Freshwater is a taonga. It’s a precious resource and we need to make sure we protect and care for it.
Director-Environment Quality Abby Matthews
That’s why Taranaki Regional Council is holding a kōrero with our community about it. It’s a conversation with all of you who live in our fantastic region. We want to know what’s important to you about freshwater and what your long-term vision is for how we look after it for future generations.
Asking someone what values are dear to them isn’t always an easy question to answer. It’s a complex issue with the ongoing kōrero expected to continue as we work toward notifying our new Natural Resources Plan in 2024. That Plan is the ‘why’ we’re seeking your views, but first lets look at what we’re currently doing.
To start the conversation, we’ve compiled a list of 12 values which cover different aspects of freshwater. That includes swimming or recreation, boating, fishing, preserving our native birds and wildlife, mahinga kai, farming, commercial/industrial, supporting healthy ecosystems and more.
So if you’ve got a favourite swimming hole each summer – let us know. If you’ve got a possie you go back to for fishing or whitebaiting – let us know. And if you’re passionate about protecting native birds and wildlife – let us know.
Or you may be a farmer who needs water for irrigation for your stock or you may work in an industrial or commercial enterprise which needs water. Again, let us know.
There are no right or wrong answers in this kōrero. It’s all about being heard and having your say.
And don’t worry if what you want to talk about isn’t on the list. There’s the opportunity to tell us about anything else you’re worried about or want to highlight as something we should think about when it comes to managing our activities and caring for freshwater.
When you head to trc.govt.nz/letskorero(external link), you’ll find a home page to give you all the basic information and a link to a map page. This is where you’ll find the surveys and have the chance to comment on the 12 values (plus anything else that you want to tell us about).
To help us manage this process and our waterways, we have to create something called a Freshwater Management Unit. Taranaki is a diverse region when you think about it with hillcountry, Taranaki Maunga, miles of beautiful coastline and incredible rivers. All our waterbodies are unique – and we can still recognise this within each FMU. However, when it comes to reporting on progress toward our values and vision, we need to strike a balance between acknowledging this diversity and providing an overview of how we’re tracking across the region. We have approached this by grouping waterways and similar areas together.
We’re proposing to have six of these FMUs in Taranaki covering the Volcanic Ring Plain, the Northern and Southern Hill Countries, the Pātea and Waitara river catchments and the Coastal Terraces for small areas of land that have spring-fed streams and coastal lakes. If you want to know about them, we’ve created online storymaps that provide a quick and easy way to find out each FMUs’ key features, water quality and much more.
The Let’s Kōrero surveys and interactive map are all based around these FMUs asking for your views on the values, what you think our vision should be for the future of freshwater and whether the six distinct areas we’ve identified provide a reasonable representation of the many freshwater bodies across the region. You can comment about the values too on the interactive map.
So that’s what we’re doing at the moment. The question many people have asked me is why we’re doing it. To put it simply, we know that we need to improve the health of freshwater and provide better outcomes for future generations. Through a range of new requirements, Government is driving a step-change in freshwater that aims to stop further degradation of our water, start making improvements to water quality and reverse past damage to waterways. At the heart of the reforms is Te Mana o Te Wai which places the mana of water first and foremost – before the needs of people and the economy.
The Council, working alongside tangata whenua and the community, has been tasked with putting the ‘Essential Freshwater’ reforms into effect. The first step in this process is to understand what we all collectively value about freshwater. This will guide the next phase where we put together the outcomes from this kōrero and then ask our community what regulations and rules or other actions you want to see, such as targets for swimmable rivers or limits on how much water can be taken for different uses.
All of this mahi contributes to the development of the Natural Resources Plan which will set the rules not just for freshwater but soil and air quality too. This is a key document that guides how we manage activities that impact the environment. We’ll be holding hearings so you can again make sure your voice is heard before the Plan is publicly notified.
The future of our freshwater is in your hands so please take part in the kōrero before 9 December.
Abby Matthews
Director-Environment Quality