Although there were black clouds now and then, we were lucky that it did not rain at all. By the afternoon the sun appeared and white clouds floated on the blue sky.

Today (Saturday, 23rd of March), CCET (Chinese Conservation Education Trust) organised a trip to visit the Goat Island marine nature reserve. The group was made up of members of CCET, and their relatives. All 45 participants were grouped by organiser George Ge into four teams: two teams for snorkelling, one team for a boat tour and another one for a coast line tour led by Professor John Walsby.

I choose snorkelling. Since I did it years ago at Bali, I began to increase my interest on peeping at the world underwater. Swimming in the sea and snorkelling are quite different. You can see nothing while swimming, but when you are snorkelling, you could definitely find something unusual.

It had been awhile since I last snorkelled, I forgot to breathe with my mouth and not my nose. Therefore I swallowed a mouthful of water immediately. I raised my head to spit the salt water, sneeze my nose, modify breath and appease mood. When I turned my head, I found there were a few guys who were busy spitting water too.

I felt better when I plunged into the water again. Using my fins, I moved slowly and searched around. Soon, a blue shape came into my view. The fish was blue with black stripes. It was a blue moki. I felt excited and found another one several seconds later.

I raised my head and could not wait to share my findings at once with the nearest guy. We dived together. This time, a familiar fish, a snapper, came close to me. This snapper was very big, about triple as big as I’ve seen in a market. All I could do at that moment while staring at it was to repeat one sentence over and over: how can this fish be so big? It is illegal. Several other snappers swam over but not the same size as the first one. Snappers were very proud in water, blue dots flushed with subtle light. The blue ribbons above the eyes, especially, looks exactly like shiny eye shadow the young girls put on their eyelids.

Immediately after these small fish, I found I was enclosed by another school of fish. Fish were everywhere and some of them almost hit my face. These fish were bigger than the blue ones I’d seen before. I guessed they were Koheru. They moved in sequence as if they got orders from a commander. They gathered and split in a mysterious rhythm, like a flower opening and closing rapidly.

When there were no fish, I let myself float on the surface freely without any movement. In my own world, I could hear only my breathing and see the strange weeds weaving on the sea bed.

Time passed so quickly. It was time for the second team to go snorkelling. I returned to the beach and took off the wet suit. Only then did I feel cold, uncontrollably cold. I had a quick shower, two cups of hot water and some food. Then, my body stopped shivering.

When all the participants got together again, Prof. Walsby took us to wander along the rock line. There, he introduced the formation of New Zealand, mud rock and sand rock. He caught some invertebrate creatures from the drainage furrow and explained to us briefly about ecology and importance of nature reserve.

I am not a stranger to the concept of a marine nature reserve. When I was in China, I had been in some of them, like, Changdao island of Shandong, Chongming island of Shanghai, Beihai of Guangxi, and Zhanjiang of Guangdong etc. Some of them were established to protect species, others were for habitat preservation. For example, Duguon nature reserve in Guangdong was for species protection and Zhoushan nature reserve in Zhejiang was for habitats. These reserves play a very important role in protecting biodiversity as well as providing comparison between touched and “untouched” areas.

IUCN has developed six categories for nature reserves. They are: Ia) strict nature reserve; Ib) wildness area; II) national park; III) natural monument; IV) habitat /species management area; V) protected landscape/seascape; VI) managed resource protected area. Different management approaches apply for different reserve types.

The China’s nature reserves mentioned above, which adopt strict management regimes, belong to category Ia. Except for approved scientific research, other human activities are prohibited.

New Zealand applies another approach. The reserves can be placed into category IV (I guess) which means certain human activities are allowed while the reserve is trying to protect/rebuild species and habitats. Linda Bercusson of DoC told me that all nature reserves within New Zealand were open to public.

Different management regimes may originate from different understandings of conservation and utilization. China’s strict nature reserve, on one hand, pays huge attention on restoring species, protecting habitats and maintaining ecological processes. While New Zealand, on the other hand, tries to make balance between conservation and utilization. While conserving, the nature reserve provides the public with a good place for entertainment.

For example, in the early 70’s, the area around Goat Island became a desert. Fish and other ocean creatures vanished because of overfishing. After the establishment of the Goat Island nature reserve, DoC implemented a series of management countermeasures. Among them, one of the most important initiatives was to control exploitation from the area. That is, for visitors, to “leave nothing except for foot prints; take nothing but memory, photos and rubbish”. With decades of effort, ocean creatures came back to Goat Island slowly. Meanwhile, the reserve gets well known. Around 300,000 visitors come to the reserve every year. Compare that with the population of New Zealand (4 million), this number is really significant. Many visitors stay in the reserve for a whole day boating, snorkelling or diving. They enjoy coming in contact with nature, admiring its interesting habitats and watching the animals closely.

However, I did not see too many fish this time, not as much as the brochure showed. Also the creatures in the intertidal zone were not very abundant. This was possibly because we were there at the wrong season, wrong place or wrong tide times. But I guess also, perhaps too many tourists? Do too many tourists influence the speed and structure of rebuilding biological communities? Of course it is just a guess which needs a long-term study to check.

A half day visit is not nearly long enough, I am looking forward to another chance to walk around the Goat Island reserve, to know its biological structure and to see more fish.