MEDIA RELEASE

24 July 2006

Environment Canterbury’s Water Restoration Programme Supported

Fish & Game New Zealand applauds Environment Canterbury’s restorative programme for lowland streams. Sir Kerry Burke’s acknowledges that freshwater is a finite resource, and that in many areas current rates of water abstraction are having serious adverse affects on streams, rivers, wetlands and aquifers.

“The need to act is urgent,” said Bryce Johnson, Director Fish & Game New Zealand, “and Environment Canterbury has taken the first steps to restore water flows that have been severely wounded by careless abstraction. The programme recognises the community’s insistence that their water is well managed and I urge Environment Canterbury to implement the programme with urgency and resolve.”

“Canterbury’s waterways do need to be returned to a healthy state, and this will require the acceptance of current consent holders that they do not have first right to a resource that both belongs to, and sustains, all Cantabrians “

ENDS

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