Saving a River: Waiau Trust Speaker at National Wetland Trust’s AGM

The National Wetland Trust’s public AGM will be held at Waikato University on Monday 27 August from 6.30pm with Mark Sutton from the South Island’s Waiau Trust the guest speaker at the event.

The Waiau Trust was set up in 1996 as part of a negotiation settlement between ECNZ (now Meridian Energy Limited) and the Waiau River catchment’s community, known as the Waiau Working Party and including DoC and Fish & Game NZ.

It was designed to mitigate and remedy the adverse effects the Manapouri Hydroelectric Power Scheme has had, and continues to have, on the fisheries and wildlife values of the Waiau Catchment in Southland.

A huge catchment, 200 kilometers long, it drains Lake Manapouri and the Te Anau Basin, as well as the Fiordland National Park on its western fringes.

The condition of habitats throughout the catchment varies widely.

Near pristine, natural habitats are present in Fiordland National Park, however the Lower Waiau River’s main stem and margins have varying degrees of natural values and are affected by pest plant infestations and hydraulic discontinuity.

Wetland and stream habitats in the agricultural sub-catchments are also affected by burning, grazing, removal of riparian vegetative cover, stock access to waterways, channelisation, drainage and general water quality degradation.

Mark Sutton will talk on the successes and failures of the Trust as it approaches a decade of active fieldwork throughout the catchment.

He says there are three broad areas to the Trust’s work – riparian protection and habitat enhancement, wetland protection and creation, and creating public access to the catchment’s rivers.

All activities are funded from the investment returned annually from the $5 million charitable fund set up as part of the negotiation settlement between ECNZ and the Waiau Working Party.

“What is innovative about the Trust is that we work throughout the whole catchment, and that we take an holistic, ecosystem approach to habitat enhancement,” says Sutton.

Working on a sub-catchment by sub-catchment basis the Trust evaluates the effect of land-use practices even on tiny feeder streams, and negotiates with landowners to enhance habitat and protect waterways using a Habitat Enhancement Agreement.

This does not require a caveat or separate title as does the QE11 Trust, but it is a legal agreement lasting 20 years between the landowner and the Trust, which if not transferred to a new owner of the land requires repayment with interest, says Sutton.

“We offer landowners a 25% subsidy on average towards the cost of retiring land for a riparian buffer zone, with the amount of land this takes up varying according to the specifics of their waterway, land-use and so on.

“We chose 20 years as the length of the agreement because we believe that in 20 years time riparian protection on farms will be mandatory.

“Farmers are pretty switched on generally, they can see the market for clean green products is driving this and is not likely to go away,” says Sutton.

Providing education and information is also a part of the Trust’s work, along with lake fisheries research as a key objective of the Trust is to carry out habitat enhancement to increase and expand the fisheries and wildlife population status in the Waiau catchment.

And with this comes providing public access to the resource for recreational and educational purposes.

Public access can mean the physical construction of vehicle tracks/roads, walking tracks and other facilities or simply that the public is not restricted from entering or traversing a piece of land.

Nominations for Trustees for the National Wetland Trust will be received by the Secretary until the close of business on Friday 24 August 2007. Nominations should be addressed to:

Jenni Hensley, Secretary, National Wetland Trust, c/o 2 Rataroa Road; Miranda; R.D. 3; POKENO or gekkomoon[at]slingshot.co.nz

The AGM will be held at the Whare Tapere Iti, WEL Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts, Waikato University and parking will be available at Gate 2B Knighton Road. A map is available from: www.waikato.ac.nz/academy/pdf/Academymap.pdf

To find out more about the National Wetland Trust visit www.wetlandtrust.org.nz

For more information on the Waiau Trust visit www.waiautrust.org.nz

ENDS

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