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Legal F ramework at the N ational/International Level
catchment and are based loosely on hydrological and administrative
boundaries. Each zone is large enough to enable the management of
abstraction from surface and groundwater systems to be integrated
with the management of the irrigated areas where the water is used,
but small enough to ensure that committee deliberations take full
account of local catchment issues.
Cooperation is encouraged through public participation in the
decision-making process of Zone Water Management Committees,
which coordinate the development of a Zone Implementation
Programme. Zone committees comprise 7-10 members who are
locally based or have a special relationship with the zone. Members
are drawn from the regional council, local authorities with an inter-
est in the zone, Māori communities, and community members such
as consent-holder representatives and water resource stakeholders.
Community members are selected based on their demonstrated
ability to collaborate and the need to ensure a balance of interests
and geographic spread. A Regional Water Management Committee
handles issues that are common across the region. This committee
brings together representatives of local government, central govern-
ment, the Māori authority and water stakeholders.
Next steps
Zone Implementation Programmes have been developed for each of
the 10 zones, and zone committees have an ongoing role in oversee-
ing the implementation of their programmes. Integration across the
zones is provided by a regional Land and Water Plan that deals with
common issues and sets the regional context.
Zone Implementation Programmes address:
• environmental restoration and development
• land use intensification/reduction
• zone scale infrastructure and its environmental impact
• reconfiguration of allocations between surface and groundwater
• water brokerage and efficiency improvement
• water quality and quantity
• customary use
• recreational and amenity provision.
In effect, the Zone Implementation Programmes are social contracts
in which all parties agree on a way forward to enable community and
economic wellbeing while safeguarding the ecosystems on which they
depend. The key objective is to provide long-term planning stability,
including recommendations to the regional council as to the regu-
latory framework they would like to see governing water resource
management in their zone. These sets of rules constitute sub-regional
plans, which are essentially zone-specific extensions of the Regional
Land and Water Plan.
Current status
One sub-regional plan has been completed, and three other
zones are deliberating on their approach to setting quantity
and quality limits. Council planners work closely with the zone
committees to ensure that their recommendations can be trans-
lated into workable policies and rules. Most importantly, the
regional council decision makers have undertaken to represent
as faithfully as possible the wishes of the zone committees in
the plan development process. Before plans become operational
they are subject to a public hearing conducted by an independ-
ent panel appointed by the council. Thus the final form of the
plan is, in theory, beyond the direct influence of either commit-
tee or council. In practice, it reflects the cooperative
community engagement process by which it was
developed, representing the outcome of collaborative
thinking across a wide range of community values
and interests and a consensus approach to solving
complex problems.
Making collaboration work
Collaborative water management in New Zealand has
taken off in the last five years at national and regional
levels. We expect these early successes to ensure
ongoing momentum.
Collaborative management requires that parties that
do not agree on a complex problem are given a mandate
to talk to each other systematically and intensively over
a considerable time, aiming to reach consensus on how
the problem should be resolved. To commit themselves
to this task, participants must feel that their responsi-
bility is real, inescapable and unconstrained, and that
decision-makers want them to agree and will have
serious regard for the conclusions they reach.
In the experience of LWF, issues that will benefit
from a collaborative process are likely to be complex,
requiring enduring solutions and involving multiple
stakeholders. They may require adaptive management
solutions, where outcomes are expected to evolve over
time in response to changing knowledge of a resource.
LWF’s second report made detailed recommendations
for collaborative processes for freshwater management.
In summary, collaborative processes should:
• allow all interested groups to send their own
representatives and include Māori representation
• operate with a consensus rule
• have a skilled independent facilitator/chairperson
• allow options to be articulated where consensus
cannot be reached
• be supported by information on economic, social,
cultural and environmental aspects of resources and
their management, and by scientific information
about them
• have a mandate from a public decision-making
body to address issues, and report to that body
• have a realistic timetable for completing the work
• have resources for doing the work, for example
with funding from the decision-making body and
participants
• occur early in government or local government
planning processes or, in particular applications
from developers, at a stage when a range of options
is still open
• engage decision-makers as servants of the process.
In New Zealand, collaborative processes at both
national and regional levels have refocused the freshwa-
ter debate. Our focus is no longer on disputing whether
or not there is a problem, but on the best options – coop-
eratively arrived at – for solving the problem. Through
collaboration, we see a challenging but rosier future for
the state and the use of New Zealand’s fresh waters.