21 September 2011

Whanganui River benefits from hectares of planting

Over 290 hectares of erosion prone farm land have benefitted from plantings in the Upper Whanganui River catchment in the past year, the bulk of this in the Ohura and Waikaka catchments.

With funding from Horizons Regional Council and the Whanganui River Enhancement Charitable Trust (WRET), landowners from around the Ohura River have created farm plans offering solutions to reduce erosion, through tree planting and land retirement.

By increasing the stability of land in this catchment, famers will also be helping to improve water quality and reduce flood risk to those who live downstream, by decreasing the amount of sediment in the Ohura and Whanganui Rivers.

“The Ohura catchment has good farming land but can be prone to losing silt through erosion,” says Grant Cooper, Land Environmental Manager for Horizons Regional Council, “so rather than retiring to pine forests, we work with farmers to plant poplar and willow poles to target slips and gully erosion, and fences and plantings to protect stream banks.”

This project, named the Wanganui River Catchment Strategy, was introduced in 1997 and since 2006 has been supplemented by funding through the Whanganui River Enhancement Charitable Trust. WRET promotes and encourages the enhancement of the quality of the water and catchment of the Whanganui River. Trust members consist of two representatives each from Wanganui District Council, Ruapehu District Council and Genesis Energy.

Warren Furner, Chairman of the Whanganui River Enhancement Charitable Trust is pleased with the progress to date, but would like to see a greater uptake of landowners signing on to farm plans in high risk catchments. “We are really pleased with the relationship we have with Horizons in order to implement this strategy, and we will be making a more focused investment in this programme in the coming year, to encourage more landowners to come on board,” he says.

To date 28 farms have signed up for farm plans under the Whanganui River Catchment Strategy, which is seen as an alternative to Horizons Sustainable Land Use Initiative (SLUI) Horizons will be aiming to increase overall investment from both Horizons and WRET for the new financial year.

ENDS

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