Protection of our Fertile Soils on the Heretaunga Plains

Save Our Taonga

Approximately 34,000 ha: Total area of the Heretaunga Plains. Over 5,550 ha: Now gone forever under concrete and asphalt. (Excludes life style blocks). Almost 1,000 ha: Planned for urbanisation in 2017 HPUDS document.

The area of the Heretaunga Plains were formed over the last 250,000 years from sediment deposited by the Tutaekuri, Ngaruroro and Tukituki Rivers and from coastal marine deposits, consisting of layers of gravel, sand and silt. Permeable gravel beds form aquifers and the artisan groundwater which provides 85% of the requirements for public water supply, irrigation and industrial use on the Heretaunga Plains and adjacent areas.

The fertile soil, the warm, dry climate of the area, the water for irrigation and great infrastructure to a Port, make the plain an exceptional geographic location for horticulture, viticulture and agriculture. Half of the total New Zealand production of fruit, vegetables and a huge portion of NZ’s grapes is produced from the soils of the Heretaunga Plains. It is one of New Zealand’s leading wine producing areas.

For too long now, successive councils (Hastings District Council (HDC), Napier City Council (NCC) and the Hawkes Bay Regional Council (HBRC)) have encouraged and supported unsustainable growth of urban developments across the Heretaunga Plains, little by little creeping over these precious fertile soils that feed the local Hawkes Bay markets, as well as National and International markets, locking away forever these soils from any chance of producing food for export, for our children, for our grandchildren and generations to come. This urban and industrial concrete and asphalt is spreading over the Plains like a cancerous creep and is also having a disastrous effect on the aquifer that everyone agrees is the basis of our future sustainability.

The Heretaunga Plains were created by the deposits of the Tutaekuri, Ngaruroro and Tukituki Rivers over hundreds of thousands of years. Now those rivers are contained, we are not and will not ever get these soils enriched again. What we have got now is all we are going to get. By covering those rich deposits up with concrete and asphalt, we will never be able to get them back again. They are gone… Gone forever!!

So these incredible Plains comprise some of the best and most fertile land in the world. 3% of New Zealand’s land is Class 1 and the Heretaunga Plains is Class 1.
These Plains have the most fertile soils, abundant water supply from deep aquifers, warm dry climate with very high sunlight hours for a long growing season, very modest frost risk, a rainfall of less than 1000mm, excellent infrastructure and situated very close to a Port, which positions this area as some of the best land for growing the best food in the world. This drives the economy, business and jobs.
It is unlikely that we will find any other area in the world that has all these wonderful attributes all lined up together to give us this incredible asset.
Question: Do we appreciate what we have here? If not, we should not squander it senselessly.

It is with horror and despair that one can see from the 1960‘s through to present day, what appears to have been an undisciplined and piecemeal urban sprawl on the Plains.
This continues to occur under the present HPUDS document at an alarming rate, thus making this document a total ineffectual planning instrument.
We cannot continue to be influenced by existing infrastructure which invariably leads to taking the easy options for future developments.

As a group, we have identified alternative areas for development around Havelock North, out towards Te Awanga and other areas where it is only logical to concentrate future housing developments. Some tough and enduring protection of fertile soils needs to become THE MAJOR part of any future HPUDS documents.

All three councils now need to give the strongest messages; “Draw Line in the Soil” and legislate that “NO MORE” land on the Heretaunga Plains is to be taken for urban and industrial development… EVER!! The time is right for: “Enough is Enough”; we have no choice but to “Save our Fertile Soils”.

Let this be a question for your thoughts:

Do the present sitting councilors of all three councils want to be part of and responsible for the present degradation of the fertile soils of the Heretaunga Plains that future generations will look back on and say: “What the hell were they doing?” “They weren’t bold enough to “Draw a Line in the Soil” and protect our most precious resource. Now we don’t have any of our fertile soils left; all we have is unproductive land to feed and sustain ourselves”. Future generations will look upon all three of these present councils with disgust..!! Do we want to end up like Orange County, California? Millions of orange trees once grew in Orange County, but because of urban sprawl, only a few remain.

Covid 19: A Reflection.

Living in these extraordinary times further reinforces the absolute importance of our food production.

It has been demonstrated, due to this event, just how well poised New Zealand is with it’s strong agricultural food based production. During the lockdown period along with other obvious difficulties Hawke’s Bay has managed to harvest its bumper crop of horticultural produce. There is absolutely no question of how important the Heretaunga Plains are in growing food and the global hunger and demand for what we can produce.

We must preserve every inch of the soils of the Heretaunga Plains so that our region can not only survive difficult times but prosper in times of adversity.