Between land and sea

September 25, 2010
A new plan to protect the Waimea Estuary is being launched on Monday - but, as Geoff Collett reports, the new way poses some big challenges for the community.
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One of the things that has most struck Neil Deans about the Waimea Estuary in the 20 or so years he has lived in Nelson is how readily ignored it seems to have been by most of the population.
"It's simply not part of the perceived landscape of Nelson, " the Nelson Marlborough Fish & Game manager muses.
"We have this estuary of some significance immediately cheek by jowl with Nelson, Richmond, Mapua . . . and most people simply pay it no attention whatsoever."
Gillian Bishop acknowledges a similar point. She lives near the estuary in Appleby, and has recently taken to helping organise other near-neighbours who are keen to learn more about its values and how to protect them.
Perhaps any under- appreciation simply reflects the fact that "we're so wealthy in the area in terms of our natural beauty", she suggests.
"The estuary's just one of many beautiful things, and probably easily taken for granted because we're seeing it every day."
Not that everybody's blase. For well over a decade, a small but determined group has been trying to get the authorities to pay closer attention to the estuary, and specifically to produce a plan which protects it against the sort of blights it has suffered in the past.
For ages, theirs appeared to be a fruitless cause, but in the past 12 months, a renaissance of respect has emerged around the estuary's catchment - a renewed appreciation of its serene sprawl of wetlands, mudflats and islands spread across thousands of hectares of inner Tasman Bay.
The turnaround accompanied a project by the Tasman District Council and Nelson City Council, in response to the continued calls for a management plan.
Public meetings were organised, led by a Wellington-based scientist and consultant, Glen Lauder, who was charged with trying to bring together a common vision for how such a plan might work.
A small army of estuary enthusiasts emerged from the woodwork, and on Monday the results will be formally acknowledged when many of them gather for a ceremony on the inlet's edge near Richmond to put their names to a piece of paper - a charter - committing themselves to doing their bit to protect it for the long term.
The charter and its associated Waimea Inlet Management Strategy are based, say the documents' architects, on "collaboration" and "community"; on a new model - a courageous one, perhaps - which envisages the community stepping up to accept responsibility and leadership for determining the future of the estuary.
Dr Lauder - who calls himself the "project enabler", but stresses that he is talking for himself, not the councils - talks of "a citizenship aspiration of communities to work together and own their own processes and participation".
Strip away the jargon, and he is saying that those who hoped that regulatory bodies like the TDC would step in and impose a bunch of new statutory controls might have to think again.
The new strategy comes with no regulations or controls attached. But more significant, to Dr Lauder's mind, is that it "commands collaboration".
It rests on nobody shirking their responsibilities, and on getting away from the attitude that somebody else is going to take the lead.
When he became involved in bringing together the estuary's many, sometimes competing, interests, he says he saw two possible "futures".
Despite the suggestion that the estuary has not been widely appreciated, its presence so close to the city means an array of organisations have a close interest in what happens to and around it: bird watchers, fishermen and conservationists, for instance, but also some of the region's more pivotal industries; plus the airport; the sewage treatment operators; the highways authority; and numerous farmers, orchardists and land owners.
Put all that together and, as Dr Lauder puts it, "it's going to be a place of really active care and conservation, or it's going to be a place of endless conflict".
With the charter and strategy in place, a Waimea estuary forum is being set up - a chance for all those committed to the new approach to gather regularly, to keep abreast of issues and events affecting it.
The philosophy Dr Lauder extols, and which he wants to convince others of, is firmly against allowing that forum, or any other gathering, to start taking control. Committees, he warns, have a habit of turning into the very institutionalistion he thinks the estuary's management should be free from.
He admits the significance of the challenge - "it's hard work" - but draws it back to wider forces he sees at play in society, where people increasingly recognise that they can't necessarily rely on central agencies to sort things out for them, where government accepts that it can't meet all expectations, and a realisation of the potential that lies in the thriving volunteer and community networks a place like Nelson has "in spades".
"I don't think we even need a common vision - we just need enough common values, and we have to work at appreciating other people's values and giving them space to hold those, " he argues.
His message to those who are sceptical about a strategy which does not park the buck with somebody who can be held accountable if things go wrong is unapologetic.
"Sometimes when I hear people say, 'I want to be able to hold someone accountable', actually hidden in that language . . . is an abdication of [their] responsibility to be accountable and to take leadership where [they] see something needs to be paid attention to."
No-one could deny that the estuary has suffered in the past. It was notoriously polluted, particularly during the 1960s and 70s, when it was used as an industrial sewage outlet.
It has been heavily modified, including having busy highways built hard up against it - the Stoke bypass in the 1990s, and this year a stretch of the new Ruby Bay bypass.
Contamination from the Bell Island sewage treatment plant, and from runoff from both town and country, means the shellfish living in it is unsafe to eat. It has lost the vast majority of its vegetation and natural habitat.
