From Pride and Prejudice towards Sense and Sensibility in Canterbury Water Management

ABSTRACT

In the decade following 2000, water management in the Canterbury region of Aotearoa New Zealand was characterised by irrigation expansion, agricultural intensification, and first-come-first-served water allocation. Some communities grew concerned about the impacts of intensive farming on water quality, river flows, and groundwater levels; others were concerned about a lack of meaningful reflection of Māori values in decision-making. In response, the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, published in 2009, promoted devolved collaborative governance of freshwater resources. A year later, regional councillors were dismissed by central government over concerns about water management and replaced by appointed commissioners through an Act of Parliament. The ensuing period of water management has been both praised and criticised. In this paper we examine water management in Canterbury through a case study in the Selwyn Waihora Zone. We use a causal framework to assess water management, focusing on the process that developed regulatory and non-regulatory recommendations and informed the Selwyn Waihora sub-regional section of the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan. We conclude that the collaborative process described is not a ‘quick-fix’ solution but a radical shift from previous approaches and, although it had some success, it might not be resilient to national political changes.

KEYWORDS:

• Water management
• collaborative water management
• participatory environmental policy evaluation
• Canterbury Water Management Strategy

Authors’ Note

Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote six novels about the everyday lives of the British upper class. Her first two novels were Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813). Already in 1816 Sir Walter Scott described her as a masterful exponent of the modern novel in the new realist tradition and her novels are still popular 200 years later.

In our title we intend ‘prejudice’, not so much in a pejorative sense, but in the dictionary definition of a preconceived opinion, or bias; this is sometimes evident in remote, top-down governance or management. And we intend ‘sensibility’ also in a dictionary sense of openness to a sensitive, not just an emotionally detached, response to incoming information; this is sometimes evident in collaborative, bottom-up decision-making. ‘Pride’ and (common) ‘sense’ have their usual meanings.

GLOSSARY of Acronyms and Te Reo Māori*

Table

(* Most definitions adapted from Te Aka Māori Dictionary https://maoridictionary.co.nz/ by the authors.)

Acknowledgments

By their nature, collaborative processes involve many people working together. We acknowledge the good will and effort of many people we have worked with related to the Selwyn Waihora Project during and after the period described in this paper. The corrections and suggestions of two colleague reviewers and two journal reviewers improved the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment under the Strategic Science Investment Fund.

Notes on contributors

Melissa Robson-Williams

Dr Melissa Robson-Williams works at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research as a senior researcher in environmental science and transdisciplinary research and manages the Integrated Land and Water Management research area. She specialises in managing the impacts of land use on water, science and policy interactions and the practice of integrative and transdisciplinary research.

David Painter

Dr Painter is a former research engineer, university academic and consulting engineer, now semi-retired. From 2010 to 2014 he was a community member of the Selwyn Waihora Zone Committee, and representative on the Regional Committee, of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. He has carried out consultancy for hapū and iwi, as well as individual clients, central, regional and local government authorities, including Environment Canterbury.

Nicholas Kirk

Dr Nicholas Kirk is an Environmental Social Researcher at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. His research examines the governance of natural resources such as freshwater, fisheries, and invasive species. Dr Kirk’s research also investigates sustainability transitions in primary production as well as climate change adaptation.