Mussel farmers continue to support Streamcare
Streamcare volunteers at a recent planting bee near Pakawau. Photo: Neil Wilson.
At a recent Federated Farmers meeting, Golden Bay’s Streamcare group received a further $5000 from the Bay’s Marine Farmers Consortium. The money is the second instalment of the $10,000 promised by the consortium last year.
The Streamcare group plants native species next to waterways using volunteer labour and assistance from farmers’ staff. Most of the trees are grown from local seed and reared in the Streamcare nursery at Collingwood Area School.
One of the ways to improve water quality in streams and rivers is to prevent run-off from farm paddocks reaching the waterways. Riparian planting, like that done by Streamcare, has been shown to be an effective way of achieving that and the effects can be seen in waterways.
Streamcare spokesperson Jo-Anne Vaughan said that the mussel farmers’ grant would make a great difference to the group’s work. Financial support allowed the group to keep down the cost of riparian planting to farmers. She added that, in helping Streamcare, the mussel farmers’ consortium was also helping dairy farmers.
At the same meeting, the Marlborough Shellfish Quality Programme (MSQP) recognised the successful efforts of the farmers in the Aorere Catchment Project (ACP) and the Landcare Trust in improving water quality, a crucial driver of mussel farming’s viability.
In presenting a certificate to representatives of the ACP and the Landcare Trust, MSQP manager Helen Smale spoke of the successful co-operation between two industries, both vital to the Golden Bay economy, she said. The dairy farmers in the Aorere catchment have made such changes to the way they operate at the land/water interface that the mussel farms close to the Aorere River are now able to harvest nearly 80 per cent of the time, she said, a dramatic improvement on previous times.
“By collaborating, the two farmer groups arrived at a solution that didn’t have to be imposed from outside,” said Mrs Smale. She then went on to speak about technological advances in water-testing and predicted a major expansion of marine farming in Golden Bay.
Neil Wilson
