Upcoming Event: A Presentation on human induced change in the Bay of Islands

Vision Kerikeri is excited to be sponsoring a talk by retired marine scientist, John Booth on Seven centuries of human-induced change in marine life of the Bay of Islands. See venue details below.

Human settlement of the Bay of Islands, beginning perhaps as early as 1300, wrought huge change in the local marine ecology.

Despite numbers being modest, early pre-contact human presence in the Bay of Islands did result in increased rates of sedimentation and extirpations/extinctions (marine mammals, seabirds, one gastropod).

It seems that, by late pre-contact times, when the population of the Bay of Islands could have been as great as 10 000, the key irreversible ecological consequences of humans entering for the first time a pristine environment had been worked through; probably the main continuing and enduring impact of this later period was compounding sedimentation.

With new technologies, and pests, European arrivals greatly upped the ante. The combined total population set in train escalating rates of:

• Sedimentation..

• Further extirpations/extinctions among marine mammals and seabirds.

• Massive increases in commercial fishing pressure resulting in loss of much of the shallow-water kelp forests of the main basin to sea-urchin grazing.

• Structures such as oyster groynes and farms changing the nature of large areas of the intertidal and shallow subtidal habitat.

About John Booth

John worked for more than three decades in fisheries research for NIWA and its predecessors. Now retired in the eastern Bay of Islands and involved in native-biodiversity protection and restoration, and in researching and writing about local marine science issues.

When & Where

When: Sunday, 29th May 2:30pm

Where: Aroha Island Ecological Centre

All Welcome - the presentation will follow the Vision Kerikeri AGM