The state of New Zealand's freshwater environments have wide ranging effects, including on people, the economy and culture, a group of experts say, and they are calling on the new government to prioritise protections for freshwater. File photo of Takaka River Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Fifty freshwater experts and leaders from around New Zealand have sent an open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon urging him not to touch the country's national freshwater policy.
The government announced on 14 December that "Cabinet has agreed to replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020".
The letter calls on the government to retain the policy and its central decision-making framework, known as Te Mana o te Wai.
It reads: "New Zealand's rivers, lakes and aquifers are in a dire state. If you proceed with your proposals to undo the country's freshwater policy, they will only get worse."
"We call on you to listen to the wider community - not only the minority of voices who have asked you to undo the progress the country has made towards cleaner drinking water and healthier waterways.
"To remove, replace or rewrite our country's national freshwater policy at this time, so soon after it has been brought in, would be a terrible mistake."
The letter, addressed to Luxon, Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds, Minister of Agriculture Todd McClay, and Chris Bishop the minister responsible for Resource Management Act reform, was signed by 50 prominent experts in freshwater from public health, ecology, business, planning and other disciplines together with iwi, hapū and Māori leaders, as well as regional community leaders engaged in freshwater issues.
Simmonds said in last week's statement the coalition government was committed to improving freshwater quality for the benefit of all New Zealanders by ensuring a sustainable and balanced approach that worked towards improving the environmental outcomes for the country's waterways.
"The existing National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM) has become extremely complex and expensive to implement and will not deliver the outcomes for freshwater that New Zealanders expect," the statement said.
Freshwater ecologist Mike Joy organised the letter and said the group was "gutted" that the work they had been doing for more than a decade could be dropped.
Dr Mike Joy Photo: supplied
"It feels like we're taking a huge step backwards and it's made a lot us of very angry."
Joy said the 2020 policy was not perfect, but it was "a hell of a lot better than what we had before."
"If [the government] talk to anybody who is involved in this then they would understand that we've got a dire situation here and we really need to change. This is just the worst thing for everybody, including farmers, if we go backwards now.
"It doesn't bode well at all. It seems like just some kind of reactionary thing without looking at the science or looking at the reality. It seems like it's not been thought through at all."
He added that there is a link between freshwater protection and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate resilience.
A signatory, Dr Mahina-a-rangi Baker, a Māori environmental planner and co-chair of her local Kāpiti Freshwater Planning Committee, said: "Since its elevation as the fundamental concept in freshwater planning, Te Mana o te Wai has been providing clear direction and certainty for communities and economies. It directs a common-sense approach, to ensure the health of water and universal access to drinking water is protected for future generations, before other consumptive uses.
Dr Mahina-a-rangi Baker Photo: Supplied
"Te Mana o te Wai has also rightly directed more appropriate levels of involvement of Māori in decision-making. This government's intention to diminish the Māori voice, will ultimately diminish the quality of decision-making about freshwater," she said.
Another signatory, Professor Michael Baker, said: "Safe fresh water for drinking and recreational use is a fundamental building block of public health."
It is just seven years since New Zealand had the world's largest documented drinking water outbreak of campylobacter infection in Havelock North.
The subsequent inquiry concluded that protecting source water "provides the first, and most significant, barrier against drinking water contamination and illness"
Professor Michael Baker Photo: University of Otago, Wellington / Luke Pilkinton-Ching
Baker said it was a "huge wake up call for New Zealand. It would be a tragic mistake if we failed to learn from this disaster and went backwards on protecting our freshwater."
The letter said: "The public has been calling on central government to provide stronger protection for water and to drive the restoration of rivers, lakes, and other water bodies for decades. History tells us concern and pressure from the public will only increase.
"Please, take the country forward and provide the leadership needed to achieve healthy water for us all."