Behind New Zealand's '100% Pure' Image lies a Dirty Truth | Foreign Correspondent

[Music] [Applause] new zealand aotearoa is blessed with fresh water [Music] with its turquoise rivers and lakes and snow-capped mountains its pristine and dramatic landscapes are the sets of hollywood blockbusters and it's natural beauty a major tourism drawcard but behind its clean green image is a shocking reality up to 99 of rivers running through urban farming and non-native forested areas are polluted we're told that oh you know rivers are dangerous that you could get sick from rivers they could harm your kids and your pets the ardern government has promised to clean up i want our waterways to be swimmable again so we're putting in place standards that actually stop the degradation but is facing pushback from one of the country's biggest polluters dairy do we want agriculture do we want production or do we want to get rid of agriculture now the country's wealthiest maori tribe is launching an unprecedented claim over the south island's fresh water there's been a failure of government there's been a failure of the market and the only one standing with credibility on this is martin [Music] i'm on a tour that's going to take me deep into one of new zealand's spectacular wilderness areas the dart river in the country's south island we're weaving through glacier-fed braided rivers part of a world heritage site the southern alps of new zealand that's what people think of when they think of new zealand it'll be the snow the mountains the glaciers the clean water the flowing water the trees the bush the bird life the spiritual side of it is that these are where our ancestors were some of the mountains are named after our ancestors bill cook is giving a maori blessing for the next part of our journey to so basically it's telling you you can go away healthily but make sure you come back to us well as well all right here we go bill is a cultural river guide who's been taking people out here for 30 years it's more about using the flow we're heading to the highlight of the trip rockburn chasm in mount aspiring national park these rock full nations are incredible you can imagine the water coming down through there hitting that rock and then turning it around like a washing machine and digging in there for bill his connection to these rivers runs deep waterways uh my life basically my grandfather my father my great-grandparents were all water people of some sort and so we used them as our highways the same as my early ancestors the moldy came into here they were their highways waterways are an essential part of his identity the mary saying would be something like which is the river i am the river the river is me and so that's basically what we believe in it's what i believe in personally as well it means a lot to me but in the last few decades this precious natural resource has been degraded the water here is among the purest in the world melting from snow off the peaks of the southern alps and glaciers that have taken thousands of years to form from here rivers like this one flow through farms and cities before reaching the sea it's a process that could take anywhere between two and one hundred years but as these flows go further downstream they're transforming into some of the most polluted waterways in the developed world i'm traveling to the canterbury region in the south island which has some of the most contaminated waterways in new zealand this was traditionally sheep farming country but it's seen an explosion in dairy farming cattle numbers have more than doubled here in the last two decades it's now one of the most intensively farmed and irrigated regions [Music] [Applause] one of the best ways to get a sense of how the landscape has been transformed by dairy farming is to go up [Music] joining me for this bird's eye view is dr mike joy one of new zealand's leading freshwater ecologists ready mike ready [Music] it may look lush and green now but 20 to 30 years ago it was very different before irrigation this was brown everywhere was brown yeah it's it's a huge change bringing water to this place irrigated land has doubled since 2002 and now takes up half of new zealand's freshwater use it's allowed a major conversion from sheep to dairy farming this is the most recently developed part of new zealand and this is where the big land grab happened like the big gold rush you know intensification of farming for conversions and and that massive change in the amount of water that was taken out of the rivers and aquifers here and put on the land uh you know just unprecedented so that more irrigation water here than the whole rest of the country put together and it happened really really quickly the size of farms has got way bigger the amount of fertilizer going on is hugely increased and it's the heavy use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to grow pasture that is also a major concern for dr joy with nitrates leaching into the poor soils of the canterbury plains and polluting waterways what sort of effect has that had on the fresh water systems here light stony soils lots of cows on it a lot of fertilizer and palm kernel going on to feed them lots of urine going out and down through those soils into the rivers the aquifers and rivers really all acting as one here moving out towards the coast and and you're getting that nitrate levels just rising and rising and rising really quickly great for farming but not so great for fresh water [Music] back on the ground at this dairy 600 cows are coming in for their daily milking john sunkel is a third generation farmer like many in the canterbury region he converted from traditional mixed farming to dairy it provides a future for for my family and the generations that have come before i have five full-time staff on farm it puts bread on the on their table and it bolsters and builds communities so we rotate those rotational grazing john is showing me around his 500 acre property in the economic downturn of the late 1980s dairy became a lifeline when did you turn to more intensive dairy farming here so that was yeah late early early 90s really late late late 80s early 90s to kind of follow that just to follow yeah i don't know i mean i didn't see it as a gold rush you just looked at what you saw in front of you um sheep prices were no good wool prices were going down uh we saw an agricultural decline right across the world economically uh we just looked at dairy and