Map of new Hauraki Gulf marine protections in place

As of October 25, 2025, new safeguards have been put in place by the Department of Conservation to protect parts of Auckland's Hauraki Gulf.

The Hauraki Gulf/Tikapa Moana Protection Act is Aotearoa New Zealand's most significant increase in marine protection in over a decade, and aims to enhance the health of the gulf for future generations.

The protection consists of:

Two marine reserves: extending from the existing Cathedral Cover Marine Reserve and Cape Rodney - Okakari Point (Goat Island)

12 high-protection areas (HPAs), to try to restore marine habitats and ecosystems. In high protection areas you can:

• anchor a boat;
• snorkel, kayak, swim and boat (as long as you don't harm marine life);
• take a handful of shells or driftwood; practise authorised customary fishing.

You cannot :

• go recreational or commercial fishing;
• take any seafood, either by diving or by hand;
• discharge sewage and waste; land aircraft or drones;
• disturb sea life and habitats.

Limited commercial fishing is permitted in two of the high-protection areas - Motutapu / Rangitoto, and Kawau. This is subject to review in three years' time.

Five seafloor protection areas to protect seafloor habitats. You can:

• Carefully anchor a boat;
• Do low-impact fishing such as spearfishing, diving, hand harvesting or line fishing as long as you don't damage the sea floor;
• Snorkel, kayak, swim and boat, as long as you don't damage the sea floor.

You cannot:

• Operate high-impact fishing methods such as bottom trawling, dredging and Danish seining; 
• Discharge sewage and waste;
• Disturb sea life and habitats.
• Set netting, potting and bottom longlining are also not permitted in the Mokohinau Islands sea floor protection area.

Environment Minister Tama Potaka says the bill will lead to richer kelp forests, healthier snapper and red rock lobster (kōura) numbers. "National has delivered the biggest new marine protection area in more than a decade for Aotearoa New Zealand," he says. "We've taken a once-in-a-generation step to turn around the health of the gulf by nearly tripling marine protection and creating 19 new protection areas."

LegaSea lead Sam Woolford believes more than six per cent of the sea floor needs protecting, and the restrictions will only hurt recreational marine lovers - and nearby areas. “Restricting the public from safe and popular spearfishing spots like the Aldermans and the Noises is a shortsighted response to addressing the real issues facing the marine park," he says. "Locking the public out will simply push fishing pressure onto neighbouring regions up north and in the Bay of Plenty, while the real drivers of depletion, destructive and indiscriminate fishing methods, overfishing and land-based run-off remain unaddressed."

While there's little doubt marine protection is desperately needed, a late-stage amendment allowing commercial ring-net fishing operators exclusive access in two of the high protection areas has caused controversy among environmental groups, and there's concern that the restrictions will lead to nearby sites being put under pressure. Potaka says the amendment will be up for review in three years.

While all parties in Parliament voted for the bill, opposition parties are unhappy with the amendment to allow commercial fishing in the two protected areas. Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan says Labour would reverse it if they were re-elected.

"Despite the environment select committee unanimously recommending to the house that the bill be passed with no substantive change, at the 11th hour, because of some active lobbying of the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, we saw this government cave to that pressure and they have chosen to water down the protections in the original bill. Labour, in government, will reverse the change that allows ring-net fishing in those HPAs."