Whale Research Voyage Launch Speech

Thank you NIWA CEO John Morgan for your introduction. I extend a special welcome to Peter Garrett, Australian Minister for the Environment, Culture and Heritage, our ANZAC partner in this endeavour. I also acknowledge my colleague Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment. Particular mention should go to the Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand, Paul O'Sullivan, who is showing real leadership in building the ANZAC relationship. Greetings also to the representatives of the Southern Ocean Research Partnership: the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and Chile. And most especially, to the scientists, captain and crew of the Tangaroa.

"He wai Tangaroa i haere ai ki uta" - "A memory of Tangaroa who went on land".

In Maori cosmology, tohora (whales) are descendants of Tangaroa, the sea. Whales represent guardian spirits of the ocean, and were used to guide the ancestral waka.

The two greatest fauna of New Zealand are the whale and kauri tree. The mythology of the whale and the kauri explains the bond of land and sea. When tohora asked the kauri to return to the ocean, the kauri preferred to stay on the land. The two creatures exchanged skins, which is why the kauri's thin skin is as full of resin, as the tohora is of oil.

Humankind has always been deeply moved by whales. Even at the time of the greatest slaughter of whales, people knew there was a special intelligence there, a mysteriousness that we have struggled to understand.

On the occasion I swam with whales (quite spontaneously, I might say) in the Vava'u group in Tonga, this sense was present. It will be a treasured memory for the rest of my life.

The dramatic decline in the number of whales through commercial whaling required action in the International Whaling Commission. By 1986 this had led to a commercial whaling moratorium.

But clearly more needs to be done. The New Zealand Government has consistently opposed so-called scientific whaling in the Antarctic. It was self-evident that rigorous scientific research does not require the killing of whales. That is why we are supporting a process in the IWC that is seeking to substantially reduce whaling.

Much of the scientific work undertaken by committed scientists and conservationists has been identifying and tracking populations of large whales in the warm waters around the Pacific Islands, where they go each year to breed.  Whales can also be studied as they transit through the cooler seas around Australia and New Zealand.  We get a closer look if they stop in at Kaikoura to feed, creating opportunities for science and tourism. 

Kaikoura is a waypoint. The whales migrate into the sub-Antarctic, then Antarctic Ocean, especially the Ross Sea. Heavy seas and high winds make it difficult and sometimes dangerous for researchers to follow them. 

This region of the world's seas - wild and cold, but nutrient-rich - is critically important for the large whales of Oceania. We know they seek out the icy Antarctic waters to feed on the bounty of the Ross Sea's ecosystems.  But we know very little about what they do while they are there, or if they are the same animals that are observed further north. 

We also know that large whales are part of the globally-important Antarctic marine ecosystem, on which climate change is likely to have a big impact.  We need to know how whales interact with and rely on the elements of the Antarctic marine environment - the sea ice, the krill, and other marine species.

Both Australia and New Zealand have intimate connections with the Antarctic. What happens there matters to us more than to virtually all other nations. This collaboration between our scientists further builds upon the ANZAC partnership, to which both our Prime Ministers have given their impetus. Both of us, as science and environment ministers, are doing our part to expand the ANZAC relationship.

Scientific research in the Southern Ocean is a challenge. Sea conditions around Antarctica are notoriously inhospitable, even in summer. In my other main portfolio I have responsibility for Defence Force tasks in and around Antarctica. These are increasingly multi-agency, working with DoC and NIWA among others. The Navy's new offshore patrol vessels, to be delivered in the next two months, are ice-strengthened so that they can operate successfully in this extreme environment.

Open-water research on whales demands particularly high levels of seamanship to support the scientific expertise.  It is critical that you use the right vessel and crew for this job.   

That is why the Australian Antarctic Division sought out the Tangaroa and her crew for this voyage.  I believe this is testimony to the superb capability of the vessel and equipment, and to the skill and experience of her crew.  The quality of the research platform is only going to be matched by the science that will be performed from it, and I look forward to hearing more about this. 

I know already that on this expedition some of the world's best cetacean scientists - people here today - will use sophisticated non-lethal research techniques to shed some light on fundamental questions: what whales do, exactly where they do it across two oceans, and why.  

Among other methods, I understand the expedition is focusing on two techniques: satellite tagging and biopsy sampling of individual whales.  These are well-proven methods that for years have been providing information on whales in the tropical and temperate Pacific.  We can now show how these techniques can be extended to the Antarctic, to show how real science is undertaken.

During the voyage, the science team are also taking the opportunity to study a host of important Antarctic environmental variables such as krill, sea characteristics and weather. Accompanying the crew and scientists are the world-renown documentary filmmakers Natural History New Zealand. I am sure that they will be able to capture the excitement and challenges of this landmark research project.

The Southern Ocean Research Partnership is committed to filling a critical knowledge gap for good whale management and conservation.  New Zealand wholeheartedly supports its goal of running a multi-year, collaborative programme of excellent scientific research, using the most sophisticated, non-lethal research techniques. 

The attendance today by so many is a measure of the commitment to the very first Southern Ocean Research Partnership voyage.    We have a long history of Antarctic research in New Zealand. This voyage draws on this foundation, to expand our knowledge of the Antarctic seas.

The pioneering research undertaken by the Tangaroa and its crew have consistently shown they are up to the challenge of the Southern Ocean. During this voyage, scientists from both our countries will build meaningful knowledge for the benefit of all members of the IWC.

I wish them all the best on this voyage.