The exclusion zone around the Astrolabe Reef and the wreck of the Rena is going to remain unchanged for the foreseeable future

The three nautical mile zone created on the reef excludes all vessels except those directly involved in the Rena salvage operations.

An exclusion zone of three nautical miles remains in place around the grounded container ship Rena on Astrolabe Reef.

Bay of Plenty regional harbourmaster Carl Magazinovic says three nautical miles or five and a half kilometres is the operating zone required by both Svitzer salvage workers and container processing company Braemar Howells.

'It's what Svitzer and Braemar want and they are removing containers from the vessel. We worked out together that that is the zone of safety.

'They might not end up on the edge of it, but they might. And that's their concern as containers go into the tide they tow them away and pick them up. There's barges, tugs and all sorts going on.

'So, no we won't be shrinking it.”

Commercial operators have been asking for the zone to be shrunk or least to have an arc taken off the bottom to allow access to fishing grounds along the 50metre contour between Motiti Island and the Brewis Shoal.

'Certainly it's for the time being,” says Carl.

'Certainly at the moment there's allsorts of stuff going on in there which is not normal. There are containers everywhere in there around the ship and they are surveying around the area.”

The three nautical mile zone was first imposed in the days following the Rena's grounding on October 5.