Protecting our waterways is vital
The health of our waterways was top of mind for Kiwis during the 2017 election, and it still is. Seventy-eight percent of us said it was a very important issue and Labour particularly campaigned on the point, saying that if they led the Government, they would improve the health of our lakes and rivers across New Zealand.
We are deeply connected to our waterways in Aotearoa, they support us and are part of who we are; our physical and mental health is fundamentally linked to the health of water.
The Government’s Action for healthy waterways policy is being finalised this year by politicians in Wellington, we need to remind them of their promises to take action on water for all of us. To protect what we love about this country, our beautiful natural environment, we will need good strong policy to put us on the right path to cleaning up degraded waterways. It will take the implementation of strong rules that target the worst pollution to protect our vulnerable endemic fish species, some of which are threatened to go extinct by 2050 if we don’t change our practices.
There has been much conversation over the past year about what ‘acceptable’ pollution limits are for our lakes and rivers, but what is acceptable? If you are one of the many threatened native freshwater fish species that rely on a continuous supply of cool, clean and clear water flowing through your in-stream home, ‘acceptable’ will mean, among other things, no more than 1mg per litre of nitrogen.
If you want to swim or collect kai, the level of faecal contamination will need to be low enough so as not to cause human illness. If we want our rivers and lakes to stay clean and beautiful and not bloom with green and possibly toxic algae, we will need to limit the sediment and nutrients that flow into them from towns and agricultural land. People who live in towns and in the country are in this together, this is about solving a problem, let us remember that.
Whatever decisions come from the government, they must ensure that ecosystem health and the health of our people are at the forefront, after all when 78 percent say we care, isn’t ‘life’ what we really care about?
Here in Katikati we are fortunate to already have good subsidies and support for landowners wishing to protect the streams that pass through their properties. We are making progress and yet, once again over summer, due to high levels of E. coli, it was unsafe to swim in the Uretara River that threads temptingly through the heart of town.
We’ve seen over the last months, the ability of New Zealanders to work together to achieve important and difficult goals. We’ve seen leaders listen and respond to the advice of scientists. A lot of us have looked overseas and recognised how lucky we are to live in a country where the public cares for each other and where science underpins decisions. So it should also be for our most important taonga – our freshwater.