Will nature benefit from Ruamāhanga and Wairarapa Moana project?

By David Famularo

The $10 million Ruamāhanga Catchment and Wairarapa Moana Wetlands Project has been promoted as restoring Wairarapa Moana wetlands and the upper Ruamāhanga, Waingawa and Waipoua Rivers to natural good health.
When I heard about it, with funding from the government’s post-Covid-19 Jobs for Nature Programme,  it sounded like a positive development.
I envisaged a significant recalibration of the Wairarapa’s approach to waterway management to restore the health of Wairarapa Moana in particular, as was suggested by the findings of the Ruamahanga Whaitua process.
However, the main purpose of the project appears to be large scale modification of the three rivers to reduce flooding - otherwise known as the natural course of the rivers - for the benefit of adjacent landowners.
If this seems like an extreme interpretation, one only needs to read Greater Wellington Regional Council’s own press release on its website.
To quote: “Riparian activities for the Ruamāhanga catchment will provide flood protection resilience and buffer planting through native and exotic planting.”
And: “In the first instance this funding boost will bring forward works that will provide a much needed boost to employment in the region, while at the same time strengthening our resilience against floods, improving water quality and enabling a critical first step to managing the effects of climate change.”
Plus:  “This funding will provide much needed jobs and will also help further mitigate impacts from climate change and flood risks.”
Beyond this, according to the press release, money will be spent on environmental monitoring, developing visitor facilities, engagement with the community, pest and animal control, and native planting of 60ha of Wairarapa Moana’s 10,000ha total.
So in practice, the only physical impact of the project will be major alterations of three rivers plus some riparian planting,  along with exotic plants, which one can assume are willows which have been found to present their own environmental issues.
While the project is being promoted as being good for these water bodies, the flood protection work is bound to be disruptive and disturbing to what aquatic life exists, and quite likely permanently destructive of their habitat, as has been found by Fish & Game surveys of large stretches of the Ruamāhanga that have already been modified.
Ideally, the $6 million of government money should have gone to environmental and community groups and the region’s two iwi to create positive changes to the Wairarapa’s waterways, while still employing the numbers of people that Greater Wellington is talking about, which includes the wages of existing staff.
Instead, it appears all this money will go directly to Greater Wellington to spend following its own criteria and purposes.
If any iwi or environmental group representatives are reading this, the question I would ask them is whether they have been contacted by Greater Wellington yet.
My suggestions would be not to wait for the call but to contact the council as soon as possible to demand an active role in the process, in order to oversee any changes made to the three rivers in particular, especially when it comes to flood protection work.