Enclosure of the Tasman Sea, or establishing the Tasman Sea as a Common Pool Resource Domain?

Abstract

As a researcher working within the surveying context, the continental shelf boundary provides a focus and a starting point for research, but one which I am not reluctant to let be eclipsed by the larger issues. What does the enclosure of the oceans mean to the world and to the people of New Zealand and Australia? What do we gain and what might we lose through the institution of a management regime extending to the maximum reaches allowed under the law of the sea? And how are we to evaluate the system of which the boundaries are only a part? The answers to the foregoing questions certainly bear on the subject of delimitation. We can only assess the effectiveness of the delimitation exercise as it fits into the larger effort, and as our understanding of the larger effort evolves so might our approach to the specific tasks it involves.