Years of work to restore two of Aotearoa’s most pressured freshwater systems could be undermined by Government planning changes, with Forest & Bird warning weakened pollution controls risk leaving the Waikato and Manawatū-Whanganui river systems carrying the environmental cost for years to come.
Forest & Bird Regional Conservation Manager for Taranaki and Waikato Elvisa van der Leden says proposed changes affecting freshwater planning threaten hard-won environmental protections designed to reduce pollution and improve the health of rivers.
At the centre of the controversy are Plan Change 1 in Waikato and Plan Change 2 in the Horizons region, both developed to tackle serious freshwater quality challenges.
Forest & Bird says weakening key elements of those plans during the transition to the Government’s replacement resource management system risks slowing progress just when communities should be seeing restoration accelerate.
More than a decade of work at stake
The Waikato process has involved more than 14 years of work, bringing together communities, iwi, farmers, councils, industry and environmental interests to establish a pathway towards improving the Waikato and Waipā rivers.
Forest & Bird says more than $30 million of ratepayer money has already been spent through the PC1 process.
Van der Leden says moving to a new planning system should involve a carefully managed transition rather than effectively winding environmental protections backwards.
The concern is that years spent negotiating difficult compromises could be undermined before many of the anticipated improvements have had time to take effect.
Nitrogen pollution under the spotlight
The organisation is particularly concerned about proposals affecting prescribed nitrogen reductions under Plan Change 2 in Manawatū-Whanganui.
Excess nitrogen entering waterways can fuel algal blooms, degrade freshwater habitats and contribute to declining ecological health.
The consequences extend beyond environmental measurements.
Poor water quality affects whether communities can safely swim, whether native freshwater species can thrive and whether whānau can gather mahinga kai from waterways with confidence.
Forest & Bird argues replacing clear nitrogen reduction requirements with broader expectations of environmental improvement risks weakening accountability.
Without measurable and enforceable limits, it becomes harder to determine who is responsible for reducing pollution and whether sufficient progress is actually being made.
Waikato River carries deeper responsibilities
For the Waikato, freshwater restoration also carries particular significance for Māori.
The health and wellbeing of the Waikato River is central to Waikato-Tainui, and restoration of the awa sits within a wider framework of Treaty settlement commitments and Te Ture Whaimana.
That means the debate is not simply about environmental regulation or farming compliance.
It also concerns whakapapa, kaitiakitanga, mahinga kai and responsibilities to future generations.
If environmental improvements are delayed, mokopuna ultimately inherit that delay.
Farmers need workable rules — communities need clean water
The Government has argued its wider resource management reforms are intended to reduce unnecessary regulation and provide greater certainty for landowners and productive sectors.
Farmers have also raised concerns about the cost and complexity of freshwater regulation.
Forest & Bird’s position is that those issues can be addressed without lowering the environmental outcomes communities have spent years working towards.
That distinction is important.
Providing farmers with workable pathways to meet environmental standards is different from weakening the standards themselves.
The challenge is creating rules that are practical enough to implement while remaining strong enough to deliver measurable improvements in water quality.
A transition shouldn’t mean going backwards
Van der Leden says the move towards a new planning system should not become an opportunity to abandon progress already achieved under existing regional plans.
Forest & Bird wants future planning arrangements to at least maintain the environmental outcomes sought through PC1 and PC2.
The organisation is also concerned that changes in Waikato and Manawatū-Whanganui could establish a precedent for freshwater protections elsewhere in Aotearoa.
That makes the debate considerably bigger than two regional plans.
It becomes a test of whether reforming the Resource Management Act means changing how environmental outcomes are achieved — or reducing the outcomes themselves.
The real test is the awa
Ultimately, freshwater policy can be measured against something considerably simpler than planning legislation.
Are the rivers getting healthier?
Can tamariki swim in them?
Can whānau gather kai?
Are native species recovering?
Is drinking water protected?
And will the next generation inherit waterways in better condition than the generation before them?
Forest & Bird says those outcomes must remain the bottom line regardless of what planning system Parliament creates.
After more than a decade of negotiation, millions of dollars of public investment and years of community effort, the concern is that rewriting the rules now could make river restoration easier to postpone — but it won’t make the pollution disappear.
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