Water governance in New Zealand – challenges and future directions

Abstract

New Zealand has one of the most devolved water governance regimes in the world. It has been also one of the first countries to give legal recognition to indigenous (Māori) rights for water, and in 2017 the first to give a river legal status as a person. Yet water governance in New Zealand has recently become politically contentious, primarily because of recent declines in water quality of lowland rivers and lakes brought about by land use intensification, especially intensification of dairy farming. This paper reviews water governance arrangements in New Zealand. The legal anchors for water governance are the Resource Management Act 1991 and the Local Government Act 2002. Fresh water is managed by 16 regional councils under a highly devolved statutory planning regime and a system of resource consents for management of land use, water takes and discharges. Regional council boundaries largely follow catchment boundaries which has facilitated integrated catchment management. Central government has in recent years increased the level of national direction for water management. Its National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2014 requires regional councils to set requires regional councils to set objectives for all freshwater bodies, with limits on abstractions and discharges, by December 2025. They are also required to implement methods to address over‐allocation and to ensure that, overall, water quality within a region is maintained or improved. Consensus‐seeking collaborative processes are being implemented in many regions to establish these objectives and limits in legally binding regional plans. In 2017, further proposals also seek to improve water quality to make 90% of New Zealand rivers swimmable by 2040. Māori seek that their indigenous interests in water be better recognized in law, and there are public demands that royalty payments be levied on exports of bottled water. Water governance has become a political issue in a country which is actually well endowed with fresh water resources.

OECD Principles on Water Governance in practice: an assessment of existing frameworks in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America

“…Collaborative approaches to catchment planning are now being implemented throughout New Zealand Rouse et al, 2016) with many plans in their second decade of implementation, and giving greater weight to Māori cultural values (Harmsworth et al, 2011). Public concerns over declining water quality in lowland rivers, Māori calls for a greater role in water governance, and calls for resource rentals to be paid especially for water exports have raised water governance to a national political issue (Fenemor, 2017).…”