I am Mandy Leathers. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I am a researcher and policy analyst for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), however today I am presenting my own personal submission. I am mother of Freddy and Monica and they area why I am here today.

Often natural resource management decisions affect the lives of future generations –more than the lives of the decision-makers. This is true here, where the proposed mining will run for up to 35 years, impacts on the environment and people will be far reaching into the future. It’s a pity that those people can’t somehow have more of a say in this decision. This is why it is so important that you explicitly consider them. This is also a legal requirement.

The purpose of the EEZ Act includes sustaining the potential of natural resources to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations.

In this presentation I will show you that considering future generations can inform your decisions with respect to Section 59 (2) d) and e) of the Act which requires you to take into account:• the importance of protecting the biological diversity and integrity of marine

species, ecosystems, and processes; and• the importance of protecting rare and vulnerable ecosystems and the habitats of

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threatened species.

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In this presentation we will consider future generations by thinking about :what kind of world they will be living in, and their needs; their perspectives and the wisdom they can provide; and what they expect of us

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What kind of world will our future generations be living in, and what will theyneed?Pressures on natural resources have increased exponentially, and we are on a path to climate change that we can not reverse.

Renown scientist Dr. Johan Rockstrom warns that we have hit the “biophysical ceiling of this little planet’s capacity to support humanity.”

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The earth is currently undergoing the 6th mass extinction of species, with a 58% decline in wildlife populations since 1970.

Species extinction, wildlife loss, and degradation of natural environments is not only a moral shame, it also has very real costs and consequences for people. Natural resource degradation harms us. It affects our ability to grow food on land, harvest from the sea; it affects water security, climate stability - the basic essentials of life.

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While our future generations need strong economies, education, and healthcare; even more critical are the natural systems on which all life depends.

The benefit to our future generations provided from mining revenue is limited by the effectiveness and intent of the Government spending that money. The options provided by safeguarding marine biodiversity are far greater and of more fundamental value.

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Marine scientists have discovered that Biodiversity equals resilience, the more biodiverse an ecosystem is, the more stable, and capable of surviving and adapting to stress and change. This is because each living organism plays a unique role in an ecosystem, and when they disappear the whole system changes and becomes less robust.

Marine biodiversity across our oceans is declining due to acidification, ocean warming, overfishing, pollution, and decline in top predators. These are collective global problems caused by many people at many different times.

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What our next generations really need is for us to be making decisions that will build the resilience of marine ecosystems, not the opposite.

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What are our children's perspectives?Our children are new to the world and ignorant of many things, but they see things with a simplistic clarity that we find difficult to achieve. We are overloaded with a lifetime of thoughts, perspectives and beliefs that can make questions like: “why is it important to protect marine biodiversity?” complicated and difficult; but the young assess their world with fresh eyes, and express surprising wisdom sometimes.

My daughter Monica believes that other living things have a natural right to survive. She loves Maui dolphins and when asked why its important to protect them – its not because they benefit her in some way, its because they deserve to live.

When I told her that Leigh Torres had discovered a population of pigmy blue whales living in New Zealand, her eyes became as big as saucers! I didn’t need to tell her why this was significant– that this is the only foraging area discovered in New Zealand – one of only five documented in the Southern Hemisphere outside of Antarctica. She knew instinctively that it was special.

What right do we have to add another threat into the habitat of the critically endangered Maui dolphin, or the extremely rare pigmy blue whale?

Monica would say this is not fair. And maybe that is the simple truth.

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What do our children expect from us? Above all else, they expect us to love and care for them. They expect us to make good decisions on their behalf.

We've grown up with the idea that a little bit of harm to the environment is ok as long as the benefit to people is significant enough. Children are less tolerant of this kind of trade; they think it’s a story that belongs in a Dr. Sues book;

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and that surely it wouldn’t happen in real life.

Decades of evidence now shows that those many decisions where profit won, and the environment lost, have lead to the fragile and changing state of the earths ecosystems.

