This briefing provides an update on: the Overseer peer review; a report reviewing Overseer’s transparency; S-Map extension progress; and other work in the Decision Support Tools work programme.
It also includes a letter for you to send to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) in response to his concerns about the Overseer work programme.

Current estimates indicate that the majority of people in New Zealand and Australia are likely to have dietary iodine intake levels below their respective dietary reference intakes. An extension of permissions for voluntary iodine fortification of an increased number of foods and mandatory iodine fortification with potassium or sodium iodide or iodate are being considered as a possible means of improving the iodine status of New Zealanders and Australians.

Monitoring of benthic habitats and communities is needed to detect and manage adverse effects of disturbance from fishing and other factors. This report explores options for designing a deep-sea benthic monitoring programme for New Zealand waters. The issue is approached by considering: the usefulness of data presently available; characteristic spatial scales of variability that emerge from these data; which attributes of the benthos are appropriate for monitoring; survey design, and costs.