Through a joint Government and Tasman District Council project, $2 million is being invested to bring more freshwater fish to the Tasman region, protect local waterways and employ local people.
“Work is already underway to improve fish diversity and abundance in the Tasman region thanks to funding from the Government’s Jobs for Nature initiative, the Ministry for the Environment’s Freshwater Improvement Fund and the Tasman District Council", says Environment Minister David Parker.
Tasman District Council senior resource scientist Trevor James says that with over 70 per cent of New Zealand’s fish currently in decline, projects like this are more important than ever.
“This is a huge opportunity to improve the mana and ecological health of Tasman District streams and waterways. For the fish, it means they’ll be able to get home, have increased habitat access and ability to migrate as well as greater connection within catchments.
“This is such a dream, a vision, to scale up this project to the whole region. This funding will allow us to increase the rate and the scale of our activity by over 20 times.”
The five-year Tasman Fish Passage project will see more than 4,000 in-stream structures assessed with around 1,500 being restored for fish passage – including culverts, weirs, dams, and water intakes that migratory fish cannot climb or swim over.
“This funding will make a huge difference to help our te taiao – our environment – and also the little fish that can’t speak for themselves” says Archdeacon Harvey Ruru of the Tasman District Council.
“We’re looking to employ a team of up to six. The Jobs for Nature funding has enabled us to expand our activities into this particular area of fish passage so we’re rapt with this opportunity,” says Project Manager Mike Orchard from Kūmānu Environmental.
The remediation project also intends to improve local freshwater knowledge and foster kaitiakitanga through iwi-led education events and Mātuaranga Māori monitoring.
“One of our most important aspects going forward is for our rangatahi to understand the migrations of fish and to understand that the paths that they’ve taken to get them to where they are now could potentially be different going forward,” says Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō spokesperson Aaron Hemi.
“We have to look after our environment in order to have something for tomorrow.”
The $1.219 billion Jobs for Nature programme is a government initiative. It creates nature-based jobs to improve and benefit our environment while supporting the on-going economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.