Three catchments named for special treatment under water policy
First published in Energy and Environment on July 11 2019
Catchments being considered as part of the Government’s Essential Freshwater programme for special treatment include the
Hoteo in Auckland, the Waitaki in Canterbury and potentially the Pelorus in Marlborough.
Earlier this year, Environment Minister David Parker said a few catchments geographically spread around the country
would be picked as at risk and classed as “exemplars” to show what could be done to stop “them tipping over” and
government money would be used to help restore them.
A Department of Conservation briefing paper to their Minister Eugenie Sage said the At-Risk Catchments project was being
led by the Ministry for the Environment.
“The project will identify a small group of exemplar catchments where a collaborative approach may be taken to help
improve the health of waterways from the bottom-up. It will also identify gaps that could be filled by regulatory or
non-regulatory interventions.
“This small group of catchments will be representative of a range of pressures and issues, and will help us to deliver
quick action and learn more about what works on the ground. DoC has been working with MfE and MPI on the exemplar
catchments work stream. An overlap in focus has been identified between our priority rivers work under the Biodiversity
Contingency funding and the ARC project.
“So far, three catchments in common have been identified between the two projects – the Hoteo in Auckland, the Waitaki
in Canterbury and potentially the Pelorus in Marlborough.”
Officials said coordinators would be recruited to help partners develop plans to achieve river catchment restoration.
This recruitment will occur for the first two catchments this financial year and for the third catchment next financial
year.
To make the most of the overlaps between the MfE and DOC programmes, officials proposed the three catchments be included
in the first stage of exemplar catchments, and could be announced in March.
This has not happened yet, but officials said additional catchments will be identified through continued discussions
with regional councils, partners and stakeholders, with a total of approximately ten exemplar catchments to be
identified as part of this work stream.
Parker is due to release more details of the Essential Freshwater programme soon and has indicated changing land use
will be a key to improving water quality. Tighter water standards with greater enforcement, restrictions on some farm
practices, more intensive catchment management and a beefed up farm management with Overseer were all part of the
toolbox to achieve this.
There would also need to be more work to help farmers improve practices and identify problem areas through farm outreach
services run by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
Parker said there would be “regulation of some of the riskier practices that are degrading some of our estuaries, with
too much sediment clogging up all the sand and killing the shellfish.”
The Government would look to regional councils to better manage catchments working under a “tightening of the parameters
in the Freshwater National Policy Statement".
Proposed new freshwater standards were still being developed and would be released soon for consultation. Parker said
the “devil is in the detail” and the complexity beneath this was “requiring farmers to change their land use is not
simple”.
Nitrate level couldn’t be set the same for every river in the country and this would have to be done at a regional
council level. However, too many farmers were not complying with the law and sometimes it was not being enforced and
this would have to improve.
First published in Energy and Environment on July 11 2019