Source: Environment Canterbury Regional Council
How to give feedback
Complete the online survey
Visit ourwaitarakao.co.nz to complete an online survey to share your feedback on the draft strategy.
Complete a hard copy survey
A paper survey is available to complete from:
- Timaru District Library
- Timaru District Council
- Environment Canterbury’s Timaru office (75 Church Street)
- South Canterbury Eco Centre in Redruth
Come to a community event
Come and chat with the project team about the draft strategy at our community events:
- Community drop-in event – Tuesday 2 July, 4pm to 6pm, The Grosvenor Hotel, Timaru
- Discoveries in the Catchment, drop-in event – Wednesday 26 June, 5pm to 6.30pm, South Canterbury, Eco Centre
Request a meeting
Call customer services on 0800 326 636 to give your details, or email waitarakao@ecan.govt.nz, and we’ll be in touch.
Five key outcomes to work towards a healthy future
The draft strategy outlines the actions needed to ensure a healthy future for the Waitarakao Washdyke Lagoon catchment. It includes five outcomes, which each have objectives, first steps and ongoing actions:
- Ecological revitalisation or restoration achieves and sustains thriving, healthy, functioning ecosystems. This outcome includes six different objectives, each with its own steps and actions. These include creation of a definitive plan for the physical layout and functionality of the lagoon that puts the health of Waitarakao first, and steps to increase effective predator control.
- Increase makiha kai to enable customary harvest of food and resources that were traditionally gathered from the area, ki uta ki tai. This outcome includes first steps to improve the productive health of ecosystems to support targeted mahika kai species and their habitats, such as tuna (eel) and īnaka (whitebait), as well as rare plants and kaimoana that live on the reef.
Ngaroma is a university educator who has been involved with the community workshops.
- Enable the community to appropriately interact with the catchment. There are three objectives for this outcome, and these include first steps to ensure there’s resources available for people to understand the significance of the catchment, as well as clear signage and information about access and active transport links.
- The community is informed about, and involved in, the restoration of the mauri (life force) of the Waitarakao catchment. The two objectives for this outcome reflect the local community’s wish to be strongly involved in the restoration process and include steps to ensure a wide range of people, organisations, and interest groups can undertake actions together.
- Resilience planning reduces the environmental, social, cultural, and economic impacts of natural hazards. This outcome has six objectives including the development of the next generation of coastal hazard defences to protect adjacent environments, landowners, and businesses.
Community involvement in process
The process of creating the draft strategy included working closely with the local community and relevant stakeholders. A wealth of information, ideas and stories were captured through a series of community drop-in events, stakeholder meetings, an online survey, and focussed community workshops.
Paul Cooper adds that the draft strategy reflects the input from the Timaru community who were overwhelmingly supportive of getting involved and contributing to the whole catchment’s improved health.
“We knew we would need the support of the community to help create a strategy that was in line with people’s values but also practical and realistic. The ideas and knowledge from community members – some of whom feature in our promotion for this feedback phase – was fantastic. We had people from rural backgrounds, industry, te ao Māori, conservation, and education who added a lot to the technical and cultural knowledge of our project partners.
Community workshop participants Paul and Joy are conservationists who have been bird watching at the lagoon for 30 years.
“The momentum that’s already underway to improve the catchment has been beyond what we expected. At the same time as we have been developing the strategy, we have also been able to encourage on-the-ground action that we’re already in agreement with, such as supporting local school visits to the lagoon, organising rubbish clean-ups, undertaking fish habitat surveys, and enhancing predator trapping.”
Our Waitarakao will be available for public feedback until 15 July 2024. After feedback is considered, a final version of the strategy will be endorsed and approved later this year.
Environment Canterbury © 2024
Retrieved: 3:35pm, Thu 20 Jun 2024
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