Our children’s disbelief that we would allow the life supporting systems of the earth to be degraded should be a signal that this type of decision is outdated.

Children expect us to be smarter, to learn like they do when there's new information. Since the last application in 2013 - several new studies have raised the profile of the South Taranaki Bight – showing that the area is more ecologically important than we knew before.

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We now know it’s a habitat of global significance for rare and endangered pigmyblue whales; with 68 individual whales sighted, five mother and calf pairs, and two males racing – which is breeding behavior.

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Secondly, the area is a vital corridor for Hectors dolphins migrating north. The latest population abundance study of Maui dolphins found two migrant Hectors dolphins living within the Maui population. Scientists consider these migrants to be a potential genetic lifeline to the critically endangered subspecies.

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This 2014 report suggests that failure to protect the habitat between the North and South Island may reduce the likelihood of dispersal, to the detriment of Maui dolphins

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Here is another study that states on page 272 – that “lack of connectivity is a matter of concern for the recovery of the North Island population.”

This study highlights potential areas for Maui dolphin recovery. They have modeled the relationship between Maui nearshore distribution and environmental factors to find areas of prime habitat.

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Including 100km area of coast along South Taranaki Bight.

The study concludes that bringing Maui dolphins back from the brink of extinction may require increased conservation measures specifically tuned towards their habitat use.

The study highlighted important uncertainties about habitat use. It is likely that Maui behave similarly as Hectors and have a greater off-shore distribution during winter, however there have been no studies of Maui winter distribution.

There are exciting opportunities to fill these research gaps, improve mondeling of critical habitat, and better target conservation actions. However allowing mining in this region of predicted habitat importance would limit future management options.

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New scientific evidence shows that even low levels of noise can disrupt marine mammal feeding, breeding and communication, causing stress.

Marine mammals will either stay in the area and be exposed to constant noise; or they will avoid the noise by leaving the area. There are significant uncertainties about the risks associated with both of these responses.

All stresses have an energy cost, and the science is clear that noise from mining would degrade the blue whales’ habitat, however it is uncertain what the population effects might be from constant noise over 35 years. By the time evidence of the impact is clear –it would be too late to prevent harm.

Studies show that harbor porpoises (the best proxy for Hectors and Maui dolphins) avoid and move away from noise from vessels/ ships, and seismic surveys. This indicates that the noise from the proposed mining could act as a barrier to the northward migration of Hectors dolphins.

Experts argue that displacement cannot be considered a minor disruption to behavior, but rather a source of harm itself. The South Taranaki Bight habitat is preferred by marine mammals for important reasons – even if we don’t fully understand them, and we are uncertain how they will be affected if they are displaced.

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Our children rely on us to tell them what is safe. Children about to do something possibly dangerous will consciously or unconsciously glance at their parents to read their reaction. Our job is to check how deep the water is before they jump into the river. We provide the certainty that they need to jump, or the caution they need to stay safe.

Are we certain that we understand the potential harm and danger that the proposed mining will have on the environment, and hence our future generations?

There is significant uncertainty in several areas:• The sources of sound have not been fully described or modelled – as explained in

Anton Van Helden’s evidence. • The cumulative effects from noise on the marine life over 35 years of mining• Or The current and potential future use of the marine environment by Maui and

Hector’s dolphins.

What is certain is that we don’t want to constrain our ability to make wise management and conservation decisions once we do know more about how species are using the area.

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There are three points that I would like you to take away with you.

The challenges that our next generations face will increasingly be linked to the stability or instability of natural systems. By understanding that Biodiversity =resilience, we can see that it is more important than ever to protect the integrity and biodiversity of marine environments.

By considering our children’s perspectives and their wisdom about what is ‘right’ we can remember simple truths – that it is unjust to harm rare and vulnerable ecosystems and the habitats of threatened species – even if we benefit in some way.

If we are to live up to our children’s expectations that we will make smart decisions, we will take on new science that shows that South Taranaki Bight is of significant ecological value for threatened marine mammals, and uncertainty about the impacts from noise warrants a precautionary approach.

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