Bruce Bisset: No winners in land-use shambles

Bruce Bisset.

There's a farmer up the Tukituki valley, who by virtue of an historic anomaly happens to own part of the riverbed.

His cattle wander (and defecate) in the river because it's "his" land - and he apparently doesn't give a hoot what you or I may think about that.

The way things stand, it's legal and there's seemingly nothing anyone can do about it - though maybe some medical emergency mechanism could be invoked.

For despite nearly 5000 cases of gastro illness happening nearby, his cows were wandering (and defecating) in the Tuki this week.

Sure, it's unlikely, but the Tukituki cannot be ruled out as a source of the campylobacter outbreak. So you could argue those cows in the water were a possible cause of the Gastro outbreak.

Outrageous? That's not strong enough.

This illustrates the parlous state of New Zealand's land management regulations and the attitudinal gulf that still exists between the "my bloody land and I'll do what I like with it" people and the reality of the need for sustainable practices.

Half the reason no one knows where the disease came from or how it got into the town water supply is that there are any number of possibilities: sheep across the road from the bores; cows in the Tukituki (and Ngaruroro and Tutaekuri); run-off from the Maraetotara (yes, that aquifer connects, I'm reliably told); overflows of sewage from Waipawa and Waipukurau (yes, there were some, on three successive days during/after the heavy rains); or any number of point sources from around the Havelock hills to as far away as the western ranges.

There are so many possible sources because Federated Farmers and their "my bloody land" ilk continually rail against regulation of any sort, environmentally protective limitations in particular, and because they're seen as the "voice of rural New Zealand" the Government runs scared of them. As if their votes matter more.

Sure, due to the pressures of intensification councils have been bringing in more exacting regulations around nutrient run-off and some - such as Horizons One Plan - have dared go so far as to begin to relate that to soil types and landform, and (by association) stock numbers.

But to a larger extent, farmers can load up their paddocks and pens with as many stock units as can be squeezed in so long as the effects are only felt on their own piece of land, or are (subjectively, still) judged no more than minor.

Trouble is, nutrients, agrichemicals, and organisms can - as this outbreak perhaps shows - make their way down through the soil and into the aquifers, whence to journey far and wide.

Too, the monitoring regimes of our regional councils are hit and miss, especially given farmers get advance notice of testing.

There are no winners in this barely-regulated shambles. The "my bloody land" types are stuck on a no-exit road because industrial farming eventually ruins the very thing they must sustain - the land, while everyone else, including the (mostly non-Fed) farmers who have "got" it, suffers as a consequence of the degradation caused by the cowboys.

But is the official Government inquiry likely to do more than reference these issues? No.

There are not yet even regulations requiring fencing off waterways and riparian plantings.

What's done is done from "encouragement", not law - a minimalist approach the Feds insist will, eventually, work.

Tell that to those suffering from others who let their stock crap in our rivers.

- Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.

- All opinions expressed here are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.