and dairying seem to be the future john's farm lies within the selwyn waihora catchment and it's the selwyn river that has become the poster child for all that's gone wrong with new zealand's waterways the ceiling can be thought of as a bit of a ground zero for mismanagement of water local councillor and freshwater ecologist lan farm is taking me along the river where there's regular algal blooms mostly caused by excess nutrients from fertilizers there's a toxic cyanobacteria warning for the site and actually um two other sites on the salon as well um actually this is just a patch of it right it's the black stuff on the rocks yeah so it appears as kind of these um quite like almost velvety nets you can't swim here this algae is toxic and can harm people and animals who come into contact with it and it just takes one teaspoon for a dog to ingest that for it to actually die when you have excessive nutrients and sediments coming into the system these blooms can really take off and that's really sort of the perfect storm of what we've got here and so it really provides like this essentially a wonderland for formidium blooms and they have taken off here this summer as they often do in recent history yeah which is really unfortunate in someone because that's when families want to come to rivers oh it's hugely disappointing it just fuels this continual disconnection with the river clean water in swimmable rivers isn't simply nice to have fully functioning freshwater ecosystems are fundamental to ensuring that our communities can thrive both today and in the future the 34 year old has leveraged social media to campaign hard against the degradation of new zealand's rivers her conservation agenda has hit a nerve pollution can take decades to come to the surface where it impacts our lives in 2016 she received the most votes in the canterbury regional elections and is now in her second term when we're told that oh you know rivers are dangerous that you could get sick from rivers that you know they could harm your kids and your pets it just enforces that disconnection with nature and the idea that we're somehow separate and that and that to actually address issues like this and fight for our public resources or try protect our public resources that that's somehow unreasonable because this is the baseline now because the polluted river has become the norm exactly the serbian river is not an isolated case according to a recent government report 95 to 99 of rivers running through urban farming and non-native forest areas have unacceptable levels of pollution that's nearly 60 percent of the country's rivers i want our waterways to be swimmable again the poor quality of new zealand's fresh water was a key issue in last year's election with prime minister jacinda ardern again promising to clean up the country's dirty water we're putting in place standards that actually stop the degradation see material improvements over five years and within a lifetime we see our kids swimming in that water [Music] again to reduce pollution the government has introduced fresh water reforms the most contentious issue is what the nitrate level in waterways should be the government set it at 2.4 milligrams per liter but that's provoking furious debate we can take it back to our analyzer and we can get an instant result on the nitrate levels back at the solwan river dr mike joy and lan farm are testing the river's nitrate level the sample's been analyzed and we'll just see what it comes up as wow 9.66 milligrams that is is crazy the current national policy statement the limit is 2.4 milligrams so it's four times that as alarming as this number is this is totally typical of virtually all the groundwater and surface water systems that you'll get in this whole area [Music] dr joy was part of a group of independent scientists set up by the government to advise it on the reforms he says the nitrate limit needs to be much lower it should be one milligram the european union standard is one milligram is the maximum that's allowed in fresh waters that's the trigger for eutrophication eutrophic waterways are often choked with algae and can change oxygen levels endangering life the farmers put nitrogen fertilizer on the paddocks to grow grass what the nitrogen does on the river is it grows algae algae photosynthesized during the night they respire and the oxygen levels drop right down and virtually everything dies and then during the afternoon it comes back up and it gets dangerously high so those fluctuations are what are really harmful for the life in the river the government says its 2.4 milligram limit will protect 95 percent of species against toxicity but dr mike joyce says toxicity isn't the only issue freshwater life may have already been harmed from eutrophication the fish can't die twice right they can't die of toxicity if they're already dead because there's not enough oxygen the government's nitrate limit is receiving pushback from one of the country's most powerful industries worth nearly 15 billion dollars a year dairy is now the country's biggest export earner the dairy co-op fonterra is new zealand's largest company making around a third of the world's dairy exports it wants a higher nitrate limit a call being echoed by many of its farmers including john sunkel he's one of ten thousand kiwi farmers producing milk for fonterra [Music] we we apply all their own nitrogen on the farm over the past few years he's been working hard to reduce his use of fertilizer but says it will be impossible to meet the government's nitrate limit how feasible is it for you to reach the 2.4 milligram per liter bottom line there's nothing that we are doing today or have an ability to do as far as management and system changes that will allow us to achieve that outcome [Music] apple john is also a counsellor for the canterbury region today he's canvassing the views of other local dairy farmers at this field day do you think you can continue this work and maintain that improvement and achieve what government's looking at at the moment it's probably a bit of a loaded question the the targets that are out there are not achievable we can go lower yes we can and we're trying that but the levels that have been proposed are um prior to farming that's the reality if we cannot meet those numbers then we cannot meet those numbers and we have to give up farming there is no future for production agriculture of any sort on the cannery plains if that is where we