Te Puke Forest and Bird is encouraging people concerned about fresh water in the Bay of Plenty to watch New Zealand film ‘River Dog', screening at Rialto cinema on Sunday.

The award winning film, which highlights farming practices affecting water quality, touches on issues significant to the Bay of Plenty.

Grant Muir and his river dogs have been protecting the Pahaoa River from stock pollution.

Te Puke Forest and Bird chairperson Cathy Reid says the film is 'very pertinent to the environmental issues around here”.

She says it will challenge people's own thinking on how they view the natural resources in the Bay of Plenty.

James Muir, born and bred in Te Puke, filmed the documentary about his father, Grant Muir, who is farming in the Wairarapa.

Grant fenced his stock out of the Pahaoa River in order to protect the water quality, only to have his neighbour do the exact opposite and fence his stock on to the river; essentially making it one of his paddocks.

When the neighbour refused to alter his farming ways, Grant used his sheep dogs – the ‘river dogs' – to chase stock out of the river.

Forest and Bird Central North Island field officer Al Fleming says River Dog is fantastic.

'It has two main parts to it: one is a real New Zealand story about an individual who sees a wrong and makes it right and secondly the story is about fresh water.”

Al says water coming off the Kaimai Mamaku range – running to the Tauranga harbour, the Wairoa River and out to the Firth of Thames on the Waikato – is degraded because of farming practices.
'There are multiple reasons why the rivers are degraded, but intense pastoral farming and pollutants associated with intensification of farming efforts is resulting in degrading of water quality.”

It is not mandatory for farmers to fence off their waterways, but the Bay of Plenty Regional Council does offer riparian fencing subsidies.

'The issue of fresh water is becoming more important and also politically it's seen as something the government needs to act on,” says Al.

'So I believe landowners should take the opportunity now to receive a subsidy, rather than in the future it becoming mandatory through regulation.”

River Dog is screening at Rialto cinema, Tauranga, on Sunday, July 17 at 6pm, followed by a question and answer session with Grant Muir.

To view the documentary trailer visit www.riverdogfilm.com