Soil Symposium: ”A voice for the soils.”
Soil Symposium
15th July 2022
The Hastings District Council, combined with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, hosted the first ever “Soil Symposium” on Friday 15th July 2022.
It was a wonderful event; a day totally devoted and dedicated to the fertile soils on the Heretaunga Plains.
This soil symposium, we would argue, is about 50 years too late; some say it should have been done 100 years ago. However, as a consolation, we were and are so delighted that it happened and given the importance to our most precious resource that it most certainly deserves.
The area of the Heretaunga Plains were formed over millions of 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 artesian 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, temperate climate of the area, the water for irrigation and great infrastructure to a Port, make the Plains 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. These amazing attributes makes the Heretaunga Plains one of the best places in the world to grow food; it most certainly has the best soils in the world, soils that we take for granted and soils we are slowly destroying.
For too long now, successive councils (Hastings District Council (HDC), Napier City Council (NCC) and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC)), have encouraged and supported unsustainable growth of urban and industrial 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 economic vandalism 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.
So this soil symposium was a really important event that now gives birth to a voice for the soils; a voice that has sadly been forgotten over past decades, but now is beginning to get the recognition it deserves.
The MC for the event was Martin Williams, a resource management and local government lawyer as well as a HBRC councillor, did a wonderful job throughout the day.
There was a great line up of speakers:
Ngahiwi Tomoana gave us a Mana Whenua perspective by reflecting on his Maori ancestors and how they valued the Heretunga Plains so much that they built their pa sites only in the hills, protecting the plains as the best food resource area in the world.
Soil scientists and a soil practitioner spoke about the value of these precious versatile soils on the Plains. Then we had a range of food and wine producers inform us of the true value of these soils, how incredible they are and how these soils have and are impacting their businesses.
The last speaker was a planner who gave us his perspective on urban and industrial growth and how he saw the conflict between housing our people and the protection of our soils.
Sadly from our Save Our Fertile Soils perspective, his message was generally more of the same old rhetoric; the slow creep of concrete and asphalt over our most precious asset with little or no regard for the soils beneath.
In our view, we need to change the mindsets of our “planners” as there is little or no consultation with soil maps, but rather their assessment is basically based on the easiest and cheapest options for councils and developers alike.
We anxiously await the arrival of the National Policy Statement of Highly Productive Land which is presumably being released imminently which will hopefully give a better directive for future development.
Here is the video of the Soils Symposium day:
The video is long (5¾ hours) so it is a big ask to listen to it all.
What may be of interest is a section on “the panel”, 5:16:30 into the video; chaired by Martin Williams, accompanied by Dan Bloomer (soil practitioner) and Philip Brown (planner from Auckland).
Martin kindly gave the writer (Richard Gaddum) a chance to speak (5:29:13 into the video) which he was delighted to do. Completely unprepared, Richard was called upon to speak on behalf of our Society and the Save the Plains Group.
Rick Barker (chairman of the HBRC) closed off the day as one of the two hosts of the symposium (Sandra Hazlehurst, mayor of the HDC, opened the day). Rick was great. He actually reiterated exactly what Richard had said (listen for yourself) which ended the day, from our perspective, on a really fantastic note.
We as a group see no common sense to be destroying productive soils forever when our focus should be building over unproductive land.
As a consequence we have come up with alternatives for councils, planners and the public to consider for planning our future growth in the Hawke’s Bay area.
These areas include:
I. Te Awanga. The area above Park Hill Rd and bounded by Raymond Rd and Tuki Tuki Rd. This could become a satellite town in the future with provision for community services and infrastructure. A large area that has enormous potential to grow.
II. The area southwest of Flaxmere to Paki Paki, bounded by Railway Rd Sth and the land each side of State Highway 2 is relatively unproductive land. This land is ideal for a mixture of industrial expansion off Iron Gate and residential developments.
III. The area between Craggy Range Rd and the hill side area known as Craggy Range. Perfect for a small township to grow and flourish.
IV. Southwest of Havelock North on the Havelock hills is basically untouched. Perfect for housing developments.
V. On the Plains side of Middle Rd to Crystal Rd is a swathe of land stretching about 100m into the Plains that is poor unproductive land. This would be ideal for a mixture of housing, a school, shopping facilities and recreational areas.
VI. Satellite small towns need to grow from beginnings such as Maraekakaho and Paki Paki.
VII. Discard the minimum area for Rural Residential Zoned land. This would free up much more housing development potential off the Plains.
We believe that our Save Our Fertile Soils group, is the only active and organised group in NZ that is making a stand for the soils and giving the soils a voice.
We also believe that because of this and our passion to protect the soils, we were the catalyst for this symposium event as it probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for our persistence and continually annoying all three councils about just how important these soils are. Our message has always been: “Put the soils first”.
The Hastings District covers about 5,500 sq kms and successive councils seem to have been obsessed with destroying the best and most fertile soils in the world.
Why are we so incensed about developing urban and industrial greenfields on the most productive land when we have so much unproductive land that is virtually untouched? We believe this is complete nonsense and is so illogical inspired by short sighted planners who have little or no regard for this precious resource.
So why are we killing the “Golden Goose”?
This sort of behaviour has got to stop! And it has got to stop now!
Long term vision is needed with all parties to look at the bigger picture into the future to preserve these incredibly fertile soils for future generations.
Our short term solutions are just not sustainable.
The writer: Richard Gaddum
Spokesperson for the Save the Plains Group and “Save Our Fertile Soils” Society Incorporated.
