Horizons Catchment Group Award Winners 2022 – Upper Moawhango River Catchment Group 

The Upper Moawhango Group was set up in October of 2018 and started with a farmer only meeting to gauge support from the local community. With almost 100% of farmers attending the meeting, the group then had the confidence to move forward and engage the whole community.

Nearly 100% of the area is now actively involved in the catchment group, which includes 15 farming properties and other entities including the Mayor of the District Council, Iwi, Genesis, NZ Defence Force, Fish and Game and NZ Landcare Trust. They are also part of the Rangitikei River Catchment Collective.

The vision of the catchment group is to have farmers engaged in good environmental outcomes and to also build on an incredibly strong and vibrant community. This includes all farmers having environmental plans, to improve water quality, increase fish numbers, have swimmable rivers, streams fenced and planted and a good biodiversity program.

The group see their biggest achievement to date being the three years’ worth of data collected from the main stem and four tributaries, providing valuable information on nitrogen, phosphorus, turbidity and E.coli in the catchment. This data is analysed by a water quality expert to assess trends. Expert advice is used to guide land management around streams with a huge amount of fencing and planting being out in place.

The Upper Moawhango Group entered the Ballance Farm Environment Awards to get recognition for all of the valuable work that farmers are doing in the environmental space, highlighting how far they have come in a short period of time.