Amy Adams, Nathan Guy21
NOVEMBER, 2013 - Environment Minister Amy
Adams and Primary Industries Minister Nathan
Guy have welcomed a water quality report
released today by the Parliamentary Commissioner
for the Environment.
“The report underlines
the importance of the Government’s freshwater
reform programme, by showing just what could
happen with our water quality if we do not
have good policy in place to drive more
careful and efficient use of our land and
water,” Ms Adams says.
“The Government has
a package of reform that will lead to more
productive and sustainable use of our freshwater
resource, and help alleviate the concerns
raised in the report.”
The Government’s freshwater
reform programme includes a National Objectives
Framework, national bottom lines for freshwater,
collaborative planning processes, better
water accounting and spending hundreds of
millions of dollars on freshwater clean-ups.
The Government also
plans to legislate for independent environmental
reporting that will enhance New Zealanders’
understanding about the state of our environment.
“There is still more
work to be done and more debate to be had,
but I am confident that with the combined
will of our council, communities, iwi, and
water users – and with the support of our
science community - we will see significant
water quality gains within a generation.”
Mr Guy says it is pleasing
to see Dr Wright acknowledge that farmers
are actively working to reduce the amount
of nitrogen and phosphorus leaching into
the water from urine and fertiliser.
“Riparian planting and
fencing off water ways are very effective
at reducing E.coli contamination, as well
as managing sediment and phosphorus.
“It was pleasing to
see Fonterra’s announcement this week that
20,000kms of waterways have now been fenced
to exclude stock access.
“Farmers realise the
importance of sustainable environmental
practises as the land is their biggest asset
and they need to take good care of it. They
know that water resources need to be better
managed and modern technologies including
more efficient irrigation systems and water
storage projects will help our overall sustainability.
“The Government is investing heavily in
research to tackle the environmental impacts
of agriculture. Much of this research is
focussed on reducing nutrient loss on-farm,
improving effluent management and more efficient
irrigation.
“This includes over $100 million jointly
invested in Primary Growth Partnership projects,
and AgResearch is running ‘Pastoral 21’
to lessen the environmental impacts of farming.
This is a $38 million project with funding
from DairyNZ, Fonterra, Dairy Companies
Association of New Zealand, Beef + Lamb
New Zealand and the Ministry of Science
& Innovation.”
The Ministers says it is important to note
that the modelling in the report is based
on trends between 1996 and 2008.
“That means the report
does not take account of the significant
water quality initiatives introduced by
the Government since then, as well as the
increasing actions by regional councils,
iwi, the farming sector and other water
users to better manage water,” the Ministers
say.
“For example, many regions,
including Canterbury, Southland and Otago,
which are highlighted in the report as being
of greatest concern, are already well down
the track of introducing freshwater objectives
and limits to improve water quality. This
requirement was introduced in the National
Policy Statement for Freshwater Management
in 2011.”
+ More
Improving our freshwater
management
Amy Adams7 NOVEMBER,
2013 - Good afternoon, and thank you for
joining us at Zealandia today.
We choose this venue for today’s announcement
because the Kaiwharawhara catchment that
the Sanctuary lies in has over the years
been a microcosm of some of the challenges
that the Government’s freshwater reforms
seek to address.
The catchment is influenced
by forestry, farming, regenerating native
bush, urban and industrial land uses.
This presents a challenging
cocktail of impacts on the water quality
of the stream and its environs.
We have seen great gains
here since the old days when sewage and
industrial waste were frequently discharged
into the stream.
While such discharges
are no longer the problem they used to be,
discharges of nutrients and contaminants
continue to cause issues from time to time.
Greater Wellington Regional
Council works in partnership with the city
council and local community groups to improve
the water quality.
Together, the community
is turning this catchment back into an attractive
natural resource, just minutes from the
city centre.
What lies at the heart
of the Government’s freshwater reforms is
support to make this job easier for councils
and communities. We need better processes
and information, with more tools and guidance
so that communities can make better decisions
about managing their water.
History of the reforms
It is undeniable that
in the past we have lacked sophistication
about how we have managed and used our freshwater.
It is important to remember
that many of the problems we see today have
been 140 years in the making.
There is no overnight
fix.
But we can no longer
afford to shrug our shoulders and ignore
it, or hope that someone else will fix it
for us. We have to start from what we do
have and what we do know – and then build
from it.
In 2009 the Government
asked the Land and Water Forum to advise
us on how to manage the issues around water.
Looking to the stakeholders
in this way was ground-breaking. It was
the first use of a collaborative approach
for such a big and complex policy issue
in New Zealand.
Many people thought
it would be a noble but short-lived effort.
They were proved wrong – the Land and Water
Forum worked together for four years and
produced three reports with more than 150
recommendations for government.
