The first is because it would help the seaweed, yep that's right, the seaweed. The food chain goes something like this: humans eat fish, fish eat kina and kina eat seaweed.
If we take too many fish then we end up with too many kina. Places where there are huge quantities of kina are called kina barrens. This is when there are not enough fish in the area to keep the kina under control.
Now you may be thinking, yay, more kina. But what happens when the kina get so out of control that the seaweed disappears altogether? Click here to find out!