Protection for outstanding rivers remains

Fish & Game NZ is congratulating Environment Minister Amy Adams for her commitment yesterday not to water down the protection of the country’s most outstanding rivers and lakes – those protected by Water Conservation Order (WCO).

A WCO affords a river or lake National Park-like protection status, and is the only statutory tool New Zealand has that puts serious integrity behind freshwater in the increasingly dubious ‘100% Pure’ Kiwi brand.

As part of its controversial Freshwater Reform agenda, the Government proposed devolving decisions on nationally significant WCOs to local authorities, thereby creating a process that would have allowed protected waterways to be opened up for irrigation and dammed for electricity developments.

However, when speaking at the Valuing Nature conference yesterday the Minister announced that no changes will be made to WCO protection mechanisms.

Fish & Game NZ chief executive Bryce Johnson says the Minister has listened to the public after the outcry that surrounded the initial proposal – “For this she should be congratulated. Like our land-based National Parks, the protection of WCO waterways is sacrosanct to New Zealanders.”

With WCOs now off the chopping block and recognised for their importance to New Zealand , Mr Johnson says Fish & Game NZ looks forward to some rigour being added to the rhetoric about the Government’s commitment to reducing the degradation of the rest of our waterways that aren’t presently afforded any protection, especially our small lowland streams.

“It was encouraging to hear the Minister acknowledge that preventing pollution of waterways in the first place is better than leaving it to future generations to clean up,” says Mr Johnson.

“However, there are evident contradictions. While Ms Adams noted that the public is paying tens of millions of dollars to clean up rivers and lakes polluted by agriculture, the Kiwi taxpayer is also servicing the Government’s irrigation acceleration agenda through a $400m subsidy!

“The massive intensification of agriculture resulting from these super-storage schemes is only going to lead to more pollution of our waterways. Unless the Minister can provide evidence to the contrary, how does she reconcile this inevitability against her statement about having a ‘responsibility to ensure we are using our natural resources in a way that is fair to the generations that are still to be born’?

“Given the purpose of the RMA is being radically changed to make it increasingly pro-development at the expense of the natural environment, this is contradictory to grand statements about improving the environment.”

ENDS

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