we end up we will have a total dislocation of thousands upon thousands of people and and no support for the main streets of our small communities the whole fabric of our communities just disintegrates is simple what about other sorts of farming because what the scientists have been saying is that it's the nitrate leaching into soils that is coming from cow urea that is one of the major issues here yes dairy has a significant part of it up anywhere we have intensive agriculture and or irrigation that's the challenge so there's a societal question do we want agriculture do we want production or do we want to get rid of agriculture it becomes that blunt with those numbers that's the reality for much of the world is that the type of industrial farming that we do at the moment is harming the environment that's why we have the environmental crises that we have at the moment not just of climate change but a biodiversity crisis and a soil loss crisis and a fresh water crisis globally so yes it may be hard for these guys who have grown up with this type of farming to accept that this type of farming can't happen anymore [Music] under pressure from all sides the government has agreed to revisit its nitrate limit later this year meanwhile another battle is breaking out one that could reset who has authority over the country's fresh water [Music] new zealand's national holiday in bluff on the southern tip of the south island naitahu are welcoming people to their [Music] [Applause] mariah [Applause] not far from here about 200 years ago the ancestors of these people gathered to sign the country's founding document with the government the treaty of waitangi [Applause] naitahu is new zealand's wealthiest tribe its territory spans most of the south island frustrated by the degradation of waterways the tribe has launched an unprecedented legal claim over fresh water in its territory [Music] so we claim the kinship with the environment and it takes a lot of time for people to understand that dr tamari tao is the lead claimant in the case he says naitahu are seeking recognition of rangatiratanga or chieftainship over freshwater we've made it clear that rangatiratanga is more than ownership this isn't specifically for ownership that's claimed to order it it's a claim for rangatiratanga so in a sense what maori are claiming is and what this tribe is claiming is authority and autonomy over water a naitahu historian and community leader dr tao says their authority over water is not just enshrined in the treaty but comes from a more spiritual source the stories we have are the canoes and our ancestors our gods our ancestors came here on canoes as well so they turned into the mountains and the lakes so you won't get a water way around here that we don't claim descent from for maori water as an ancestor what's our obligations to it the poor state of the country's freshwater is dominating the day's discussions new zealand has an image of itself that it is wonderful and green but underneath the thin facade are filthy waterways gabriel huria the head of the tribe's freshwater unit says the high court claim is capturing the public's imagination and i knew that we had hit on a zeitgeist when i received letters and they would tell us stories of they used to take their son fishing in such and such a river now their son can't do it with his moko because you can't fish in it anymore back in canterbury dr tamari tau is taking me to the ashley river a place where his family has been fishing for generations our people used to go january february march weight baiting he says despite the pollution they continue to practice their traditions naito is defined by the environment it's defined by our maginokai you know there's basic things you need to be doing as a tribal member white baiting's one yearling's another mutton birding's another getting seafood those types of things are a basic part of who we are really you're talking about a community and the destruction of a community it's just not about fishing what you really learn when you're young is who your family members are in your your relationships and who the elders are and how you engage with people that's been completely disrupted because of the degradation of the rivers here so what i think we've really got are the extinction of our waterways in the south island i think it's more than disrupted degraded and all those types of words there's a real threat that the ashley river will not be a river it will be a creek the government says it's put the maori concept of tamana otiway or the health of the waterways at the heart of its freshwater reforms but dr tao says rivers can't be cleaned up unless the nitrate limit is reduced how they make decisions on some of these points i'm really quite surprised on and then i'm not because they're political decisions they just don't take into account the science of what they've been given or the advice they've been given [Music] our requests to interview the prime minister and environment minister about the fresh water reforms and the high court case have been denied uncertainty around how the claim will affect dairy farms in the canterbury region is already concerning john sunkel is rangatiratanga about ownership is it about control is it about joint management and governance where does it ultimately sit in and where's the end game so i guess i'm i'm nervous in the in the interim as to where it might land can you see the little pookie court over there colin yeah yeah says red beak lan farm however is buoyed by the naitar who claim she hopes it will be the start of a move toward environmental justice for future generations it is about our kids and grandkids and we know that it's just this totally unjust situation where we're leaving them these huge you know astronomical issues not only with fresh water but climate to address we need to solve this now and we need to treat it really seriously [Music] the naitar who claim over these waterways will be heard next year and tribes from the north island are taking notice with one already joining the legal battle dr tao says it's time to let maori take the lead on new zealand's waterways [Music] there's been a failure of government there's been a failure of the market and the only one standing with credibility on this is money and we say we have authority you haven't you've defaulted your obligations and that water was under our undertone [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 703,724

