The Otago Regional Council is establishing a more grass-roots Otago water quality stakeholder group, reassuring critics who feared a less productive national approach could be taken.
In 2013 it was agreed that an Otago water quality external stakeholder group should be established.
This was part of an Environment Court mediation, to help resolve previous objections to the regional council's 6A water quality plan.
But several submitters to the regional council's latest long-term plan early last year asked why the group had not already been established.
In June last year, the Otago Regional Council discussed a report that advocated a more national approach to group membership.
But at that stage regional councillor Michael Deaker warned that national lobbyists could behave like ‘‘ferrets fighting in a sack'', and he believed the group should focus on Otago's own regional interests.
Otago Fish and Game Council chief executive Niall Watson wrote to the ORC about the middle of last year, concerned the previously agreed regional approach could be ‘‘dumped'' in favour of a more national focus.
A regional group could play an important role in helping to implement the rural water plan change 6A by 2020, he said.
Otago Fish and Game Council environmental officer Peter Wilson confirmed this week Otago Fish and Game had recently been invited to join the stakeholder group.
The group would hold its first meeting, to consider terms of reference, at the ORC premises in Dunedin on April 21, Mr Wilson said.
Otago landholders, conservationists, recreational users, local iwi and tourism interests were among those involved.
Fish and Game did not have full details of the group's membership but its Otago focus was positive and welcome.
But setting up the group was ‘‘not before time'', he added.
Approached for comment, ORC chairman Stephen Woodhead said regional councillors had supported a more regional approach in their feedback on the group's composition.
Establishing the group was a ‘‘sensible'' move, which would help with communication.‘‘It's about understanding the issue.''
The regional council itself was only a ‘‘small part'' of Otago, he said.
And the only way the water plan could be implemented effectively was ‘‘for the community and the council to work together'' and to ‘‘do the right thing''.
