With fanfare, the Government recently announced $40.5 million over four years to support farmer-led catchment groups that are working to improve land management practices.

Unfortunately, the amount is a pittance … an insult given that these frontline groups, including over forty in Hawke’s Bay, are carrying out crucial improvements with both productivity and environmental benefits that are locally-conceived, led and endorsed.  

Outgoing Catchment Communities Aoteara (CCA) Chair Ben Ensor commented to Farmers Weekly: “It is pretty skinny, and continuing will be tough for many groups.” [Stepping in to lead CCA is HB rural sector leader Brent Paterson, director of Rural Directions.]

As BayBuzz reported in detail earlier this year in Rural grassroots revolution underway in Hawke’s Bay, catchment groups in our region – some with hundreds of landowners and mana whenua voluntarily working together – have been energetic and successful, tackling issues like soil erosion, water quality and pest control, as well as fostering community connection and resilience.

To give you a sense of scale, the biggest catchment collective in HB is Tukituki Land Care, which brings together 17 sub-catchment groups made up of 824 landowners covering 250,000 hectares. Its boundaries span from the Makaroro in the Ruahine to Takapau and down to the lower Tukituki Corridor coast at Haumoana.

Wairoa Regional Councillor Di Roadley is involved in the HB umbrella ‘movement’, organised as the HB Catchment Group Alliance. She comments on “the uncomfortable truth”: 

“Catchment groups are being asked to deliver long‑term environmental restoration on funding cycles shorter than a lambing season. Volunteers are burning themselves out chasing 28‑day contracts instead of delivering the outcomes for the causes that drew them to act. It’s an impossible model.

“And while $40.5 million over four years sounds impressive, once it’s sliced across Aotearoa and diced again among hundreds of groups, it becomes so thin it can’t move the dial. If the Government wants faster progress, it needs to stop drip‑feeding and start backing catchment groups with the long‑term certainty their work demands.”

Amen! And good luck to Brent.