Rating: 4.7279153 out of 5

Keywords: Foreign Correspondent, New Zealand, new zealand travel, new zealand landscape, new zealand environment, foreign correspondent new zealand, new zealand documentary, new zealand news, nz pure nature, New zealand nature, new zealand nature documentary, new zealand polluted rivers, pollution new zealand, new zealand toxic rivers, 100 pure new zealand, 100 pure nz ad, abc news australia, abc, abc news

Id: a_mrSrvlFlQ

Length: 28min 55sec (1735 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/TreeBearOne]

..two thirds of nz rivers are unswimmable

[u/the_maddest_kiwi]

ABC does some really fantastic investigative work, we're sorely lacking in some of that here.

[u/GGAllinPartridge]

A guy I know has been railing against this for years, calling out water quality tests where goalposts were moved just to get the seal of approval.

Does this river contain too much runoff from intense farms upstream? Let's just change the pollutant threshold enough to say it's all good! Clean green NZ

[u/WaterstarRunner]

The second doco I've watched today where the relevant government minister refused to be interviewed.

The other was Nania shying away from conversation about Uyghur human rights.

Gov really does not want to interact with the public

[u/wandarah]

This feels like a rehash of the investigation done into 'Pure New Zealand' like 15 years ago. The more things don't change eh.

[u/stillwaitingforbacon]

If you would rather read

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-16/new-zealand-rivers-pollution-100-per-cent-pure/13236174

[u/Labius]

Go to my aspiring national park. There's pure glacial water coming off the mountains and the first thing you see is a bunch of fucking cows shitting in it because it passes through a working farm.