Motueka Integrated Catchment Management

Andrew Fenemor
Tasman District Council
Private Bag 4, Richmond 7031, Nelson
Email: andrew.fenemor@tdc.govt.nz

Water is the Sink

Our rivers, lakes and groundwaters are the sink for what we do on the land. The sea is the sink for what we do on the land and in our fresh waters. Successful water management is therefore not just about managing water uses. It is about managing the whole catchment in an integrated way to minimize downstream impacts. Integration requires collaboration among the different scientific disciplines, a common purpose for environmental management from all players - scientists, decision-makers in councils, land users in the catchment - and integration of environmental management with social and economic drivers.

I have a poster on my wall which sums up this paradigm in layperson's language:

The Four Laws of Ecology

1. Everything is connected to everything else

2. Everything must go somewhere

3. Nature knows best

4. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Integrated catchment management has been an objective since the days of the 1967 Water and Soil Conservation Act. New Zealand's drive to demonstrate sustainable environmental management ('Pure NZ', 'clean & green') depends on us doing better at integrated catchment management. Fortunately there are new tools to help us:

  • improved communications, including email and the Internet
  • databases and modelling tools, for better forward prediction of environmental effects
  • decision support systems for better informed decisions, including at landowner level
  • economic drivers, demanding lower impact resource use.

The Motueka Integrated Catchment Management Research Programme

The challenge of integration is being tackled at the large catchment scale in the FRST-funded Motueka Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) research programme, launched two years ago. This is a collaborative effort led by Landcare Research (leader Breck Bowden) with Cawthron Institute and Tasman District Council. It also involves IGNS, Forest Research, Otago University, Lincoln Environmental, and NIWA.

This 'ridge tops to the sea' perspective takes a holistic approach to the large-scale, regional environmental issues. The Motueka catchment does have some contentious resource management issues. These include:

  • Negotiations over a Water Conservation Order aimed at protecting the nationally important brown trout fishery, but which would limit water able to be taken for future irrigation and industry development
  • Concerns about sedimentation particularly from forestry activities, affecting river water quality and fisheries
  • Afforestation reducing streamflows and groundwater recharge
  • Litigation over the allocation of sea space for mussel and scallop shellfish harvesting in Tasman Bay, which has so far generated 13 weeks of hearings before the Environment Court

From the Council's perspective, the research programme will be a success if it can motivate and deliver information to us and other stakeholders to help make robust decisions on these and emerging catchment management issues.

Research Themes

The research in the ICM Motueka initiative is organised around four science themes:

  • land use - which primarily addresses issues of land use effects on water resources, including surface water and ground water
  • freshwater - addresses issues of water quality and habitat as well as riparian management issues
  • coastal marine - addresses the issue of the catchment's effects on Tasman Bay and the implications for marine farming and marine habitat
  • human dimensions - addresses issues of why and how stakeholders manage the conflicting resource needs within the community.

Initially, the programme is summarising and interpreting existing knowledge, especially regarding water availability and sediment generation. Over the next four years of this programme, the research will include work on nutrient and pollutant dynamics, riparian management and restoration, the impacts of gravel extraction, and the development of new models to describe land-river-coastal interactions.

Partnerships

An innovative aspect of the programme is the partner role of local government and stakeholders in the research. Before the project began, a workshop involving 14 industry and interest groups developed a collective vision for the region in 2020 summarised as 'Blue Water with Life'. The major research issue arising from this vision was to understand the effects of land use on freshwater and coastal processes.

The detailed research proposal was developed after a visit during summer 2000 from two international experts, Prof Tom Dunne from the University of California and Dr Gene Likens of the Institute for Ecosystem Studies in New York. Three meetings held throughout the catchment provided local views of resource management issues. Specific research issues were also prioritised using responses to a questionnaire sent to farming, forestry, fishery, environmental and community stakeholders.

Since the project began, a "Community Reference Group" (CRG) has met quarterly to act as a sounding board for the research direction and dissemination of results. The research partners hold a public 'Annual General Meeting' in Nelson each October. The ICM website at http://icm.landcareresearch.co.nz informs the public about the catchment and the research, includes a project staff room, and through the efforts of a Royal Society Teacher Fellow at TDC will hopefully develop a schools' section.

The linkages between the ICM programme and the community enable local people to not only become informed of the results but to comment on the issues and the way these are being researched. One stimulating example for the Community Reference Group is their current development of an 'Influence Matrix' ranking their perceived environmental, social and economic issues in the Motueka catchment. The Motueka ICM programme also has an international profile. The Motueka catchment is one the operational basins selected for an international programme dealing with hydrology and people as part of the UNESCO-funded HELP programme (Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy).

Conclusion

The Motueka ICM programme is a bold experiment in integrated management and community involvement. It will be a success if the Motueka catchment community and Council continue to be motivated to participate and act on the research results.

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