Maketawa Stream has taken out a top honour as one of the nation's most improved rivers.

Maketawa Stream

It received the accolade at the New Zealand River Awards, which this year focused on improvements to the ecological health of waterways.

The stream also took out the award for the most improved river in the Taranaki Region.

“The Maketawa Stream represents the general improvement in Taranaki’s freshwater over the past two decades,” says Taranaki Regional Council Director – Environment Quality, Gary Bedford.

“Council monitoring for the past 20 years shows ecological health is either significantly improving (39% of sites) or not showing any significant change (61%) at all 57 sites monitored on 25 waterways across the region.”

The awards were based on the trend in improvement in the macroinvertebrate community index (MCI) – a valuable indicator of general river health. The Maketawa showed a trend improvement of 2.5% in the MCI over the past 10 years.

The stream’s monitoring site is well down from Egmont National Park and the surrounding land use is predominantly dairying. It cuts a deep path through the land, leaving tall, steep banks in places that in some stretches have acted as natural stock barriers.

Around 88% of the stream with adjoining farmland has been fenced, and 75% has been planted.

There are no water takes from the Maketawa, and while a very small number of farmers still discharge treated dairy shed wastewater to the stream the number doing so has declined over the past decade, helping to raise the MCI.

The awards, held in Wellington on Thursday, 3 November, were organised by the NZ Rivers Trust and Morgan Foundation.

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