Submission

Submission on Consultation on draft Freshwater Management Units Boundaries, Values and Visions in Marlborough

Federated Farmers have submitted to Marlborough District Council on their recent round of community consultation on identifying new Freshwater Management Units (FMUs), visions and values ahead of the upcoming NPS Freshwater Management review of the proposed Marlborough Environment Plan (pMEP).

Our key recommendations to Marlborough District Council on this are:

• Aim to maintain existing high water quality waterways – as improvement is not necessary in Marlborough.
• Some of these draft FMU boundaries seem to be appropriate, but that the FMUs containing the larger catchments (including the whole Wairau River in one FMU) would be too large.
• Consider further division of the six proposed FMUs with amendments to FMU boundaries to reflect shared communities of interest and more focused land management requirements.
• Provide further clarification as to whether any pollution or water quality issues within waterbodies is actually from farming activities.
• We would like to see additional values for rural and farming activities that reflects the importance of freshwater for farming.

We look forward to further engagement with Marlborough District Council in all subsequent stages of consultation. Watch this space – more to come!