Outdoors Council - “No” To Tradable Water Rights

A national outdoor recreation forum has spelled out a strong “no” to the concept of tradable water rights. In a submission to government on water and rivers future management, the Council of Outdoor Recreational Associations (CORANZ) said while much talk centred on charging for water, making rights transferable should be prohibited.

In the submission sent to the Ministry for the Environment over future water use, CORANZ co-chairman Bill Benfield said water rights should not be transferable if an allocated amount was not used. Instead the unused amount should remain in the ecosystem. He said allowing tradable rights as was done with the quota management system (QMS) in fisheries had resulted in big, moneyed interests buying up quota and aggregating rights thereby leading to a monopoly by corporates of the resource.

He said access to any resource whether fisheries or water and the ability to profit from it for commercial purposes was not a right, but a privilege. Charges from any water fees charged to commercial interests, should be paid into a specific fund for restoration of impaired waterways.

CORANZ, a national forum for national and regional outdoor recreation groups such as trout and salmon fishing, 4 wheel drive, hunting, public access, sea fishing and tramping organisations, had over many years, advocated against the deteriorating state of New Zealand’s rivers.

“Water is a public resource and an outdoor recreation resource as well as ecologically important to both land and coastal values. Statements from government such as the Prime Minister’s fatuous statement that water belongs to no one, ignored the public ownership and opened the way for special interest groups to lay claim.”

Similarly minimum standards advocated by government’s Environment Minister Nick Smith for a "wadeable or boatable” standard made a mockery of both common-sense and a responsible desirable standard.

“The desirable standard at the least, must be swimmable but CORANZ prefers that minimum standard be based on healthy aquatic invertebrate populations, i.e. a healthy ecosystem,” said Bill Benfield.

While it seemed dairying had been solely held responsible by some critics (e.g. Fish and Game) for deterioration of rivers both in flow and quality, CORANZ had long been concerned at inadequate environmental standards around forestry and the almost universal practice of clear felling. Resulting sediment run-off into rivers and estuarine areas and buildup of silt was accelerating according to surveys of the inner Marlborough Sounds.

© Scoop Media