Have Your Say

Not talked about much is how in many ways the riparian plantings are also going down stream on certain major flooding.

Like flax plantings create their own dams that on a big downfall, then builds up then, then a major whoosh, taking fencing etc, out.

The riparian plantings with its weeds, hold & build up metres of silt, soil in some parts, contricting flow, until another whoosh, when it lets go in my area.
That is then called erosion, which is then deemed to requre more riparian fencing off & plantings by the so called eco-engineers from the Regional Council.
With just grazing, cattle, sheep, the build up still did happen, but it would release earlier.

A history in my area was in the 1960’s the removal of the willows that was a major cause for flood-waters to remain for weeks to a month or so.
Was very good for the local hydro dam, that could keep use much of that water for hydro generation over that extended time.

The something had to be done was basically sorted out by local farmers, small local meetings by Fed Farmers, & then some government $input to achieve where the roads, other ownership of the river banks were, and only a part subsidy, to gain some coordination & standards for what work was to be done.
Major costs where the farmer’s land adjoined the river, was meet by the land-holder.

The local District council was good as it maintained the willow control, charging directly the nearby landowners for about every 2-3 years of their summer spray operation.

Yet when one goes back a bit in history in my local area, the willows were all taken out during the 1930’s depression, where the unemployed to receive food & a bit of pay had to stay at the “willow camps”.
So the older ones recognized history and worked to make it pan out better.

It then went to Regional level, that did let that concept die, and so the willows have taken hold now.
Not only that “crack willow” but also “pussy willow” and now there are in some parts major sections where it is ungrazed turning into thickets of “Japanese walnut” plantations.

Plus even more riparian fencing off & plantings, also being overwhelmed by black-berry, gorse & broom, which will be even more difficult, time consuming & becoming very expensive to spray out.

Eventually after some big Climatic Change as they will call it, & something has to be done, then the account will be sent to what will be called the “beneficiaries” which will have a bit less flooding.
Also to what they deem to be the “excaberators”.

A hell of a lot of that is like between roads, even paper roads now fenced off, — to the river.
In some parts you can be deemed as both, so be ready for a double wallop in rates, fees, levies and of course more permits for whatever to just run & own a property.

So here comes the faraway Regional Councils, with kickbacks koha to iwi, & their management to mauri of lore & life, along with Emergency Climate Change action in a major eco-techno-bureaucratic empire controlling building cycle, demanding money, more rates, with menaces, & able to place caveats on the land.