The clock is ticking for local catchment groups as their main source of funding dries up.
Mid Canterbury is home to nine catchment groups - teams of people, often farmers and conservationists, who work to improve the water quality and biodiversity in their area.
Through projects like replanting waterways, nitrate testing and pest fencing, these groups aim to better the environment around them.
In 2021, the Mid Canterbury Catchment Collective [MCCC] was created to unite the nine groups - they could share knowledge, resources and pitch for funding as one big group.
“We were very aware that we have a lot of capability in Mid Canterbury,” coordinator Angela Cushnie said, “ but not a lot of capacity.
“It’s the same people, particularly in a voluntary capacity, doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
“By coordinating different efforts and collaborating with industry, irrigation schemes, and different entities, we streamlined processes a bit more.”
In early 2022, the collective received $30,000 from the Ashburton Water Zone Committee to set the collective up for success - that mostly paid for Cushnie’s role.
Later that year, they secured almost $1 million of national funding for our region.
“There was an opportunity to apply for some MPI [Ministry of Primary Industries] money for the Essential Freshwater Fund.
“It was $950,000 to invest in our district across a three-year time period.”
The Essential Freshwater Fund has funded $131.5 million worth of waterway restoration and protection throughout New Zealand.
But those funds are drawing closer to their end date; the money must be spent by October this year.
Which leaves the collective, and the catchments underneath it, in limbo - what happens when the funding runs out?
“The answer, at the moment, is that we don’t know,” MCCC chairperson Duncan Barr said.
The collective made a submission to Environment Canterbury [ECan] last year, but no luck.
“The response was basically, ‘we appreciate what you do, but there’s no funding available’.
“So we’ve exhausted that avenue.”
Barr said conversations about a sustainable funding model for catchments around the country are being had.
“[The] Aotearoa New Zealand Catchment Collective [ANZCC] put a proposal to central government for funding just before Christmas.
“Obviously, with the budgetary constraints going on … it’s up in the air.”
Barr said corporate sponsorships and other grants are being explored at the moment, and while the MPI grant was a huge help, getting funding from locals with “skin in the game” would result in “fair and equitable outcomes” for everyone.
There’s an appreciation of catchment groups in New Zealand, but fame doesn’t pay for the labour.
“A lot of scientists, a lot of bureaucrats talk about the good work catchment groups do, ‘maybe they should do more, maybe they should do this or that’.
“So our good work is being recognised, but still we have no long term sustainable funding model available.”
Catchment groups have improved their communities and their land, Barr said, but the work is only beginning.
“Looking at catchment specific issues, like consents, the importance of catchments working together is greater now than it’s ever been.
“Collective data will be so important for individual consents, and I don’t think people are aware of that yet.
“The need for the collective, for farmers and other groups to work together, is greater now than it’s ever been.”

by Anisha Satya