Act Extends Geographic Naming Frontiers

A new Act passed in May has extended the jurisdiction of the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa (NZGB) to name features of our Continental Shelf and formalised the board's Antarctic place naming role.

New Zealand's undersea frontiers could soon be rolled out if the United Nations accepts this country's case for expanding its continental shelf boundaries. This would extend our sovereign rights to cover an area up to 24 times the size of New Zealand's landmass.

While most of this country's places and geographic features on dry land now bear names, many of the volcanoes, canyons and other major features of the undersea continental shelf landscape have no name.

The New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008 modernises the processes for the official naming of places and geographic features and will replace the 62-year-old New Zealand Geographic Board Act 1946.

An Order-in-Council is the only formality remaining before the new legislation is enacted, possibly later this year.

According to NZGB Chair Don Grant, the new Act makes a number of changes which enable the Board to carry out its functions and duties more effectively. “It also recognises the importance of correct names for places and their location for New Zealanders in their everyday lives, and for emergency services when they are responding to incidents.”

Other features of the new Act include:

• the opportunity for public input into proposed names for Crown-protected areas managed by the Department of Conservation
• a responsibility of the NZGB to maintain an online gazetteer of official geographic names containing location and historic information
• formalising the NZGB's role in naming places in the Antarctic (see protocol smoothes path for Ross Sea region).