Opinion: Water exploitation 'a calamity'

Instead of damming rivers, there should be greater emphasis on small, on-farm water storage, and farming the land at its natural limits, not beyond them.

IT IS disturbing that a business pressure group such as Irrigation New Zealand feels free to play the man and not the ball, as demonstrated by the recent attack on Fish & Game in the Wairarapa Times Age by the organisation's chief executive, Andrew Curtis.

Mr Curtis's lurid prose and open letter sneered at Fish & Game's commitment to protecting the environment and preventing public spending on the controversial Wairarapa Water Use Project.

Let's make one thing clear: Fish & Game will not shrink from fulfilling its duty to champion the environment.

Parliament expected no less when it demanded the organisation "manage, maintain and enhance sports fish and gamebirds, and their habitats".

Mr Curtis's attacks are unseemly and disingenuous, and do neither him, nor his organisation, any credit.

Mr Curtis suggests that Fish & Game should celebrate that the recent decision on Wairarapa Water Use Project sites saved the region's "prime salmon spawning site".

Salmon are a highly valued and treasured sports fish and Fish & Game would celebrate having any salmon spawning site in Wairarapa.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing, either in Wairarapa or anywhere else in the North Island, and making such a basic error shows how ill-informed and out of touch Irrigation New Zealand is.

Sadly, this is no surprise. Only a few months ago Mr Curtis happily told the New Zealand Herald that "all the easy water is gone" and called for more extravagant and expensive irrigation schemes. "All the run-of-river water has gone," Curtis told the Herald. "Water taken directly out of a river or from ground water - in those parts of the country where water is an issue - has been fully allocated."

Actually, it is being over-allocated and in some regions, waterways run dry because existing extraction allocations are more than their normal flow.

It is time people stopped believing the climate can be bypassed and any drought fixed with increased irrigation from even grander and more expensive schemes.

Hand in hand with this archaic thinking is the belief that all water that flows into the sea is "wasted".

Water is precious. Neither the planet's ecology nor humanity can survive without it. New Zealand's water is for the whole community to swim in, fish, gather food from and enjoy, not for one part of the business sector to take away from them and treat as their own property.

Unless the environment is protected from excessive and unreasonable exploitation, there is no economy. For a nation like New Zealand, which relies heavily on the primary sector, the failure to recognise this is nothing short of a calamity.

Any strategic look at climate-proofing New Zealand's economy must include a commitment to sustainability and a re-appraisal of how and where we farm. Let's not forget that climate change will affect nature, too, so it should not be the fall guy to prop up outdated "business as usual" practices.

The reality is that intensive, water-thirsty agriculture is being established in areas unsuited to such farming because they simply don't have enough naturally occurring water.

Increased irrigation, with its associated expensive storage and distribution network, is not the answer as it only encourages intensification of agriculture in unsuitable areas. The environment becomes the casualty, as has happened in Canterbury.

Irrigation New Zealand is fond of holding up South Canterbury's Opuha Dam as an example of a successful irrigation dam. What gets left out of their story is that Opuha was not an environmental enhancement initiative but a restoration to repair an over-allocated and degraded river system. This is not the case in Wairarapa with the Ruamahanga.

The best solution to drought-proofing farming is the opposite to this "Think Big" style of storing water. Instead of damming rivers, there should be greater emphasis on small, on-farm water storage, and farming the land at its natural limits, not beyond them.

This "new logic" requires matching the type of farming to a region's soils and climate, and managing sediment and nutrient leaching.

By clinging to business-as-usual ideas, the primary sector is losing its social licence to operate. The public wants clean, natural water and the primary sector needs to face up to the reality of having to limit its take of a finite resource.

As Mr Curtis notes with his "all the easy water is gone" comments, water supplies are not unlimited. Continual economic growth based on a finite resource is an oxymoron.

Why is nature being expected to give way to industry? The Resource Management Act puts the natural environment first and charges local government to be the guardians of that principle. Yet in Wairarapa, the keeper of that act, the Greater Wellington Regional Council, is the same body promoting the present irrigation scheme.

While agriculture contributes significantly to the economy, so do other industries such as tourism. The advantage with tourism, and the recreational activities associated with it, such as tramping, white-water rafting, kayaking and fishing, is that the water can still be used afterwards.

Irrigation New Zealand and the Greater Wellington Regional Council need to stop attacking critics of their financially suspect irrigation scheme. Wairarapa residents deserve better.

Instead, perhaps it is time for a formal public inquiry into the future of pastoral agriculture in New Zealand.