Queen Charlotte Sound | Tōtaranui

When you look around our coastline it is not hard to find areas that have a special place in the hearts of many people. We love our coasts, but different people value different things, and this often makes it hard to start and support collective actions for improvement. Trying to create a good space for more widely engaged discussions across different interests is why the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge has focused on supporting the implementation of Ecosystem-Based Management. But for many people the marine environment is out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind. Knowledge of what places are like, what they used to be like and how they work to support themselves and us all is vital information for resolving debate and making plans to affect positive change.

As part of our work in the projects “Tipping Points” and “Ecological responses to cumulative effects” we have been looking at reef and seafloor habitats and we have made this interactive map publicly available to allow people to take a sneak peek at the seafloor of Queen Charlotte Sound | Tōtaranui. This is simply an assembly of our underwater images with a small description of what you can see. We hope this get you thinking and wondering about life on the seafloor, provides some highlights for exciting school projects, and helps you understand the effects of sedimentation, fishing and other human activities in the Sounds.