Fish and Game

Fish and Game New Zealand

Fish and Game New Zealand is a statutory body set up to advocate for recreational hunting and fishing in New Zealand.It was set up under the Conservation Act 1987 with the statutory responsibility for the sports of freshwater sport fishing and gamebird hunting...

 started a high profile "dirty dairying" campaign to highlight the problems caused by intensification of dairy farming

Dairy farming

Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...

 on the ecological health

Ecological health

Ecological health or ecological integrity or ecological damage are the symptoms of an ecosystem's pending loss of carrying capacity, its ability to perform ecological services, or a pending ecocide, due to cumulative causes such as pollution. it can also be defined as farming so as to minimize the...

 of New Zealand's freshwater

Freshwater

Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 environment. The campaign led to the creation in 2003 of the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord

Dairying and Clean Streams Accord

The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord is an agreement signed in 2003 in New Zealand between Fonterra, Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and regional councils...

, a voluntary agreement between Fonterra, Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and regional councils.

Effects

Intensive dairy farming practices has led to water pollution

Water pollution

Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....

 from cattle effluent in many of the streams and rivers in New Zealand. The Waikato River

Waikato River

The Waikato River is the longest river in New Zealand. In the North Island, it runs for 425 kilometres from the eastern slopes of Mount Ruapehu, joining the Tongariro River system and emptying into Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake. It drains Taupo at the lake's northeastern edge, creates the...

 has had a long history of water pollution and now fails health regulations for human contact. It passes through the highly productive Waikato Region, where dairy farming is a common land use. More recently, the Manawatu River

Manawatu River

The Manawatu River is a major river of the southern North Island of New Zealand.The river has its headwaters to the northwest of Norsewood in the Ruahine Ranges of southern Hawke's Bay. It flows initially eastward before turning south-west near Ormondville, flowing 40 km before turning...

 has been highlighted in the media due to its high pollution levels. Lake Ellesmere

Lake Ellesmere

Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora is located in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand. It is actually a broad, shallow lagoon located directly to the west of Banks Peninsula, separated from the Pacific Ocean by a long narrow sandy spit called Kaitorete Spit, or more correctly Kaitorete...

 has suffered from eutrophication

Eutrophication

Eutrophication or more precisely hypertrophication, is the movement of a body of water′s trophic status in the direction of increasing plant biomass, by the addition of artificial or natural substances, such as nitrates and phosphates, through fertilizers or sewage, to an aquatic system...

 since the 1970s due to farming activities in the area, Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is a lake situated in the North Island of New Zealand. With a surface area of , it is the largest lake by surface area in New Zealand, and the second largest freshwater lake by surface area in geopolitical Oceania after Lake Murray ....

 has had government funding to curb pollution, and the Rotorua

Rotorua

Rotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. The city is the seat of the Rotorua District, a territorial authority encompassing the city and several other nearby towns...

 lakes are heavily polluted. A study using water quality data from 1996 to 2002 found that the vast majority of lowland rivers and streams passing through pastoral land were polluted.

Prosecutions

There have been a number of prosecutions for dirty dairying including two high profile cases in 2010.
In June 2008 numerous South Otago farmers and companies were prosecuted under the Resource Management Act for unauthorised effluent discharges. The defendants were convicted by the Environment Court.

In August 2008 the West Coast Regional Council, responsible for water quality regulation, was accused of complacency by the West Coast District Health Board for failing to have any official water source meet the drinking water standard.

The Crafar family

Crafar Farms

CraFarms is a group of companies of which Allan, Beth and Frank Crafar were Directors. Crafar Farms was New Zealand's largest family-owned dairy business. The family business owned 22 dry stock and dairy farms with approximately 20,000 cows in various regions of the North Island, and was put into...

, as well as being accused of animal cruelty, were prosecuted seven times over a period of three years before their farms were placed in receivership in October 2009. A $45,000 fine was handed down to the Crafars and their sharemilker

Sharemilking

Sharemilking is a form of sharefarming applied to the dairy industry. The application of this model of farming is particularly common in New Zealand. Typically sharemilkers own their own cows, and will often take the herd with them when shifting between properties...

 in 2010 for allowing effluent to enter a waterway near the town of Bulls

Bulls, New Zealand

Bulls is a small town near Palmerston North on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is in a thriving farming area in the Rangitikei District at the junction of State Highways 1 and 3 about 160 kilometres north of Wellington...

.

In 2010 the Whataroa

Whataroa

Whataroa is a small township in southern Westland on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is located on the western bank of the Whataroa River, with the village of Te Taho on the other side. State Highway 6 passes through Whataroa on its route from Ross to the Franz Josef Glacier...

 company Potae and van der Poel Ltd were given a $120,000 fine, possibly the largest of its type, for repeated breaches of effluent discharge. The company had been issued with abatement notices for effluent runoff three farms in 2008. Effluent had entered tributaries of the Whataroa River

Whataroa River

The Whataroa River, sometimes the Wataroa River, is a river in the southern West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island. Its source is in the Southern Alps and it flows north and northwest, passing the township of Whataroa on the eastern side before reaching the Tasman Sea just south of Abut...

.

See also

• Environment of New Zealand
  Environment of New Zealand
  The environment of New Zealand is characterised by unique flora and fauna and a variety of landforms contained within a small island nation...
  
  
• Dairy farming in New Zealand
  Dairy farming in New Zealand
  Dairy farming in New Zealand began from small beginnings during the early days of colonisation by Europeans. The income from dairy farming is now a major part of the New Zealand economy, becoming an NZ$11 billion industry by 2010.-History:...
  
  
• Agriculture in New Zealand
  Agriculture in New Zealand
  Agriculture in New Zealand is the largest sector of the tradeable economy, contributing about two-thirds of exported goods in 2006-7. For the year ended March 2002, agricultural exports were valued at over $14.8 billion...
  
  

External links

• Fish and Game - stance on dairy farming

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