Our freshwater and coastal environments are special and important to each of us for different reasons.

Tasman District Council manages our freshwater and our coastal environments on behalf of our community. Our work is guided by national direction, particularly the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) and the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS), and what we hear from our communities on what we should be achieving.

In late 2022, as part of the engagement process for the Tasman Environment Plan, we asked you for feedback on “From the Mountains to the Sea”, a discussion document that included a range of topics concerning the freshwater and coastal environments in the Tasman region. We wanted your thoughts on vision and values, pressures, freshwater management units (FMU’s), and the coastal environment and natural character.

A report and summary of the community feedback received is available here.

That feedback gave us some great input, which we've used to create draft visions and value sets for our key catchments.

Thanks to those who recently shared their views on our draft visions and values.

What we have learned from your feedback will help us better form the visions and make sure we've captured all the values that are important to communities in each catchment area. This will help ensure the new plan focuses on the most important things to our communities.

The new plan will seek to achieve our visions and values by including rules that direct water allocation, manage contaminant discharges, control coastal development, manage activities along waterbody margins and the coastal marine area, and ensure we adapt to climate change. As well as rules, we expect the plan will have policies to promote restoration projects and support community resilience through water storage solutions and hydroelectricity. There may also be special rules specifically to address issues and opportunities in each FMU.

Our approach needs to be based on what our communities and tangata whenua value in each part of the Tasman region and what we want for the future.

Iwi visions and values

Iwi will be talking to their whanau and hapu over the next 6-12 months about their visions and values for water across Te Tauihu/Top of the South. Once this is complete, we will be bringing our visions and values feedback together to look at the similarities and differences and work collaboratively to determine how these are best included in the draft land and freshwater plan.

The community and tangata whenua will then get a further opportunity to provide input on the visions and values and understand how they influence land and water management when we put out the draft land and freshwater plan for feedback.

The Three Waters / Affordable Water Infrastructure Reform is a separate workstream changing the way our drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services are delivered. The Mountains to the Sea discussion is about Council’s responsibilities for managing our freshwater and coastal environments so they are healthy, and to provide for our desired values and uses of water. Your feedback will help us to set rules and requirements in the Tasman Environment plan. The new plan will influence how infrastructure is managed to protect our freshwater and coastal environments. Find out more about water supply, wastewater and stormwater reform on our website here.

All feedback and submissions, including submitters' names, may be made available to Councillors and the public on our website, at Council offices and libraries. A summary of feedback and submissions may also be made publicly available and posted on the Council’s website. Learn more about it.