Waipoua River 20130219.pdf - Northland Regional Council

sites) (DOC 2011). Section 50 of Te Roroa Claims Settlement Act 2008 establishes TeTarehu, a classification that overlies the majority of the land in the entire Waipoua Rivercatchment.In particular, the Settlement Act Te Tarehu acknowledges the traditional, cultural, historicand spiritual associations of Te Roroa with the forest, while leaving day-to-daymanagement with the Department. ….. The Settlement Act also requires decision makersto have particular regard to the views of Te Roroa in respect of Te Tarehu values andprotection principles. (DOC 2011, p. 11)These values and protection principles are documented in Appendix 2.3 Water quality, water quantity and ecosystem healthThe Waipoua River has remained in a near pristine state, due to:its remoteness and the surrounding steep topography making logging difficult in theearly 1900s, the establishment of the Waipoua Forest Sanctuary in 1952the upper and mid catchment being identified as an ‘Outstanding river’ in the RWSP.Current monitoring shows that water quality and ecosystem health are excellent in the midand upper catchment. However, there is very little data for the lower reaches of thecatchment. There is also limited data on changes in water quality over time and waterquantity.3.1 Current monitoring of the RiverNorthland Regional Council currently undertakes the following monitoring in the WaipouaRiver:River Water Quality Monitoring Network (RWQMN) established in 1996. 36 riversites throughout Northland encompassing 22 river catchments are monitored monthlyfor a range of parameters, including temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, water clarity,nutrients and bacterial levels. This monitoring includes one site in the Waipoua Rivercatchment located at the bridge on SH12, which was added to the Network in 2002.Annual reports are available here:Stream invertebrate monitoring at RWQMN sites since 1997. Every site in theNetwork is monitored once a year in summer. Monitoring at the one Network site onWaipoua River started in 2004. Annual reports are available here:http://www.nrc.govt.nz/Resource-Library-Summary/Environmental-Monitoring/Stateof-the-Environment-Monitoring/http://www.nrc.govt.nz/Resource-Library-Summary/Research-and-reports/Riversand-streams/Periphyton monitoring at 25 of the RWQMN sites started in 2007. Every summeralgal biomass and species identification has been sampled at the Waipoua River site.20