Water and land management – good progress in Mackenzie area

Addressing Mackenzie District Council today, Environment Canterbury Commissioner Peter Skelton outlined the good progress being made towards delivery of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) via regional and local implementation programmes.

The public review phase of the draft regional implementation programme (RIP) has just finished.

The draft Land and Water Regional Plan (LWRP), a key delivery mechanism for the CWMS, will soon be going out for public comment.

Professor Skelton thanked the local community and tangata whenua for their efforts to date and emphasised the need for collaborative action, particularly on the challenging issues around water quality.

Final ZIPs will be taken into account in preparing future RIPs. Sub-regional chapters of the LWRP will include additional policies and rules to help with delivery of zone priorities and collaboratively determined catchment water quality requirements.

The zone implementation programme (ZIP) for Orari – Opihi – Pareora (OOP) was finalised on 2 April and will be presented to the Council shortly.

Professor Skelton said the OOP ZIP was addressing a number of important local issues, including water quality, biodiversity, and securing reliable supplies of drinking water as well as water for industry and irrigation.

“Water quality and biodiversity both require strong action at the local catchment level as well as on-farm initiatives,” he said. “The zone doesn’t currently have access to enough water to deliver on all the CWMS targets, so we need to optimise current use and secure new supplies.

Professor Skelton said the OOP sub-regional chapter of the LWRP would cover a series of priorities such as a catchment flow and allocation regime for the Orari River, groundwater allocation limits and flow-sensitive catchments.

The draft Upper Waitaki zone implementation programme (ZIP) has recently completed the community and stakeholder submission phase and will be presented to the Mackenzie and Waitaki district councils by the end of May.

This ZIP covers a wide range of significant issues including various aspects of water quality and quantity, biodiversity and environmental protection, water and nutrient management, irrigation, energy security and efficiency and economic development.

“I’m confident we are well placed to meet the major challenges of the future using the collaborative approach to water and land management that’s already proven highly effective in this area and throughout Canterbury,” Peter Skelton concluded.

For more information on the various plans visit Regional Strategies and Plans.