Govt pours cash into waterways

The Government is pouring millions of dollars into fencing and riparian planting along the Kaipara Estuary to protect it from pollution, including from livestock faeces.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker made the announcement yesterday during a visit to the Kaipara Harbour. It is New Zealand’s largest estuarine ecosystem, a 640,000ha catchment with many inflowing rivers that cover the Auckland and Northland regions. But its rare ecosystems, which are a habitat for white sharks, snapper, orca and many birds, including the critically endangered Fairy Tern, are increasingly clogged with sediment and mangroves.

“We need to reduce the pollution — nitrogen, sediment, E.coli (bacteria living in animal and people intestines) and other contaminants — from flowing through our cities and farms and into our waterways,” Ardern said. Community-led Kaipara work will be part-funded by a $12 million Government fund to boost catchments. It will focus on riparian planting, fencing streams to keep out livestock, and checking sediment flows.

It is part of the Government’s aim to clean up rivers and lakes, for which Budget 2019 set aside $229 million to improve land use and waterways. Parker said the Kaipara work would include volunteers, iwi, local government, farmers and school students: “Those lessons from ‘exemplar’ catch ments like Kaipara will be passed on to others. Further exemplar catchments will be identified in coming months.”

The Government will also announce measures to implement its Essential Freshwater plan, including setting direction on freshwater standards.