A study by Wriggle Ltd consultants earlier this year highlighted all these problems. Others, such as runoff of contaminants poisoning the mudflats or sparking weed growth and algal blooms, were considered only moderate to low.
Nevertheless, Neil Deans says the estuary is in a remarkably healthy state.
Its big tidal range sees it almost entirely drained during each tidal cycle, helping to flush out contaminants.
Despite pollution from roads and land use on the margins, the fact that much of the Waimea River's catchment is forested or only lightly farmed keeps the pressure down. Mr Deans says the amount of sediment carried down the river into the estuary is low compared to most South Island estuaries.
Where it has suffered is around its margins, where humans have destroyed much of the wetlands and shrubby shoreline which provide vital wildlife habitats. These remain under threat from new developments
The likes of Forest & Bird have gone along with the new strategy and will sign the charter, but the environmental group does not want it to be the final word from officialdom on the estuary's management, says the group's Nelson- based field officer, Debs Martin.
"We would see this as being a vital first step. What we would like to see is something that has statutory recognition."
She acknowledges the gains that have been made through the past year's discussions, and particularly the statements the new strategy makes about the environmental importance of the estuary - its international significance for birdlife, for instance.
Already, Forest & Bird is using such statements to back up submissions to the councils, and it will be keeping up the pressure to get protection for the estuary written into the rules, Ms Martin says.
"[The strategy] won't give it as much clout as we'd hoped it would have, but I think it's something for us to go back to council and say, 'You signed this, you've made a commitment to this'."
T asman District Council policy planner Neil Jackson says that neither his council or the Nelson City Council is looking at any rule or planning changes as a result of the estuary strategy. If the new estuary forum decides that such changes are desirable, it could lobby the councils for them, he says, but the effectiveness of that will depend on the council of the day.
For the foreseeable future, much will depend on how widely the messages in the strategy are picked up and embraced by the wider community - and, as Mr Jackson says, that is "a bit unpredictable".
"What happens around the immediate edges of the estuary is a consequence of decisions individual landowners make about how they develop their properties. There's scope there for people to do a wide variety of things, some of which will be beneficial towards the estuary, some of which will be less so. To some extent, it's a matter of how many of those people take on board the messages in the strategy document in the use of their own properties."
The Tasman district councillor who has chaired the strategy process, Glenys Glover, is optimistic that the people who matter will come on board.
"I think that we will achieve a great deal more with the approach we've taken - I think the time's right, " she says.
"There's a real groundswell of people out there wanting to look after the estuary - they love it and they really do want to protect it for future generations."
Dr Lauder thinks wider changes in the makeup of the estuary's hinterland are significant, "from being a horticultural production landscape to being largely a rural- residential landscape, where people are obviously going to have higher land values and higher aspirations".
But the presence of established industries and, especially, infrastructure operators within the estuary environment - he singles out the airport and sewage plant - should reinforce how varied the interests in the place are.
He uses a mundane example to illustrate how tricky the new way could be: dogs and dog walkers. Ornithologists say that dogs rushing around and sniffing out nesting birds can cause lethal stress to those birds, including some which are extremely rare and shy, and others for which the estuary is a vital resting ground after vast migrations.
"Dogs are probably a really good example of an area where we might just need to wake up to [the view that] 'maybe there is somewhere better where I should be taking my dog', " Dr Lauder says. "Maybe one of our committed approaches together has to be finding areas where we as a community agree we won't take dogs, and we'll find some places where we will, and not waiting for the council."
Given the passion that debates about dog-free zones generate anywhere, he isn't underestimating that particular task; doubly so, given that already some intense discussions are under way over the route the planned Nelson- Tasman cycle trail will take near the estuary, and concerns that a new pathway close to sensitive birdlife could attract in more people, dogs and even predators.
But Dr Lauder is holding firm to the power of collaboration.
"I have an expectation that this will work, " he says. "We need to keep on asking people to realise that no-one is coming to rescue them."

WAIMEA ESTUARY
*The South Island's largest enclosed estuary - 3455ha with a 65km internal coastline from Tahunanui to Mapua.
*Recorded human activity dates back 500 years. Now surrounded by a population of 55,000.
*Fed by 22 rivers and streams, most significantly the Waimea River.
*Of international importance for migratory birds including bar- tailed godwits, and national significance for various endangered or threatened birds.
*Has lost as much as 90 per cent of its vegetation from the inter- tidal and shoreline areas.
*The vision for the estuary as spelled out in the new management strategy is: "A vibrant place, richly appreciated by the community for its open space, natural and ecological values; happily remembered by generations for their activities, adventures and discoveries; a place where tangata whenua hold mana as kaitiaki of taonga; and a place to be shared with increasing respect."
*The Waimea Inlet Charter - to be signed by "people and organisations who stand for a regenerative future" for the inlet - will be launched at a public function at Sandeman Reserve, Richmond, at noon on Monday.