No land grab, ECan says as it prepares for appeal
It’s not a ‘‘land grab’’, Environment Canterbury (ECan) says as it takes a row over the width of the region’s braided riverbeds to the Court of Appeal.
ECan chief executive Bill Bayfield said the council’s decision to challenge the High Court’s ruling had been made in the public interest, because it was important to have clarity around the issue.
The High Court decision, if it stands, has potentially major consequences for landowners who farm along the margins of braided rivers.
Justice David Gendall had determined ECan’s argument over river widths accepted by the district court was wrong, as it would allow riverbeds to extend into flood plains and even ‘‘roads, buildings, farms and indeed townships’’ across the Canterbury Plains.
Rural Advocacy Network spokesman Jamie McFadden told The Press he could not believe ECan’s decision.
‘‘It’s just so frustrating because it’s just so unfair, the whole issue, the way they have done it, using flood lines to define riverbeds.
‘‘I didn’t expect them to appeal. It just sucks up everyone’s time.’’
McFadden laughed at ECan’s comment it was not engaged in a ‘‘land grab’’.
‘‘We agree that the riverbeds are vitally important and we need to have the right systems in place to look after them. But it’s all the uncertainty this creates for landowners again.’’
However, Forest and Bird has been calling for authorities to take firmer action over riverbed encroachment by private interests.
Its conservation manager, Jen Miller, has previously told The Press that Canterbury lowlands have suffered ‘‘what appears to be an increasing land grab of our public land in the high country for private economic use’’.
She criticised the failure of agencies charged with managing the land to act when they became aware of illegal development.
The riverbed wrangle began when Dunsandel dairy farmer pleaded guilty, in an ECan prosecution in the district court, to clearing vegetation from what he and Dewhirst Land Company considered was the edge of the Selwyn riverbed and to constructing a gravel bund along a riverbank.
The work was to allow for the installation of pivot irrigators.
They appealed the ECan definition of a riverbed to the High Court and won.
Dewhirst could not be reached for comment on the ECan appeal on Monday afternoon.
Bayfield said the decision had been ‘‘carefully considered’’.
‘‘The decision to appeal is felt to be necessary to ensure clarity for all – including landowners, communities and river users – on a point of law that has wide-reaching implications and which is central to Environment Canterbury’s work in protecting the region’s much-valued braided rivers.
‘‘The significance of protecting these special values is too important an issue not to fight for.
‘‘The decision . . . is not about undertaking a ‘land grab’, nor is it about reducing property ownership or pursuing a single defendant through the courts.
‘‘Worth noting is that between 1990 and 2012, nearly 12,000 hectares of formerly undeveloped or forested river margin land in the region’s low plains was converted to intensive agricultural use.
This is an area three times the size of Lyttelton Port.’’
A consequence of the High Court decision might be that activities previously managed or prohibited would now be managed or prohibited in a smaller area, Bayfield said.
McFadden questioned why, in light of the decision to appeal, ECan staff had been consulting communities about river extent using historic braided channels rather than flood lines for four sections of the Waiau, Waihao, Ahuriri and Ashburton rivers.
‘‘Why go through this different approach, and then appeal?’’
Bayfield said the appeal was likely to have an impact on a range of our projects, including that one.
The appeal was expected to be heard later in the year, he said.
‘‘The significance of protecting these special values is too important an issue not to fight for.’’ ECan chief executive Bill Bayfield