Coalition Forms to Shield New Zealand’s Rivers at Risk

HAMILTON, New Zealand, December 15, 2004 (ENS) - Four environmental and outdoor recreational organizations have joined in a fight to save New Zealand’s rivers from the growing threats caused by irrigation, hydroelectric power, pollution, and limitations on public access.

Today in Hamilton, by the banks of the polluted Waikato River, representatives of Fish & Game New Zealand, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Federated Mountain Clubs, and the New Zealand Recreational Canoeing Association launched the new Living Rivers coalition.

Steam rises off the Waikato River near the town of Taupo on New Zealand's North Island. Its waters are fed by thermal springs. (Photo credit unknown)

“This is crunch time for New Zealand’s rivers. Our rivers are polluted. There is also enormous pressure to dam, divert and suck water from our rivers. Worst of all, proposed changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) will make it harder for communities to protect their rivers,” said Forest and Bird’s Conservation Manager Kevin Hackwell.

Last year’s annual report by government chief executives on the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy warned that, “At the current level of effort, and with existing knowledge, the rate of decline [of freshwater species] is likely to increase over time, with a resulting loss of species from some locations and extinctions of some species.”

“Sadly there is no evidence that the Ministry for the Environment or Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry consider extinction an important issue for sustainable development in New Zealand," said Hackwell. "Nowhere in their joint discussion document on the government’s water programme of action did officials mention the risk that native freshwater species may go extinct."

“There’s nothing in the report about braided rivers, or the threatened fish species and birds that live in them. Instead the ministries were concerned that ‘setting environmental bottom-lines is costly and contentious’, and the ‘development of water infrastructure is not keeping pace with demand’,” he said.

“We are also seeing changes to the RMA that will make it easier for the developers to force new hydroelectric and irrigation schemes onto unwilling communities who want their local rivers protected,” Hackwell said.

“Regional councils will be required to promote infrastructure and all local authorities will have new powers to strike out submissions from submitters they don’t like,” he said.

In September, the New Zealand government announced a package of measures that Associate Environment Minister David Benson-Pope said was "designed to improve the working of the Resource Management Act."

Associate Environment Minister David Benson-Pope also serves as minister of fisheries. (Photo courtesy Office of the Minister)

The RMA package includes greater use of national policy statements and national environmental standards to give national direction and consistency across local government.

The Ministry for the Environment will be taking "a stronger leadership role to help local government develop knowledge and practice," the government said. National assistance might be provided to a local council that asks for help with a complex or cross-boundary case or "national representation in the decision-making" might be allowed. Central government may also become involved in consent processes.

The government believes these measures will good for New Zealand's environment, but the conservationists do not agree.

“Central government will have new powers that include a National Development Act style of fast-track decision making process for major projects and wide powers for the Minister for the Environment to write edicts to interfere in local government,” said Hackwell.

Plans are in the works that may change New Zealand's rivers for all time.

Project Aqua, for instance, is a major hydro electric power proposal by Meridian Energy Ltd. to further dam one of the South Island’s largest rivers. The power company wants to divert about two-thirds of the water of the lower Waitaki River though a 60 kilometer “power canal" containing six power stations generating about 524 MW largely for North Island cities. The scheme will cost US$1.2 billion.

Fish and Game New Zealand says the organization opposes the plan and will continue to do so unless until it receives "credible technical assurance" that the scheme will have no adverse affect on fish and game resources and angler opportunities.

Duncan Catanach, a conservation officer for the New Zealand Recreational Canoeing Association, says the recreational and competitive canoeists and kayakers his organization represents are worried about threats to the country's rivers.

The Buller River already has protected status, but a hydropower facility might be built on the river. (Photo credit unknown)

"For instance, the Buller River catchment, an internationally recognized whitewater mecca, is protected by a Water Conservation Order only two years old. Yet, the Gowan River, an important tributary of the Buller, and protected as part of the Buller Water Conservation Order, is currently under threat from a hydro scheme," Catanach says.

For these groups, the new Living Rivers Coalition is a way to take positive action toward river protection. Catanach is hopeful that the coalition can help make sure "that river environments, such as the Buller and the Gowan, get the attention and protection they deserve."