Residents from Aniseed Valley have come together to take action around the water quality and health of Roding River, which twists and turns through the length of Aniseed Valley.
By working together, groups achieve broader and more coordinated outcomes than working individually, Roding catchment group member Amy Robertson says.
“We received a great response from locals at our first meeting and over 30 community members expressed interest in forming the catchment group,” Amy explains. “Sarah Douglas asked for expression of interest for a leadership team and, so far, Rosalie Bennet and I are keen.”
The group’s first few activities include seed collection and seedling repotting and have been supported by many willing community volunteers already.
“We plan to connect with other residents and educate ourselves around all sorts of things like weed management, site preparation and native planting of the river edge and wider catchment; environmental plans for private properties; wetland formation, and anything related to improving the catchment environment or preparing for the effects of climate change,” Amy says.
Nelson/Marlborough regional coordinator for NZ Landcare Trust, which empowers individuals and groups to act on improving their local land and water quality, Annette Litherland, says that it would be great to hear from anyone keen to start a catchment group in the Waimea.
The achievements of the neighbouring Moutere Catchment Group provide plenty of inspiration.
“The Moutere catchment group, as an example, has been run using an informal governance model. This could be replicated in the Waimea and takes the pressure off committing to additional work to start their own group,” Annette says.
Over the last four years, the Moutere catchment has planted around 500,000 native plants which has involved 200 landowners. Roughly 330,000 of those plants were funded, with the landowner covering the remaining cost.
“Plenty of local support is available for people wanting to form catchment groups, like Tasman Environmental Trust, Tasman Bay Guardians, Tasman District Council and us here at NZ Landcare Trust, who have been working in this space for nearly 30 years,” Annette explains.
Tasman District Council catchment facilitator Brigid Graney says that she is keen to engage and support catchment groups.
“It would be great to have more catchment groups in the Waimea catchment. Sometimes a catchment group may need to contact multiple council staff and my role is to help make those connections.”
Brigid also says that freshwater farm plans are a further measure to achieving successful catchment-wide outcomes and her team at the council is there to help make that space less complicated.
Doing these plans as part of a catchment group can help with shared learning.
Something important, that all involved agree on, is that the best results are improvements led by the community.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun and we will see what we can achieve,” Amy adds.
