Hawke’s Bay Regional Council launched the Hawke’s Bay Land and Water Management Strategy during the second Land and Water Symposium on Wednesday 30 November 2011.
Strategy
The Hawke's Bay Land and Water Strategy is a new document that outlines the region’s vision and strategic directions for the future management of land and water. The Strategy was developed with a multi stakeholder reference group over 12 months.
To read the Strategy PDF click here to download
The Land and Water Management Strategy document is a milestone in the development of land and water management. The next phase is its implementation, monitoring of progress, and keeping the community informed.
Your throughts on the strategy are of interest to all of the community. If you would like to provide some written comments, please send them to us (email to info@hbrc.govt.nz with Land and Water Strategy in the subject line). We can post your comments on this page with our responses.
Symposium
Over 100 people attended across a range of sectors. A report has been prepared to document the event and the discussion that took place.
To read the symposium event report, click here.
Presentations
Symposium presentations can be downloaded below.
Strategy – Context and Content (Helen Codlin, HBRC)
Our picture of the future in 2050
Hawke’s Bay Land and Water Resources (Graham Sevicke-Jones, HBRC)
Tukituki Case Study (Helen Codlin, Debbie Hewitt, Sam Robinson)
The full Land and Water Symposium programme click here
Summary of Presentations
Presentations were made by Helen Codlin (HBRC Group Manager Strategic Development) on the strategy development process, and by Graham Sevicke-Jones (HBRC Manager Science) on the land and water resources in Hawke’s Bay.
Stephanie Coleman (Taradale High School) and Anna Michels (Napier Girls High School) narrated a story of “Our picture of the future in 2050’. This was an edited version of the story on pages 6 and 7 of HBRC’s Strategic Plan. Anna and Stephanie are both members of the Regional Council's Youth Environment Council.
Four members of the Reference Group involved in the development of the Land and Water Management Strategy shared their perspectives of the process and the strategy itself. They were Dale Moffatt, Hugh Ritchie, Peter McIntosh and Andy Pearce. The audience then had an opportunity to discuss what they liked about the strategy, what they thought was missing and what needs more attention.
In general, there was a high level of support that the strategy had been prepared and that it was needed. The collaborative and inclusive approach was supported as was the holistic approach of integration, recognizing linkages and a mountains to the sea (catchment) approach.
A key theme in the ‘what was missing’ list was the implementation and monitoring aspect of the strategy – identification of priorities, whether there are sufficient funds, reporting on progress and how to judge success. Maintaining an independent and resourced reference group into the future was suggested.
In terms of what needs more attention, areas varied from more emphasis on productions systems to more emphasis on restoration. An education strategy to engage the wider community was recognized as important to the successful implementation of the strategy.
We took the opportunity to present the Tukituki catchment as a case study for the Land and Water Management Strategy. Helen Codlin (HBRC) set the scene in terms of the issues in the catchment, the multiple objectives for the catchment and the multiple interventions that are required to achieve the objectives. She emphasized that, by itself, regulation through statutory planning documents will not necessarily achieve all the objectives. Debbie Hewitt, the chair of the Ruataniwha Water Storage Stakeholder Group, shared her experiences and the experiences of the group in its role in the Storage project, and Sam Robinson, chair of the Ruataniwha Leadership Group provided some international context and gave his vision of the potential that having secure water available from storage will bring.
The participants were then asked to select one of the challenges identified and to think about how that challenge might be overcome in order to meet the objectives. This proved to be a challenging task in itself.
A short biodiversity workshop followed the symposium after afternoon tea, facilitated by Dr Adele Whyte of Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated. This brainstorming session assisted in the identification of the scope of biodiversity, acknowledged that current initiatives that contribute towards enhancing the region’s biodiversity are not well co-ordinated with each other and highlighted the need for some form of Biodiversity discussion group to assist in the development of a biodiversity strategy for the region.
What you told us about the event
18 people completed event evaluation forms. Most people were satisfied with the event organisation, the presentations and the interactive sessions and the balance provided. Quotes include ‘great presentations and interesting discussions’ ‘ interesting perspectives and new points’ ‘the last session drove home the complexity’ ‘Great collaborative process. I really hope it speeds up the timeline to final solution.’
For a few, their expectations were not met. Some wanted more detail and fewer general presentations (‘waffle’ or ‘session fillers’) and more emphasis on the ecological impacts of the issues (‘ Environmental bottom lines need to be more recognised – cannot keep trading it away!’). Some wanted more open debate (‘insufficient question / answer / debate time’).
Helen Codlin says: Thank you for the feedback. With the audience having different variable levels of awareness or understanding of the issues, we do need to provide a mixture of the general overview and detail at these types of events. Good open debate comes when all parties are well informed and that usually happens over time, with smaller groups where a level of trust has been established. I was surprised at the small number of questions that were asked over the day in question time, but was pleased with the level of discussion that occurred around the tables. Overall, we thought the event was worthwhile and we intend to continue to hold events like this on an annual basis to provide an opportunity to touch base on key water and land management issues and to provide updates on Council projects to the wider community.