The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries have released a review of the nutrient loss modelling tool Overseer, and the Government has responded to this.

Environment Canterbury Chief Executive Stefanie Rixecker said Overseer is used extensively in Canterbury to model nutrient losses from land uses and in the regulatory framework.

"It is important for our consenting, compliance monitoring and enforcement, and farm environment plan auditing processes,” she said. “Our Resource Management Act plans and consents use Overseer - together with farm environment plans and independent audit - to maintain or improve water quality by minimising nitrate-nitrogen losses.

"We now need to take the time to consider the review so we can be clear about how these processes may be impacted.

"We welcome the Government’s commitment to continue to support Overseer while it looks into providing upgraded and/or next-generation tools over the next 12 months."

Find out more about the Government response to the Overseer review.

Our approach

"As soon as we have decided how we will respond to the review, we will contact those likely to be affected – we are working as quickly as we can to provide as much certainty to our community as possible,” Stefanie Rixecker said.

“We acknowledge the challenges farmers and the wider community are facing in the freshwater space at present, and we will always be mindful of those.

We are committed to continuing working with mana whenua and the community to enhance Canterbury’s water quality. To help achieve this, we need to make sure that consent holders are, at a minimum, operating at or better than industry-agreed Good Management Practice.”

Find out more about the Overseer tool and how this could impact the way we manage our waterways.

Plan Change 7 - Extension to the timeframe for decision

In anticipation of the review, Environment Canterbury has applied to the Minister for the Environment for an extension to the time for Council to decide whether to adopt the hearing commissioners’ recommendations on Plan Change 7 to the Land & Water Regional Plan as its own decision.

Find out more about our response to the report that led to this review.

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