Media release

5 June 2013

Streamside Efforts Win National Recognition

Taranaki’s region-wide streamside fencing and planting programme has won national recognition with a prestigious Green Ribbon Award.

The award, in the ‘Caring for our Water’ category, was presented to Taranaki Regional Council Chairman David MacLeod by the Minister for the Environment, the Hon Amy Adams, at a function at the Beehive tonight (5 June).

Mr MacLeod says the award is pleasing recognition for the Council’s Riparian Management Programme, one of New Zealand’s most significant voluntary unsubsidised environmental enhancement projects.

“It’s huge – the equivalent of fencing and planting both sides of the highway between New Plymouth and Auckland about 20 times over,” he says. “We’ve already got 3 million native plants in the ground, and there are millions more to come.”

Mr MacLeod says the Green Ribbon Award is an honour for the whole Taranaki region, not just the Council.

“In particular, it is for the hundreds of Taranaki farmers who have been working with the Council and other partners for two decades now to protect and enhance the region’s waterways by fencing and planting thousands of kilometres of streambanks,” he says “They are literally transforming Taranaki.”

The project is the largest enhancement planting scheme on private land in New Zealand, involving nearly 2,400 riparian plan-holders in Taranaki, including 1,760 dairy farmers. When it is complete, around 13,000 kilometres of stream banks will be protected with fencing and vegetation. So far, more than 75% of stream banks are fenced and more than 60% have riparian vegetation.

“This award recognises real people doing real work,” says Mr MacLeod. “They are getting on with it, committing time, sweat and financial resources. Too often, such efforts go ignored and unsung.”

He says there is no doubt the effort is paying dividends.

“Our monitoring shows that freshwater quality in Taranaki is clearly improving – judged by any measure, especially ecological health. The robustness of our monitoring has been confirmed in a review by the Auditor-General. New Zealand and overseas studies confirm riparian management is an effective approach to managing run-off from pastures to streams in topography like Taranaki’s. That’s been backed up in local case studies, too.”

Mr MacLeod says the award demonstrates how much progress is possible through solid partnership and shared goals. “My predecessor as Council Chairman, David Walter, wisely observed that you can achieve a lot more by going down into the valley and working alongside someone, rather than yelling at them from the hilltop. This award shows that this is a constructive approach that gets results.”

The Green Ribbon Awards are made by the Ministry for the Environment. Criteria include the significance of the environmental benefit, the measurability of results, the level of innovation involved, the awareness and education impacts, and the “extra mile” factor.

The Taranaki Riparian Management Programme was also a finalist in the ’Public Sector Leadership’ category of the awards.

Transforming Taranaki

ENDS

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