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New approaches to planning and
decision-making for fresh water: cooperative
water management in New Zealand
Clive Howard-Williams, Chief Scientist, National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research, Christchurch;
Alastair Bisley, Chairman, Land and Water Forum, Ministry for the Environment, and Ken Taylor,
Director Investigations and Monitoring, Canterbury Regional Council, New Zealand
D
espite its clean and green image, New Zealand has expe-
rienced many of the same disputes over water quantity
and degrading water quality that are found in other
nations. Adversarial processes and litigation have dominated
water allocation and permit applications, leading to stalemate
and inaction. In 2008 stakeholders agreed at the national level
to embark on a collaborative process to improve freshwater
management and governance. Successful experimentation with
collaborative processes has also proceeded at the regional level,
especially in the Canterbury region.
New Zealand’s water resources
New Zealand’s natural landscape, including mountains and natural
forest, occupies 43 per cent of its surface and contains near-pris-
tine rivers, lakes and wetlands. The remaining land area comprises
planted forest (5 per cent) farmland (52 per cent) and urban devel-
opment, mostly in lowlands that are now almost devoid of natural
vegetation.
1
New Zealand’s economy depends significantly on pasto-
ral, arable and horticultural farming. Given the intensification of
land use over the last 20 years, it is not surprising that the country
experiences problems with both the quality and quantity of water.
2
Abundant fresh water is seen as one of New Zealand’s greatest
economic resources.
3
By international standards, New Zealand has
a high level of clean fresh water per person with a total renewable
water resource of 84,000 m
3
per person per year. Current annual
water consumption is less than 5 per cent of the New Zealand supply
(runoff to the sea) and yet:
• there are sometimes shortages in some places
• the areas where water resources are fully allocated are increasing
• occasional droughts occur across large areas of the country with
significant impacts on the national economy
• water quality degradation is putting increasing pressure on the
freshwater environment.
Problems with water management
As in most countries there are multiple interests in water. These
include cultural, spiritual and identity; recreational, social and
personal; environmental; and economic interests. Sometimes they
complement each other and at others they compete.
New Zealand’s Resource Management Act of 1991 introduced
an effects-based approach in which permits for water uses (takes
and discharges) are based on the effects of the use.
Although permits are time-limited, existing permit
holders “enjoy significant protection of their prior-
ity over newer entrants.”
4
Once effects indicate that
the resource is fully allocated, no new entrants to the
resource are permitted. But regulatory barriers to the
transfer of permits make it difficult for water to move to
the most productive users. Furthermore, effects-based
consenting often allows the provision of permits to
already compromised water bodies on the basis that the
new consent will have only minor effects – resulting in
continuing and worsening cumulative effects.
The debate about economic uses of water has been
difficult to resolve and processes for allocating water
have been the subject of litigation in many catchments.
Several principal issues needed to be resolved:
• competing interests where the parties seldom
engaged except in court
• the effective exclusion of M
ā
ori from governance
and management in many catchments
• inconsistent policy and planning
• poor use of science and knowledge
• lack of acknowledgement of the need to set and
manage within limits – the only policy mechanism
we know of to deal with cumulative effects.
Responses at the national level
In response to the difficulties of managing water in a liti-
gious environment, a group of around 50 key stakeholders
from all sides of the debate established the Land andWater
Forum (LWF) in 2008. Their approach was sparked by
a report on Scandinavian collaborative approaches to the
resolution of complex and contested environmental issues,
which suggested that they could be fruitfully applied in
New Zealand.
5
There was also a sense that unless all the
parties were prepared to engage with each other directly
over the whole range of freshwater issues, conflict and
stalemate would persist with damaging consequences for
the environment and economy.
The LWF consisted of a plenary group of over 50 organ-
izations and agencies with a stake in water management
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