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LEGAL FRAMEWORK AT THE NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL LEVELImage: NIWADouble Hill Stream in the Canterbury high country has high water quality, reflecting the undeveloped nature of the catchmentand a ‘Small Group’ of 21 major stakeholders assisted by regional andcentral government as ‘active observers’. This subgroup carried outthe principal task of formulating consensus. It included pastoral agricultureand horticulture, forestry, hydropower, water infrastructureinterests, recreationalists, tourism and environmental groups, as wellas Mori tribes representing the Crown’s Treaty of Waitangi partners.The forum received extensive help from the knowledge communityin New Zealand including scientists, social scientists, economists andpolicy specialists, mostly without payment.The Government gave LWF two successive mandates and substantiallyfunded its operations. Over a four year period, LWF reachedconsensus on a fully-developed blueprint for land and water managementin New Zealand. The forum prepared three reports, and after thefirst one forum members travelled to all 16 regions of New Zealand todiscuss the suggested recipe for reform with the wider public.In its three reports and their 158 recommendations (and a statementon Mori rights and interests) the LWF recognized that water mustbe managed in the context of the whole hydrological cycle and thatthe way we manage land and soil affects the quantity and availabilityof fresh water. In essence, it recommended bottom-line objectives,set at the national level, to ensure that all water bodies are of goodecological health, that their prestige, or 'mana' – as Mori paticipantsput it – is maintained and are not harmful to human health.It proposed that within this framework, quantitative and qualitativeobjectives for water bodies should be set by communities at catchmentor subcatchment levels, and it described the collaborative processesby which these tasks should be carried out. It made detailed recom-mendations on how the freshwater objectives and limitsshould be met. These included approaches to improvemanagement practices for land and water use and to dealwith over-allocation, the clarification and extension ofthe consenting system, and the facilitation of voluntarytransfer and trading of consents.Following the forum’s first report and its conversationsaround the country, the Government put in place a limitsettingregime for fresh water through its 2011 NationalPolicy Statement on Freshwater Management, whichrequired regional authorities to set limits for water qualityand quantity. It also put in place a National Clean-upFund and an Irrigation Acceleration Fund. These actionsopened the way for the forum’s second mandate and itsmore detailed second 6 and third 7 reports.In March 2013 the Government issued theFreshwater reform – 2013 and beyond consultationdocument calling for:• a catchment-based collaborative planning process• a National Objectives Framework requiring allwaters to meet minimum states for ecosystem andhuman health and to provide for consistency ofapproaches among regional authorities• government direction, guidance and supportfor regional authorities to ensure infrastructure,processes, techniques and tools are in place tomanage water within the limits regime.[ 179 ]