New Zealand's continental shelf project

In August 1996, the New Zealand Government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As a party to the convention and under Article 76, New Zealand is required to determine the outer limits of its legal continental shelf, and lodge its submission with the United Nations by August 2006. Initially the then Ministry of Commerce was charged with responsibility for New Zealand's Continental Shelf Project. This responsibility transferred to Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) in mid-1997. LINZ's role is to manage the survey programme, data collection, analysis and interpretation of the survey data, and in conjunction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the presentation of NZ's submission. The ten-year timeframe for NZ to make its submission, interpretative nature of Article 76, costs of vessel hire and weather dependant nature of surveying mean that there are significant risks surrounding the project. To manage these risks LINZ has developed and put in place a risk management strategy to monitor, manage and where possible mitigate the risks. In addition LINZ, in 1997, commissioned a joint venture team of scientists from the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and the Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences (GNS) to conduct a Desktop Study of NZ's marine seismic and bathymetric data sources. The NZ Desktop Study, which was completed in 1998, is a unique approach to minimising scope creep and any potential blowout in survey costs. The study identified areas of potential outer legal continental shelf, assessed areas where existing data met the requirements of Article 76, and proposed further survey work where gaps in the data existed. Excellent progress has been achieved with the survey programme to date. Once the majority of the surveying has been completed the final processing and interpretation of data, development of the data presentation system, and the negotiations and submission phases of the project will begin.