Catchment group protecting what they love
| Published date | 11 October 2021 |
| Publication title | Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) |
Their forebears emigrated from Scotland in 1876 and settled in the valley.
Consecutive generations of the family — not always in a direct line — have farmed there for 139 years. The first Nicolson worked as a shepherd for six years at Ida Valley Station.
The boys’ parents, Cam and Amy, felt a real obligation to those who had come before them, to their boys, and to future generations, to look after their land and the community. And that, as Mr Nicolson succinctly said, was what got them out of bed every morning.
The couple have welcomed the recent establishment of an Ida Valley catchment group. The first meeting was held at Poolburn in August, to discuss value setting, identifying what common values were held collectively.
The workshop session was supported by Otago Catchment Community which worked specifically with catchment groups throughout Otago which had a focus on rural water quality.
Two specific questions were asked of the group — what were their issues and what were they doing well?
Those questions were broad enough to have people think about more than just on-farm and environmental and economic factors, as they also considered the social and cultural aspects of the catchment.
The values were then established as waterway wellbeing, flow, wise water use, kaitiaki of the community and leading by example. A meeting last week was about looking at some of the actions the group they needed to do.
Local farmers Sam Stevens and Ro McDiarmid, both on the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Central South Island Farmer Council, were ‘‘on the coalface to a degree’’ with the environmental regulations coming in through their B+LNZ involvement, and were involved with establishing the group.
Mr Stevens said it was likely the group would eventually split into the Poolburn Creek and the Ida Burn Creek, as the creeks were very different.
Poolburn was a clay-based drain and Ida Burn was a shingle bed — and when it came to testing the quality of water leaving the valley, it came from two different sources, Mr Stevens said.
About 20 people, representing about 15 farms, attended the first meeting and Mr Stevens said the social interaction was also important.
For the catchment, connecting with community was as important as the environment development that farmers wanted to do.
That goes down to mental health. Being able to get out and talk about non-farming...
To continue reading
Request your trial