Announced earlier this month, the Mackenzie Agreement lists 21 signatory bodies including irrigation companies, Dairy NZ, Fish & Game and Forest and Bird.
The 30-page document, the result of two years negotiation, concludes with four recommendations, essentially pleas to the Environment Minister and district and regional councils of the area to recognise the report and act on its content.
Conservation Minister Nick Smith and Environment Minister Amy Adams welcomed the report for its proposed pathway to manage the contentious objectives of land intensification, biodiversity, and water and landscape values.
“It is far more constructive to have diverse interest groups working together on a shared vision for an area than having years of protest, court proceedings and community tensions,” they said. MOE and DoC “will now take time to consider the report and its recommendations.”
Federated Farmers’ vice president, William Rolleston, says the agreement is “a tribute to all those who sat down to understand each other’s point of view….
“Recognition that conservation on effectively private land delivers a public good is most welcome. Not only that, but development can go hand-in-hand with environmental aims….
“It is estimated irrigation will add $6 million each year to the Government’s tax-take through increased economic activity. Meanwhile, varying levels of environmental management on some 100,000ha is estimated to cost $3.7 million.”
Rolleston noted the agreement provides for 32,600ha of irrigation, comparing that to the 744,000ha of the Mackenzie District, though much of the district lies outside the basin.
The report says there’s 269,000ha of flat and rolling country in the basin, the southern end in Waitaki District.
The Envionmental Defence Society (EDS) and Forest and Bird also welcomed the agreement, with both claiming credit for instigating the process that lead to it.
“The Mackenzie Sustainable Futures Trust behind the agreement was set up after Forest and Bird and the Environmental Defence Society called for a better way to manage the Mackenzie Basin,” said Forest and Bird, in its statement which sported an aerial image of one of the most intensively irrigated areas of the basin.
EDS chairman Gary Taylor chimed in saying: “This process had its
genesis at an EDS workshop we held in Twizel in November 2010.”
Taylor says “the ball is now in the government’s court to introduce the recommended legislation to create the Mackenzie Country Trust, and make a contribution to funding its work.”
