Bay of Plenty Regional Council is inviting rural landowners, who neighbour Tauranga harbour, to discuss at planned meetings how to manage land in a sustainable fashion.
The council is jointly hosting the meetings with Kaimai Catchment Project partners NZ Landcare Trust and Department of Conservation.
Tauranga harbour.
Several meetings will be held in sub-catchment locations, and landowners in the Te Manaia sub-catchment near Katikati have already met.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council manager land resources Robyn Skelton says the meetings are aimed at rural landowners living within particular sub-catchments.
Land and water management issues include sedimentation, biodiversity loss, water quality, erosion and climate change.
'Te Manaia landowners were very interested in our sediment and water quality data,” says Robyn.
'Landowners also expressed concern about contaminants that may be entering the stream, and were keen for the council to approach and work with landowners to resolve this.”
The council has a catchment management framework in place and is working within each of the 28 sub-catchments around the harbour.
'We have divided these 28 into 17 work areas in our Ten Year Plan and are developing catchment action plans for each.
'These will identify key priorities in terms of sustainable land management and biodiversity enhancement and protection, so we can prioritise our land management action and resourcing.”
Following the meetings, landowner views will be written into catchment action plans – a multi-agency approach to enabling community-led catchment management.
It will help with strategic planning for the Department of Conservation.:
Meetings
June 20 Waiau
June 28 Waitekohe
July 5 Uretara (Part 1)
July 13 Oturu
July 18 Uretara (Part 2)
July 21 Kopurererua
Contact the Robyn Skelton on 0800 884 880 for more information about these meetings.
3 comments
It ain't rocket science
Posted on 14-06-2011 16:43 | By barracouda
You don't need a ratepayer funded meeting to figure out that most of the problem with the harbour is the lack of river edge fencing and planting along many of the harbour tributaries. Get off your plushy boardroom backsides and get in a dinghy or a kayak and take a look! There are many properties bordering virtually every tributary with stock grazing right down to the water's edge, pugging the banks, contributing to erosion and silting. Time landowners were made to do the right thing. Fence, plant and take some responsibility that comes with the privilege of having a stream border. Or sell to someone who will. The regional council has been particularly slack in policing this.
NOT KAYAK ...
Posted on 14-06-2011 18:30 | By Secret Squirrel
When they get back from the CHCH holiday they will have to book a liner 5*+ to drift aimless up and down the habour looking for the next Champers depot!
Intensely worrying
Posted on 15-06-2011 07:21 | By IanM
Hopefully, the farmers will finally realise that sending their topsoil and fertiliser down to the estuary benefits nobody. Intensification of farming without intensification of land management was never likely to have a happy outcome. It is already too late for the estuaries - they are essentially dead, or at least their ecology is changing to mangrove forest which amounts to the same thing for atua, pipi and kuaka. There is nothing new in this story - the issues have been understood for decades. It is appropriate responses that are desperately needed, not more discussion. However, plaudits to everybody for this consciousness raising exercise and let's hope they get to it ASAP.
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