Gathering mussels, pāua and cockles will stay off limits around Waiheke Island, at Umupuia Beach east of Auckland and along a stretch of the Thames coast for another two years, after Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones signed off on three extended closures.
The existing bans were due to lapse on 6 August. Fisheries New Zealand says the replacements take effect this Friday, 7 August, and run through to 6 August 2028. The decision was made on Monday and reported by RNZ the same morning.
Each of the three areas has its own species list. Around Waiheke Island the ban covers mussels, pāua and packhorse rock lobster, and applies within one nautical mile of the shore, with Te Matuku Marine Reserve excluded because it is already fully protected. At Umupuia Beach, on the Clevedon coast southeast of Auckland, only cockles are covered, from Te Puea at the western end of the beach to Whakakaiwhara Point at the eastern end. At Te Mātā and Waipatukahu on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula, the ban covers cockles, mussels, oysters and pipi, running from Ōtaki Creek to Diehard Stream and out one nautical mile.
“Extending these temporary closures is a practical step for the benefit of current and future generations,” Jones said.
The extensions were requested by three iwi. Ngāti Pāoa asked for the Waiheke closure, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki for Umupuia and Ngāti Tamaterā for the two Coromandel sites. All three were made under section 186A of the Fisheries Act 1996, a provision that lets the Minister close an area or restrict fishing methods for up to two years at a time in order to recognise the customary fishing practices of tangata whenua. Because the cap is two years, an area that needs longer to recover has to go back through consultation again and again.
All three groups take part in the Pou Rāhui research project, which is run out of the University of Waikato’s coastal marine field station in Tauranga and pairs traditional knowledge with scientific monitoring of the closed areas. Jones said the project involves “training whānau in traditional skills and data collection to strengthen mātauranga, to support evidence-based decision-making”. Mātauranga is the body of knowledge held and passed down within iwi and hāpu, in this case detailed local knowledge of where shellfish beds sit and how they have changed.
What stands out in the decision is how long some of these areas have already been shut. Umupuia Beach has been closed to cockle gathering since 2008, and this latest renewal will take it to 20 years without a legal harvest. Te Mātā and Waipatukahu were first closed for six months in January 2020, then rolled over in two-year blocks ever since, with oysters added to the list in 2022. Waiheke’s closure began as a rāhui laid down by Ngāti Pāoa at Oneroa Beach in January 2021, covering scallops, mussels, rock lobster and pāua, and became legally enforceable in December that year.
That pattern is the awkward part of the story. Temporary closures were designed as a short intervention to let a bed rebuild, not as permanent protection, yet in the inner Hauraki Gulf they have quietly become the standing rule at several beaches. Fisheries New Zealand has not published population figures alongside the latest decision, so the public record does not show how much recovery the closures have produced, only that iwi and the Minister judged another two years to be warranted.
Consultation on the renewals opened on 27 May and closed on 3 July, with notices placed in the New Zealand Herald, the Waiheke Gulf News, the Coromandel Informer and the Waiheke Weekender. Restoration group Revive Our Gulf backed all three in its submission, saying the measures support the replenishment of depleted shellfish and other taonga species.
For anyone planning a weekend gather, the practical point is that the rules differ from beach to beach and change without much fanfare. A cockle taken at Umupuia is an offence. The same cockle taken at a beach a few kilometres along the coast may be perfectly legal, within the daily limit. Species not named in a closure notice are not covered by it, so kina remain available around Waiheke under the ordinary recreational limits, while scallops sit under separate restrictions that apply across the wider Gulf and Coromandel.
The penalties are not trivial. Under the Fisheries Act, a breach of amateur fishing rules can bring an infringement notice, and prosecution for a more serious offence carries a fine running into the tens of thousands of dollars. Fishery officers can also seize and permanently forfeit the gear used, including dive equipment, and in some cases the boat or the vehicle that carried it. If you are unsure what applies where you are heading, our guide to New Zealand fishing rules and licences sets out how the limits and closures fit together.
These three closures are not the only ones in force in the Gulf. In March this year a separate two-year ban took effect on taking shellfish, seaweed and other rockpool life at Whangaparāoa Peninsula, Kawau Bay and Ōmaha Bay, north of Auckland, extending 200 metres offshore. Fisheries New Zealand also consulted earlier in 2026 on a much broader review of shore-based shellfish harvesting across Auckland and the Coromandel, which could bring wider limits or intertidal closures along stretches of coast that are currently open. Anyone gathering shellfish in the region is best to check the Auckland and Kermadec rules before setting out rather than relying on what was true last summer.
Have you noticed shellfish beds near you thinning out, or recovering? Tell us what you are seeing on your local beach in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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