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Lake Whangape, Waikato.
The Waikato Regional Council is getting $1.6 million in state funding to help protect waterways.
The money is some of national grants totalling $44m from the Government.
One of the council’s projects, to lift water quality and enhance the habitat at Lake Whangape, has received $900,000. This $2.8m project is a joint effort by the council, DOC, Waikato-Tainui, Waahi Whaanui Trust and Nga Muka Development Trust.
The other project, getting a $740,000 boost, is a partnership between the regional council and Pūniu River Care Inc to improve water quality on a 16km stretch of the Pūniu River.
“We appreciate this Government funding which will help us greatly at Whangape and for the Pūniu,” said council chair Alan Livingston.
“We have a strong focus on boosting water quality in our region in partnership with others.”
At Lake Whangape, sedimentation and nutrient loading from intensive dairying, coupled with aggressive spread of alligator weed, has led to a decline in the water quality and habitat. The project is aimed at restoring the health of the lake and associated wetlands. Work will include fencing to exclude stock, revegetation of lake margins and wetlands, accelerated alligator weed containment and implementation of a kaitiaki monitoring framework.
Meanwhile the work at the Pūniu River, valued at $2m, is aimed at improving water quality and helping restore indigenous fish habitat and land biodiversity.
Activities include riparian fencing to exclude stock, erosion protection works and the planting of 160,000 native trees.
A bilingual guide for marae-based restoration will be prepared.
Rural Support Waikato is inviting farmers, growers, and rural communities to take a well-earned break and join us for 'Brunch on Us' - a series of all-sector, relaxed drop-in events across the region.
Changes to resource management laws announced last week will spare thousands of farmers from needing an unnecessary resource consent just to keep farming.
Waikato is home to a diverse range of lakes, and experts say they urgently need better management and restoration.
A Taupiri farming company has been convicted and fined $52,500 in the Hamilton District Court for the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent into the environment.
Convictions and fines totalling $112,500 have been imposed on a logging company for repeated environmental damage on a farm near Wahi between August 2022 and October 2023.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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