Sustainable catchment programme
Introduction
The Sustainable Catchments Programme (SCP) is a catchment based restoration programme, focused on protecting the long term health of priority harbours. It provides an integrated planning and implementation framework that enables the ARC to prioritise and deliver interventions into catchments. A catchment means the area of land that is drained by a creek or river system. The SCP was established in 2009 based on the pilot project the Mahurangi Action Plan which has been running since 2004. The SCP currently comprises of three projects/catchments:
Key principles of the Sustainable Catchments Programme are:
- The programme responds to issues within each catchment – the type of approach is dependent on catchment values, scale of issues and degree of community engagement and could include:
- collaborative action plans and implementation with key stakeholders,
- council led action plans and implementation focused on specific issue(s),
- supporting community led initiatives,
- monitoring only.
- the scale of response would be different for different catchments,
- work in priority local catchments as guided by regional processes,
- integrates actions/interventions into a catchment and amongst stakeholders,
- identifies priority actions and informs priority setting within the LTCCP.
- if required could also provide a framework to draw together the ARC, iwi, local authorities and other stakeholders.
In broad terms the catchment planning process will be consistent as outlined below:
- describe/understand the catchment,
- build partnerships/relationships,
- set goals and identify priority solutions,
- design and action implementation plan,
- measure progress and adjust plan.
