Did Taranaki get it right?

Local iwi were successful in having Whanganui River upgraded to legal personhood status,

Taranaki versus Whanganui for the Environmental Cup. Who would you pick? Having just come back from a break in the iconic national park that crowns Taranaki province, I would have to say our northern neighbour got some things outstandingly right.

Back in 1881, the Taranaki Provincial Council set a compass at 6 miles — a bit over 9.6km — and swung it on the map around the summit of Taranaki maunga. In a stroke they protected the most erodible land from forest clearance, ensuring stock never went up into the fragile alpine and subalpine zones. Crucially, their ring of conservation also took in some rich lowland forest, which now teems with birdlife.

Mount Taranaki.

We could argue they had it easy because a large, even ring plain is convenient to divide into conservation and production zones. The story changes not far inland from Stratford where the landscape starts to look more like our backcountry — often steep with farms on land that is more erodible than the lower parts of the mountain. Taranaki has the same problems we face managing softer papa mudstone hills.

It makes us wince when we see major land slippage after heavy-rain events. We know our rivers are often brown with truckloads of soil going out to sea suffocating river life along the way. We did get the march on Taranaki when local iwi were successful in having Whanganui River upgraded to legal personhood status, but there is so much work needed to get a river catchment that we can all be proud of. There is no easy circle to be drawn on the map to delineate conservation land from productive, and such a division is not the answer.

Full credit to the farmers who work — often with Horizons’ assistance — to plant vulnerable steep land. We can see the results in increasingly treed slopes healing slip zones in still-productive farmland. Farm forestry and large-scale commercial models have an important role alongside forest conservation. The horrors of pine slash-clogged rivers seen recently on the East Coast can be avoided with suitable riparian (streamside) zones around rivers being left in trees to absorb stormflows until forests re-establish.

Iwi initiatives will play an increasing role in the restoration of Te Awa Tupua, the Whanganui River. Quietly building capacity and strategy, the Mouri Tūroa initiative aims to increase riparian planting and care of the catchment. We need to make Three Waters funding from central government and other central strategies and funding mesh with empowering local communities to have control over their own places. It will be a challenge, but I think Whanganui has the quiet strength and determination to show other regions what partnership for sustainability can look like.

– Forest & Bird