Tied in with the November Board meeting, the Board and Stuart joined Members of Parliament known collectively as the Rural Nats for a breakfast dialogue. Hosted in their select committee rooms in the Old Houses of Parliament, it was a great opportunity for Ben and the Board to reinforce the invaluable work our member catchment groups do enhancing environmental, social and economic outcomes in their areas. Ben was able to land several key messages with the group –
Catchment Communities Aotearoa currently has 32 Catchment Collectives, with 220 catchment groups, covering ~10m ha or 37% of Aotearoa’s landmass.
The potential funding of $8m per year of baseline funding is not enough to sustain the existing groups effectively, let alone the collective desire to see more catchment groups formed covering more of New Zealand.
Many MPs there took it as an opportunity to also flag the impending draft RMA reforms, expected pre Xmas, and that they were seeking submissions and inputs from groups like us.
Present were;
Rural Nats; Catherine Wedd, Chair of the Environmental, Agricultural and Finance Committees Committee ; Suze Redmayne Rangatikei ; Dr Vanessa Weenink MP Banks Peninsular ; Stuart Smith MP Kaikoura ; Miles Anderson MP Waitaki ; Carl Bates MP Whanganui ; Grant McCullum MP Northland ; Barbara Kuriger MP King Country & Deputy Speaker ; Dana Kirkpatrick MP East Coast ; Mike Butterick MP Wairarapa ; Sam Uffindell MP Tauranga ; David Macleod MP New Plymouth ; Tim Van de Molen MP Waikato ; Miles Anderson MP Waitaki.
Catchment Communities Aotearoa; Ben Ensor Canterbury, Chair ; Alexis Wadworth, Southland ; Lloyd McCall Otago ; Rob Macnab Waikato ; Brent Patterson Hawkes Bay ; Roger Dalrymple Manawatu ; Stuart MacIntyre, General Manager.
