Sea Nest News

Celebrating one year of Sea Nest, Kōhanga Moana!

3 Mar 2025

This month, we are celebrating the first anniversary of the establishment of Sea Nest, Kōhanga Moana in Invercargill Waihopai – and what an incredible year it has been! Over the past 12 months our team has:

Constructed Aotearoa’s first low carbon artificial reef module – designed for NZ species and environments by NZ experts.

  • Deployed and closely monitored artificial reef modules in Awarua Bluff Harbour.

  • Demonstrated the stability and effectiveness of our modules in tidal flows of up to 3.9 m/sec (7.8 knots) of current (including when stacked).

  • Actively seeded modules with kelp and pāua (and learnt a lot about active marine restoration along the way).

  • Built knowledge about effective reef design and the impacts of design on seabed erosion and accretion.

  • Proven that, even at a small scale, artificial reefs can deliver big biodiversity benefits in Aotearoa NZ.

  • Shown that effective artificial reef projects can be cost-effective.

We are preparing a detailed monitoring report; however, we think our results speak for themselves: Post | Feed | LinkedIn

All eight monitoring dives have been highlights as we have watched indigenous species colonise our reef and seen the reef disappear beneath native seaweed. We were also honoured and excited to be awarded the NZ Coastal Society Sustainability Award at the NZCS annual conference in November 2024.

Achieving these milestones has only been possible with a dedicated team including our very knowledgeable, experienced and innovative marine science and dive team, along with the enthusiastic support of our project partners and collaborators including McGregor Concrete, OCEL Engineering, Kelp Blue, Foveaux Pāua, Southern Marine Farms and Ocean Beach.

We are looking forward to continuing our marine restoration journey in 2025/26 and we would love to hear from you if you would like more information or if you have any marine projects that you would like to progress!

23 Nov 2024

Sea Nest wins NZCS sustainability award!

Sea Nest had an excellent week attending the New Zealand Coastal Society conference in Ōtautahi this month. This year's theme of "Dynamic Coasts:Embracing Nature's Partnership" was a perfect setting to present on the Sea Nest journey to-date and discuss the first 6 months of data from our Awarua research reef and active restoration trials. The kōrero around our presentation "Rewilding Bluff Harbour via active marine restoration: Sea Nest/Kōhanga Moana pilot study" was inspiring and encouraging and we were incredibly honoured to be the recipient of the NZCS Sustainability Award for the conference, sponsored by eCoast Consulting and Research.

There's a momentum shift occurring in Aotearoa towards greater support and enhancement of the marine environment. We hope to inspire and enable both grass-roots and larger infrastructure scale projects in this space and lead from the front, getting out there and showing how it can be done, affordably and effectively.

In addition to attending the NZCS conference, this month our intern Soleil Blanquera along with Gemma Davis, completed a literature review for the proposed Aotearoa Marine Carbon Forum on the opportunities and barriers associated with the inclusion of marine and blue carbon in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and provide examples from around the globe. Thank you to Soleil for her work and commitment.

If you would like more information about our pilot reef, or a copy of our research, please contact us at info@seanest.co.nz.