Local dairy farmer Raewyn van Gool told the South Island Dairy Event farmers did not dispute the state of the lagoon but had to go into battle for the catchment and the community and at the same time understand what effect they were having and how they could solve the problems.
“Once farmers knew what they needed to do they embraced the challenge and got on with it,” she says.
The lagoon, 40km east of Invercargill services a catchment covering 20,000ha and is fed by three main rivers.
Recent land development contributed to a decline in water quality with elevated levels of ammonium and phosphorous.
In the eight years since the council warning the community learned numerous lessons and van Gool says not all were to do with the environment.
All farmers and landowners had to unite and fully understand the issues, the science behind them and how they could be addressed.
They initially formed the Waituna Farmers United Trust to represent their views and van Gool says the community needed some hard-liners, people prepared to take the fight on their behalf to regulators.
DairyNZ, Beef + Lamb NZ and Fonterra worked together to scientifically determine the exact problem and develop a management plan, which was largely embraced by farmers.
By 2012 70% of the recommendations had been implemented.
Van Gool says they realised the importance of using an independent facilitator to remove personalities from discussions.
History also proved important, providing definitive accounts of earlier management of the lagoon instead of relying on anecdotal claims.
A contentious issue with the coastal Waituna Lagoon was when and how often the freshwater body was opened to the sea to allow the flushing of toxic algae and planktonic cyanobacteria.
The council policy is to open it only when it reaches 2m above sea level but historical records convinced the council to open it in 2017 even though it was below trigger height.
The community also realised people and interest groups coming in from outside the region were often impeding progress, having not previously been involved in earlier discussions and decisions but demanding to be heard.
Finally, van Gool warned communities not to be railroaded into making quick decisions that might not be the best for the community or the catchment.
“We may not have always been right but we were right to slow things down,” she says.
Particularly in those early years the community felt under siege despite following advice and making management changes to improve water quality such as planting, bridging and better effluent management.
By 2014 three years of constant scrutiny was starting to take its toll. Trust members alone had attended 120 meetings on the lagoon.
“They were getting burned out.”
In 2015 public attention and scrutiny started to wane allowing farmers to focus on their business and steps to improve the lagoon but that also signalled the need for a change of the community leaders representing them.
They had reached a point where they needed to switch from a hard-nosed lobbying approach to representatives who could negotiate conditions the community could live with.
The community now has critical mass and made management changes, which has seen phosphorous levels fall and five-year trends for all other measures improve.
But the community still feels left in the dark, especially about a $13.3 million, five-year catchment partnership programme involving Ngai Tahu, Te Runanga o Awarua, the council, Conservation Department, Fonterra, Living Water and the Southland District Council, she says.
It aims to improve water quality and biodiversity, support cultural aspirations and support sustainable farming in the catchment but van Gool says there has been little discussion with the community about what it will do and how it will affect those living and working around the lagoon.
