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46 <strong>Selwyn</strong> <strong>Times</strong> Wednesday <strong>December</strong> 6 <strong>2023</strong><br />
SELWYN RURAL LIFE<br />
Advertising Feature<br />
iodiversity consultation:<br />
• By Isabelle Teresa<br />
The Council’s draft biodiversity strategy is<br />
an interesting kettle of fish.<br />
It addresses much relevant material,<br />
history and context, and meaningfully<br />
weaves te ao Māori perspectives<br />
throughout. It strikes an appropriate<br />
balance between highlighting the good<br />
work that has been underway across the<br />
district for some years and the urgency of<br />
building a more coordinated, widespread<br />
understanding and response.<br />
But I kept flipping the pages and not<br />
finding the section I expected – I was<br />
looking for a section on rural.<br />
Don’t get me wrong, agriculture and the<br />
rural context are mentioned throughout.<br />
However these mentions are paragraphs<br />
within discussion of other overarching<br />
themes. And while “landowners” are<br />
identified as a key group, farmers and<br />
growers are not directly addressed within<br />
that.<br />
Given the size and scale of <strong>Selwyn</strong>’s<br />
agricultural economy, and the fact that<br />
farmers are a pre-identified group of<br />
people who are inherently committed<br />
to understanding and managing<br />
their land, you might expect the rural<br />
context to be given its own focussed<br />
examination, with accompanying proposed<br />
recommendations.<br />
For example, the section on wetlands<br />
describes: “With most of the original<br />
wetland area drained for settlement<br />
and agriculture, only remnant wetlands<br />
remain” – however there’s no thoughts<br />
offered about managing wetlands within<br />
farms, and associated challenges around<br />
setbacks.<br />
Likewise, the section on vegetation<br />
clearance points out that plants previously<br />
considered as “scrub” and cleared for<br />
pasture include indigenous kānuka,<br />
mānuka and pātōtara (mingimingi), all<br />
of which are taonga species, and also are<br />
good nursery habitats for other indigenous<br />
species. It emphasises that clearing<br />
vegetation like this results in small and<br />
disconnected fragments of native bush, and<br />
causes particular damage when cleared in<br />
gullies and along waterway margins.<br />
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