Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

I recently attended a meeting of landowners from the Te Manaia catchment – this is the catchment of the Te Manaia Stream just south of Katikati which flows from the Kaimai Department of Conservation estate in the upper catchment, down to Tauranga Harbour.

The meeting was part of the Tauranga Harbour integrated catchment management programme, which is being coordinated by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. The programme will result in catchment action plans to address sedimentation, land use, water quality and biodiversity issues sub-catchment by sub-catchment. There are 17 sub-catchments around the harbour which will have action plans developed.
The Te Manaia Stream is 28km in length and the catchment covers 1300 hectares. It is one of the first catchments to be dealt with because it discharges the second highest amount of sediment into the harbour and has the third worst E coli count of all streams flowing into the harbour. There are 208 landowners and 63 per cent of the land is in pasture, 10 per cent is in horticulture and 21 per cent in native bush. A high percentage of the land is quite steep and half of the catchment has soils which are vulnerable to erosion if they do not have good vegetation cover. The good news is that 86 per cent of the stream is fenced off to prevent stock entering the stream – but there is still over 4km of stream edge vulnerable to stock access.
At the meeting, residents gave their perspective of the issues in the catchment. There was the recognition much of the sedimentation problem is related to land use. Some of the suggestions from the floor included the need for:

• riparian planting of sufficient width to filter run-off from the land before it reaches the stream
• better management of roads and farm tracks
• an understanding of the effects of agricultural and horticultural nutrients on the harbour
• improved stock management
• pest control in the upper catchment
• planting of erosion prone hillsides
• more wetlands and detention dams to filter runoff
• better information on where silt, E coli and nutrients are coming from
• river alignment and stream works to protect from erosion

It is early days for this project and a lot more feedback will need to be received from the other land owners in the catchment before an action plan to address the issues is developed. However, I am very excited and encouraged by the process. We have the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, the Department of Conservation, the NZ Landcare Trust and the Western Bay of Plenty District Council all working together with landowners to address the sedimentation problem of our harbour at source. I am looking forward to seeing some innovative solutions.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please phone 07 579 5150 email [email protected] or visit www.janenees.co.nz