Snapshot of regional dairy performance highlights areas of concern
Posted on Thursday, 14 April 2011 01:16 p.m.
The Snapshot of Progress by regional councils to meet the
targets set by The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord was released
today and highlights both areas of progress and areas of concern
for Environment Southland.
Compliance Manager Mark Hunter said the Snapshot shows how we
compare to other regions in meeting the targets set by the Accord.
"We are doing well in the fencing of waterways, building of bridges
and culverts to protect streams and in identifying significant
wetlands in the region," Mr Hunter said. "However, our level of
full compliance from our dairy farms is well down, the lowest level
of full compliance of any region."
Full compliance is acknowledged by the Accord partners as a
regulatory requirement and the level of dairy effluent
non-compliance highlighted in the Snapshot is unacceptable and
remains a major focus of collaborative efforts.
Southland's significant non-compliance remains at 13%, the
fourth highest level of significant non-compliance compared to the
other regions.
The level of full compliance in Southland shows a marked
decrease this year, although Mr Hunter explains that the way of
reporting this has changed since last year. "All regions are now
reporting compliance the same way, so for Southland this means that
in previous years we reported full compliance as grade 1 and 2.
However this year, only those farms with grade 1 were considered
fully compliant."
Non-compliance now includes farms which received a grade of 2 or
5, which means an increase from 18% in 2008/09 to 48% in
2009/10.
Environment Southland is the brand name of Southland Regional Council.