Coming to a stream near you

Westpac is a sponsor of a project called Million Metres Streams (MMS), designed to encourage farmers – dairy and drystock – to plant trees along streams on their farms. 

The scheme is different from the Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord in that it’s voluntary and requires any land planted to be placed under a QEII covenant and fenced. The project is evaluated and if successful the cost of the trees will be paid for by sponsors.

MMS is run by the Sustainable Business Network and gets sponsors such as Westpac to pay for the trees and their planting. 

Recently McLean, whose bank has put up $10,000 to sponsor planting on a Manawatu farm, was out in the field helping to plant trees.

“The way it works is that the local farmer covenants part of their land under the QEII Trust,” he says. “This is particularly non-productive land that is prone to erosion along the waterways so they’re not giving up much in the way of productive land. We picked up the cost of planting 275m of stream which took 2500 plants.”

McLean says the aim of the scheme is to protect New Zealand’s brand as a sustainable producer of high quality food, important particularly in light of the recent 1080 scare – a disgusting act by a deranged individual, he says.

MMS is a positive way of cleaning up waterways and providing good buffer zones between pastures and streams that could be subject to nitrogen run-off, he says. All farmers are in view – not just dairy farmers. 

Professionals have been doing some of the planting but McLean hopes also for volunteer efforts, including Westpac staff given time off to help plant in their regions.

Westpac has put up an initial $10,000 but is open to doing more; no budget figure has been set, McLean says.

“We want to be big in rural, an important part of the economy. As a bank we want to support rural communities.”