Watching the Kererū Return
WORDS Sarah Perriam

A search on water quality in New Zealand tells a game of two halves with good news stories often lost and landowners left feeling deflated that their efforts regenerating ecosystems, freshwater and biodiversity is falling on deaf ears. We shine a light on what progress a 20-year-old farmer-led organisation has achieved for their community and environment.


As one of the most divise dinner party topics, our opinion on freshwater quality is natural as a nation of passionate nature-lovers. It’s no surprise that our passionate nature-loving farmers would form catchment groups to protect and enhance freshwater. The goal of a ‘catchment group’ is to have a healthy water catchment to support swimming, fishing and local ecosystems and in turn bring together people that share common values towards environmental challenges. Sadly, decade-long, intergenerational family farming solution-led initiatives such as catchment groups don’t harness as many headlines as the rhetoric of inaction. And it’s not just farmers jumping on the bandwagon of catchment groups. 


In an abundant environment of job choices a project on the waterways feeding into, and around the water’s edge of Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora has captured the brightest minds and set up career pathways for our most passionate environmental ‘actionists’. Such as Brittany Smith who has recently completed her degree in spatial design at Massey University in wetland restoration.


Brittany is working on the design of an interactive nature playground for families at the mouth of the Irwell River. ‘It’s about creating a sense of place for all of the people of Leeston and wider areas to more easily inhabit with walkways to bask in the local ecology. The design of the space is centred around observation for children who learn through interactive experiences,’ she explains.




Three people and a dog are standing on a bridge over a river.
A man is standing next to a stream in a field.

The Tinaku Project was initiated by Ellesmere Sustainable Agriculture Inc (ESAI) from a three-year grant from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Jobs for Nature fund. It has created jobs that enhance biodiversity and improve water quality with mahinga kai values.


‘I lost my job during the lockdown and so I started a nine-week course through Ministry of Social Development with Department of Conservation on weed control and track management,’ explains contractor Tom Hilston. ‘I’ve been working for ESAI for over a year helping to plant over 100,000 native plants across sites around the lake.’


ESAI began in the 1990s as the Southbridge Water Users Group which was formed by local farmers in response to the increasing compliance and consenting regulations. It has over 100 farmer members, and whilst the organisation was founded on advocating on behalf of Ellesmere farmers around irrigation issues, it has moved beyond that in recognition of farmers’ deep interest in stream health and restoration projects.


‘It’s pretty rewarding when the kererū and bellbirds return as the natives get more established,’ explains regenerative dairy farmer John Legg from Lakeside Ayrshires near Leeston. ‘The Jobs for Nature funding has not only given a boost to what our community began 30 years ago, but we are now doing so much more together as a community, including workshops on succession planning and soil management, where we connect and learn together.’

A man and a woman are kneeling in a field with potted plants.
Two young girls are planting trees in a field.

The Tinaku Project has further funding from Ministry for Primary Industries which will enable them to run a survey of farmers to gather a valuable benchmark of nitrate levels in water across their catchments, and establish two permanent ground water sampling stations to track their efforts and changes in freshwater health over time. Harts Creek, one of the key tributaries leading into Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere, over 20 years ago was in trouble.


Local fisherman Allan Fife was concerned with the stream silting up, fish numbers declining and cattle grazing right down to the water margin after seeing back in the late ’80s the world-class trout in his net from the creek. In search of a solution he met with local farmer Peter Chamberlain, who became instrumental in the restoration of Harts Creek.


‘Initially I always thought that it should be our responsibility as farmers to plant off these waterways, but the longer our families’ involvement, we have seen the wider community benefits unfolding. It’s now about a collective of people from local rūnanga, farmers and our community all being involved in the design of the funding model going forward that will make this ongoing work sustainable into the future,’ explains Peter’s son, Tim, Chair of ESAI.


The Tinaku Project’s funding has seen 39 riparian projects (banks of waterways) and wetland planting projects in progress (or completed) on 25 farms, home to nearly 40,000 plants spanning 10 km of waterways. They hope to continue to source funding after 2023 to keep the results moving forward for the next generation of environmental actionists.


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