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Council helps landowners retire 1140ha and plant nearly 570,000 trees in 2024/25

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Published: 21/10/2025

 

Landowners worked with Waikato Regional Council to undertake voluntary environmental action on a total of 347 projects across the region in 2024/25.

Waikato and West Coast Catchments Manager Grant Blackie said landowners collectively completed over 150 kilometres of fencing, planted nearly 570,000 plants and retired nearly 1140 hectares of land in the last financial year.

“A huge amount of work hitting the ground: 347 landowner projects, which is a lot of projects and a lot of relationships,” said Mr Blackie, who noted that the work included projects with co-funding by Central Government’s National Infrastructure Funding and Financing (NIFF) programme, the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Te Uru Rākau Hill Country Erosion Programme (MPI) and Waikato River Authority (WRA).

Waikato Regional Council undertakes river and catchment planning and management activities within zones based on catchment boundaries.

Catchment programmes deliver restoration works with landowners, including soil erosion control and prevention, river management work, riparian protection through fencing and planting, lake and wetland protection and enhancement and bush fragment protection.

This voluntary work is funded in different ways throughout the region, with landowners assisted by funding coming from rates and/or by the council applying for funding for various work programmes from other organisations.

In 2024/25, river management teams completed the final year of a two-year project initiated in response to the 2023 North Island weather events, with funding of $350,616 from the NIFF going towards landowners’ share of work.

The work, completed in the Coromandel, Lower Waikato, Waipā and West Coast zones, included the construction of 282 erosion control structures and the removal of numerous channel blockages, such as trees and rock/gravel debris, with the total expenditure for the physical works being $845,581.

Another year of our long-term hill country erosion programme was completed, which saw 838ha of steep land in high-risk catchments retired through more than 70km of fencing. Across the West Coast, Waipā, Lower and Central Waikato, Coromandel and Waihou-Piako zones, a total of 157 landowners took part in the programme, with funding support from the council and MPI. The WRA also contributed funding for works within the Waikato and Waipā River catchments.

Provisional catchment management outputs 2024/2025