A Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) spokeswoman said yesterday its staff, as well as those from the Department of Conservation (Doc), would provide recommendations to ministers late next month on the advice of the The South-East Marine Protection Forum.
Doc coastal Otago operations manager Annie Wallace said at an Otago Conservation Board meeting in July the date would be late this month.
At the meeting board members expressed frustration at the time the recommendations were taking.
After more than three years, the forum released two recommendations to Doc and MPI in February.
They outlined which areas it thought should be protected, and to what extent, from Timaru to Waipapa Point in Southland.
It created two separate recommendations after no consensus could be reached between conservationists and commercial fisheries.
