Will you speak up for waterways in Otago?
Photo by Will Ellis (CC-BY)
The Otago Regional Council is developing a new Land and Water Plan for Otago’s lakes, rivers, and streams. This new plan will be a powerful tool for how water is managed in Otago for years to come.
We have an opportunity to put nature first. Let’s make our voice clear.
Often, these kind of consultation processes are dominated by stakeholders with a financial or commercial interest. This is why many local government decisions fail to protect the environment. It doesn’t have to be this way.
We need your help to make it clear that nature must come first.
Please take a few minutes to provide feedback. Ensuring meaningful protection of our ecosystems now will have a positive effect on resource management decisions and how water is managed for decades to come.
Take action now
- Attend a community meeting. These are happened from late October across the Otago region.
- Do an online survey. This is a quick and easy way to speak up for nature. There are surveys for different parts of Otago and you can provide feedback for as many areas as you would like.
- Get in touch with your local Councillor. Let them know you want to see freshwater ecosystems prioritised in the Land and Water Plan.
- Ask your friends and whānau to contribute.
Submission guide
Each online survey takes between 2 and 20 minutes, depending on how detailed you want to be. Whether you only have time to make a quick submission, or can spend a lot of time on it, every bit helps.
Each online survey is separated into three pages. These are identical for each area. Here are some tips for each page:
- Page 1. The Environmental Outcome Statements are the goals that need to be achieved by the Plan. This is where the rubber hits the road. The statements Otago Regional Council has suggested are worth supporting, but they should be stronger and more directive. More specific wording could include:
- Functioning, productive, and resilient ecosystems.
- Requirements to restore ecosystems when they are degraded.
- Abundant opportunities for a range of recreation and public access.
- Page 2. The Otago Regional Council wants to know about which farming practices they should promote through the plan. However, most of the practices listed on the second page are just a list of recommended good management practices that people should be doing anyway.
- Page 3. The list of farming practices on the third page is unlikely to get us all the way to properly protecting and restoring water bodies. Otago Regional Council needs to be open with the public about the need reduce the scale of intensive land use.
If you want to submit on multiple areas/rohe, you can complete the survey multiple times. It doesn’t matter if you don’t live nearby — make it clear that many of us care about waterways across Otago and that nature deserves to be protected everywhere.