Wai Good Policy

for Regional plans THAT PROTECT & restore the health of OUR COMMUNITIES’ waterways.

This site is a resource to support best practice rEGIONAL PLANning UNDER THE national policy statement FOR fRESHWATER MANAGEMENT 2020

By the end of 2024, all regional councils (territorial authorities) are required to produce new regional plans under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM). This site has been created by the NZ Fish & Game Council, Forest & Bird and Choose Clean Water as a resource to support the development of regional plans that protect and restore the health of our communities’ waterways, consistent with the NPS-FM 2020.

The site consists of Practice Notes covering priority issues councils must deal with when implementing the NPS-FM. It is written primarily for regional council planners, policy, and science teams working on regional plans. However, it will be useful to others who are looking for information, resources and evidence on regional plans for freshwater.

Our communities have very strong connections to their rivers, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries. There has been a significant public push in recent years for stronger policy and stronger national direction to protect and restore the health of waterways.

This push has come from people witnessing the pressure on their natural environment, seeing their waterways degrade, and from communities experiencing the negative consequences of this – losing the places they love to swim or fish or gather kai; seeing fewer and fewer of the birds and fish they’ve grown up with; experiencing poor drinking water quality; and increasingly experiencing the amplified effects of this degradation as climate change impacts intensify.

These current regional planning processes are a big moment to put regions and catchments on the right path to responding to these issues, and to restore the health of our waterways to support the health of our communities.

The National Policy Statement applies to all fresh waterbodies (including groundwater and wetlands) and to receiving environments (which may include estuaries and the wider coastal marine area).

The central framework of the policy is ‘Te Mana o te Wai’, which recognises the fundamental importance of water and establishes that protecting the health of freshwater protects the health and well-being of the wider environment and communities.

Practice notes will continue to be added to this site as they are finalised. Please contact us if you have any queries.

Practice notes

Featured

Protecting natural form and character, and river extent

It’s time to make room for rivers and ensure freshwater ecosystems are as natural as possible!

Protecting riparian margins and stock exclusion

It’s a three-step approach – remove stock, widen your fenced riparian margins, and then plant the right vegetation!

Swimming and recreation

Healthy water bodies are places where people want to swim!

Environmental flows and levels; and take limits

Flow connects the whole story - freshwater ecosystems rely on water body’s natural flow variability and levels to function!

Protect drinking water supplies to protect people’s health.

Step change is required to improve the health and wellbeing of water bodies and freshwater ecosystems. They cannot decline!

Identifying Freshwater Management Units

Freshwater Management Units (FMUs) are a management tool, not a monitoring tool. They are the scale at which you manage resources for freshwater outcomes. This needs to involve tangata whenua and communities that have an interest, are engaged, or are involved in freshwater management such as community groups or locals in that area.

Preparing Action Plans

Action plans should be integrated into the National Objectives Framework (NOF) process and considered and developed alongside limits. They should not be seen as an add-on further down the track. Discussions about action plans with tangata whenua should start early, be meaningful and integrate discussions about monitoring, mātauranga and transfer of management or power.