Ngaruroro River Water Conservation Order

$5,370 of $35,000 goal
Given by 67 generous donors in 11 weeks

We need some help to take this Conservation fight to the Environment Court. Please dig deep and ensure this river remains wild and free.

Hawke's Bay

After years of tireless efforts from Whitewater New Zealand and others, a Special Tribunal recommended that the Ngaruroro River in Hawkes Bay be protected by a Water Conservation Order (WCO). For those that aren’t familiar with WCO’s, this is the highest level of protection that a river can get in NZ and is meant to give everlasting protection to ensure a valley remains wild and free. River people, including kayakers, rafters, canoeists, packrafters, fly fishers, trampers, hunters, bird spotters, and conservationists from across the Country celebrated this decision. However, WWNZ’s lawyers took a closer look at the wording within the proposed Order and found that it didn't really offer any protection at all! They were proposing to allow water abstraction from tributaries, there was no solid definition of such basic terms as damming, no controls on water contamination and it left the door wide open for developers to challenge every aspect of it in the future.

WWNZ have appealed the original draft WCO and proposed a new draft. We’re taking this fight to the Environment Court, so if you care about the future of whitewater and rivers in NZ please dig deep in your pockets and make a donation to help with our Court costs. Future generations deserve to experience wild and free rivers in NZ and we’re trying our best to provide the protection that our wild places deserve. Please help us.

Use of funds

Our Court costs are estimated to be ~ $35K. If we achieve this goal we're confident that we can provide lasting protection for the Ngaruroro. If we get more, then we'll use those funds to fight for other rivers around Aotearoa in the future.

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Latest update

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Ngaruroro WCO pre-Environment Court hearing update.  30 January 2021

We thought that we should update you all on how the WCO on the Ngaruroro is progressing. In short we have made good pre hearing progress but the matter is still progressing towards a hearing in the environment court As we progress towards the hearing, we have made headway with a number of key parties on issues of importance to Whitewater NZ. This includes a common view on the definition of damming which is comprehensive and clearly worded, and recognition that the WCO should include restrictions relating to water quality given the importance of this characteristic to the outstanding values present in the upper Ngaruroro. Key issues which remain in contention include whether damming of tributaries or taking of water (in excess of that required for drinking and stock water) should be provided for or prohibited in the upper Ngaruroro. We still need your support!!!! If you haven’t already contributed to this via give a little and you were planning to, please go on and make a donation we need every dollar we can gain as these proceedings are very expensive. Thank you to all who have contributed already.

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Latest donations

Brian
Brian on 10 Feb 2021
$50
Bohdan
Bohdan on 08 Feb 2021
$20
Ian
Ian on 06 Feb 2021
Thank you for all the important work.
$30
Martin
Martin on 03 Feb 2021
$50
Megan
Megan on 03 Feb 2021
$20

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This campaign started on 29 Nov 2020 and ended on 15 Feb 2021.