Taking a wider view to river catchments
Waituna Catchment Liaison Committee chairman Ewen Pirie on the banks of the Waituna Creek, which runs through his Oteramika farm.
River Liaison Committees were established in 1979 in conjunction with Federated Farmers. Today, there are eight Catchment Liaison Committees – Te Anau Basin, Oreti, Mataura, Makarewa, Waiau, Aparima, Waimatuku and Waituna.
The committees are made up of representatives, which are, ideally, evenly spread throughout each river catchment and are elected annually by their communities.
They advise and assist Environment Southland in the development of annual maintenance works programmes and budgets, and they provide an important local contact for each river community regarding special river and land drainage management issues.
Environment Southland land sustainability officer Sam Dixon says liaison committees were already wanting and trying to do more. Broadening their scope gives them that and it also aligns well with the whole-of-catchment approach being taken by Environment Southland.
“Their scope encompasses the ability to advise council on the entirety of the catchment, the entire physical environment. Land and water is very important and we know it’s inter-connected. This means land issues can also be talked about.
“We know a lot of our compounding issues aren’t coming from the people who border the river. So we need to ensure those further up the catchments are at the table to talk about the issues and possible solutions,” says Sam.
“We will also need to take a good look at how the work can be funded for the future in a way that is fair and transparent to everyone.”
Ewen believes that probably one of the biggest issues is that people don’t see past their own back door as far as water is concerned.
“Certainly in the Waituna, a lot of the issues that we’ve got are in the very lower reaches of the Waituna and the people that live in the headwaters of it, until quite recently, didn’t even realise where their water went or that they were part of Waituna.”
He hopes people from throughout the catchment will start to get involved.
“We’ve [Waituna Catchment Liaison Committee] floated the idea of a maintenance bank restabilisation rate, but we’ve had very little feedback from within the catchment at this stage,” says Ewen.
“It’s all going to be an interesting exercise as to where things go over the next few years.”
You can read the full Envirosouth magazine as a PDF online here.
