Why it matters
Communities around the motu have been asking for the pollution of their rivers and lakes to be addressed for years.
The state of our freshwater
- Most rivers and many lakes fail to meet water quality guidelines, with numerous swimming spots carrying a high risk of infection.
- Dairy cattle numbers and associated urine and faecal matter have almost doubled since 1990.
- Nitrogen fertiliser application has increased by 629% since 1990.
- We have drained or destroyed almost all (90%) of our wetlands since human arrival.
- Most (76%) of our native fish (including whitebait) are threatened with or at-risk of extinction.
- Levels of nitrate pollution in groundwater in many places – including drinking water sources – continue to increase.
Now the coalition Government is undermining that community aspiration to restore the health of their freshwater.
We had world-leading freshwater policy which prioritises the health of water and communities above commercial activities, extractive industries, and private profit. But next year the Government plans to completely rewrite that policy too.
Already the Government has weakened freshwater protections by:
- removing the ability for councils to prioritise the health of freshwater above other activities when considering resource consent applications (they’ve bypassed the ‘Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy of obligations).
- removing maps that required stock to be excluded from rivers in certain areas of sloped land.
- weakening intensive winter grazing rules, meaning we will continue to see cows farmed in mud.
- weakening the rules protecting wetlands from mining.
- weakening rules in the Resource Management Act that prevented pollution that would have significant impacts.
- pausing the roll out of Freshwater Farm Plans across the country.
- restricting regional councils’ ability to introduce new rules to protect and restore freshwater at a local level until they’ve written ‘new’ (weaker) Government policy.
Years of effort and evidence-based work, and years of investment, are all being undermined and wasted – with the consequence being continued pollution of our rivers, lakes, and groundwater.
Healthy freshwater is critical to the wellbeing of our communities, ecosystems, and economy. Delaying action to address the pollution of our rivers, lakes, aquifers, and wetlands will cost us significantly. It’s already costing us and our communities in all sorts of ways - through regular boil water notices and contamination, and pollution in places like rural Canterbury with nitrates in groundwater making it unsafe to drink.
These law changes will be bad for our communities, our children, and our grandchildren. We’ve seen the issue of freshwater pollution kicked down the road for a generation now.
It's time for action. We all need clean and healthy water.