What many people forget
is that councils have long been required
to set water management objectives in their
plans.
But what has been missing
is a clear pathway or national direction
on how to set limits to achieve this.
The National Policy
Statement we introduced in 2011 was an important
step, but we recognised that further guidance
would be needed.
In March this year,
we proposed further measures focussing on
good science and robust information, and
a national framework to help regional councils
and communities set their freshwater objectives
and limits.
Now, we are seeking
the public’s feedback on more detailed proposals
for how this will happen.
Announcement – release
of discussion document
Today, Minister Guy
and I are pleased to release this discussion
document.
It contains proposals
for additions to the National Policy Statement
for Freshwater Management that will take
our freshwater reforms to the next step.
I would like to take
you through the key proposals that we want
feedback on.
The first I will mention
is that the discussion document proposes
explicit consideration of tangata whenua
values for freshwater, such as Te Mana o
te Wai which reflects the intrinsic value
of water.
Secondly, we want regional
councils to better measure how much water
is used in their region and what is discharged
into water bodies.
This information is
crucial for setting effective freshwater
objectives and limits.
It is essential to understanding
how to use our water more sustainably, and
whether we are missing opportunities to
get more productive use out of it than we
currently do.
Thirdly, we are releasing
more details of the national objectives
framework to help communities set freshwater
objectives.
When the Government
took up the Land and Water Forum’s idea
of a national framework for this purpose,
the public feedback was resoundingly supportive.
The innovative thing
about the proposed national objectives framework
is that it provides regions with both a
process, and a scientifically-informed basis
for the difficult conversations that communities
are already having on water quality.
Scientific information
is critical to the conversation about managing
our water, but it cannot resolve conflicts
over values. Nor can it decide what trade-offs
or choices are worth making; or who bears
the costs or should benefit from these decisions.
Although we might agree
that clean water is important, there are
many different views about what this actually
means and on how we can achieve the water
quality for the uses we want.
There are also many
different views on how much risk we are
willing to tolerate, and what we are willing
to sacrifice when we make choices about
how we will use our water.
These are very difficult
conversations for communities to have. And
we all have stories about how hopeless or
frustrating they can be, as many end up
with continual and costly debate in the
Environment Court.
The proposed framework
provides a process for working through these
issues – as well as numeric values for some
of the water quality attributes we need
to manage.
The proposed amendments
provide compulsory national values with
national bottom lines for ecosystem and
human health for activities such boating
and wading.
We expect people will
debate the proposed bottom lines – that’s
the nature of science and value judgements,
and the purpose of a discussion document.
But, once agreed, the
framework will reduce the arguments in council
and in court over the science behind regional
plans and resource consents.
I want to stress that
the numeric values we are proposing for
the bottom lines have been developed by
more than 60 freshwater scientists, across
public, private, and academic sectors.
The scientists have
worked to ensure that these numbers are
robust.
Ministers have not involved
themselves with the scientific detail of
the framework.
The numbers have also
been tested with a reference group of water
users that includes the primary sector,
regional councils and recreational groups.
We now want the views of the wider public.
For the numbers in the
framework to be nationally applicable, a
very high standard is required.
We have required that
nationally-applicable regulations be tested
for possible economic impacts, so that we
can understand the impacts of the choices
we are making now.
This level of robustness
is the quality of information expected for
regional decision-making so it is essential
that we impose the same standard for national
regulation.
We are confident that
this has been a good process. If progressed,
the framework will continue to develop as
further science and our understanding of
its application to our dynamic and complex
freshwater environments becomes settled.
The framework will give
people more certainty about what is allowed
and what is not, and all this will save
time and money.
While there are gaps,
this initial version of the framework draws
a line in the sand.
It says this is what
we know now so let us stop arguing about
it and get on with finding a better way
of managing this valuable resource for the
future.
We need agreement now
on this first step in defining water quality
values nationally. If we can do this, there
will be less arguing and litigation and
more emphasis on the choices we as a community
want to make.
It is going to take
some experience to find the best ways to
work with the framework. But this does not
let any of us off the hook.
We are going to have
to work on these things, together, and make
them work.
Conclusion
Ensuring good quality
water is one of the most important environmental
and economic issues facing New Zealand today.
If our water is to continue
to be able to be used productively for the
benefit of our children and grandchildren,
it is time to work together to create a
better way of managing it.
I am proud of the progress
the Government has made with freshwater.
But we need to remember
that this is the next step in a process
that will take years, maybe decades.
There is more work to
be done and more debate to be had. But I
am confident that with the combined will
of our council, communities, iwi, and water
users – and with the support of our science
community - we will see significant water
quality gains within a generation.
I will now hand over
now to Nathan Guy, who will give you the
primary sector perspective. After that,
we will be happy to take questions.
