Rural Issues: Mackenzie Basin Call-In Was Inevitable
February 9th, 2010
Environment Minister Nick Smith’s decision to call in the Mackenzie Basin intensive dairy farming resource consent applications was almost inevitable, given the huge public response to them and their potential to attract unwanted international attention to developments which could be used against NZ’s “100% pure” global branding. As is becoming the norm, however, it is set to become another issue where a National-led govt is offside with one of its key natural constituencies, the farming community.
While the call-in decision was welcomed by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Environmental Defence Society, Federated Farmers’ dairy spokesman Lachlan McKenzie argues the “loose house” dairying system proposed by developers is an improvement on widely used European methods of factory farming. He says “A factory farm is more like Fonterra’s feedlot in China or the tie stalls that typify much of Europe’s dairy industry.” He also protests there are already 7000 cows in the Benmore Valley, so dairying in the area is hardly a novel activity. “The 16 dairy farms being planned all fall on current working farms in a heavily modified working landscape. If it’s an iconic landscape, it’s really only iconic to the livestock that are currently there.”
The Feds are also annoyed because the Mackenzie Basin proposals include winter effluent harvesting to control nutrients reaching waterways and to allow reuse for irrigation and fertiliser. Bio-gas harvesting from this process could also assist in reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Complicating the call-in process is the fact it cannot be considered under the fast-track amendments made last year under the RMA because associated water take consents date back to 2004, while animal welfare issues fall outside the RMA.
Smith has appointed Environment Court Judge Jane Borthwick to chair the Board of Inquiry which will now hear the applications, along with Michael Bowden (water engineer), Dr Jim Cooke (scientist), Edward Ellison (Ngai Tahu) and Professor David Hamilton (lake ecologist, Waikato University). Smith says the call-in reflects the Govt’s policy of “providing stronger national leadership on resource management and water quality issues. This process will enable the most robust decision possible for these contentious consents.”
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