The Mid Canterbury Catchment Collective is celebrating a successful year of collating water data, with the view to improving water quality in the district.

Co-ordinator Angela Cushnie said water monitoring had been the main focus for 2023.

The collective has invested money in sensors and testing programmes to develop baseline figures for water quality – especially nitrate levels throughout the catchment.

It has also facilitated the collation and review of historical water data where the information was available.

Founding member and chairperson Duncan Barr said context was "really important" when evaluating changes in water quality and the health of the catchment.

The collective co-ordinates the work of locally-led catchment groups and the environmental work done on farms throughout the district.

"Each catchment group is community-led and focuses on what each community wants."

Cushnie said discussions about water quality and biodiversity started in Mid Canterbury in 2018 and slowly morphed into the collective.

"Two weeks after the 2021 floods the MCCC held a meeting to gauge interest across the district.

"At this time the Foothills and Hekeao Hinds groups were both in the early stages of doing something.”

The collective started with three local catchment groups and now has nine in the district, with a few other groups in the planning and discussion stage.

She said the collective facilitated planning and connection for the whole catchment stretching from the mountains to the sea.

Barr said the groups were driven by the people living in the catchments in terms of water quality, biodiversity, soils and nutrients.

“Individual groups look after local issues while the MCCC comes in with a whole catchment oversight."

Cushnie said the focus was on empowerment and sharing knowledge, developing leadership skills.

Each catchment group developed an action plan with priorities, timelines, budgets and goals – their job is to facilitate that process, she said.

The collective started off with seed funding from the Ashburton Water Zone committee and then applied to the Ministry for Primary Industries' Essential Freshwater Fund.

The collective is one year into a three-year $950,000 programme with a paid facilitator for each group.

This facilitator provided structure, assisted with the administration, "helped to get things happening" and ensured that the community remained the decision makers within each catchment group.

Cushnie and Barr said they were both pleased and humbled by how quickly the wider community had seen the opportunity and come together to form catchment groups.

"The appetite for change and environmental understanding is there," said Barr.

“We’re a conduit for that to come to the fore," added Cushnie.

While the current funding is for three years, the collective plans to have a lifespan well beyond that.

"This is a 10 – 20 year project," Barr said.

Cushnie said the collective networked with other collectives in Canterbury and across New Zealand.

“There are some efficiencies that can come out of that."
She said the plan for 2024 was to consolidate the initial rapid growth and build a reliable database.

Barr said they wanted to get good structure and processes in place to take on any challenges for water quality and biodiversity.

"There is a lot of worry about the future of farming for the next generations – this helped to celebrate the good things that are going on," he said.

The collective is also investing in a mapping system to map the catchment groups and the biodiversity in the district. This would create a platform to tell the collective's story of environmental guardianship.

The biggest game changer for the collective this year was investing in a nitrate sensor to test water samples.

This ensured the groups were making well-informed decisions, Barr said.

“Community-led initiatives are powerful."

With locals in control of what they do, it "strips out some of the panic". Being proactive is empowering as is recognising the good work that has already been done, he said.

By Sharon Davis