Tribute paid to Hawke's Bay farmers' stewardship

Retiring Hawke’s Bay regional council land management head

01-08-2008 | Kate Rivett-Taylor

A massive shift in attitude has seen farmers play an important role in improving Hawke's Bay's landscape.

This comment is from Garth Eyles, who recently retired as head of the Hawke's Bay regional council's land management team.

"It's their land. Every time they retire a bit, that land goes out of production and the farmer doesn't get enough recognition that they're doing it voluntarily."

He says they're creating an environment out there that looks nice for the urban people to see, creating an environment where the bird life is increasing and they're still increasing productivity, which the urban people depend on to live a healthy life.

Eyles came to Hawke's Bay in 1993 from a MAF/ Ministry of Works (Water and Soil Division)/DSIR Land Resources background. He said soil conservation was in a pretty poor state at the time.

"In Hawke's Bay we had gone away from traditional one-on-one relationships with farmers in favour of the touchy feely group approach and group training. Nursery poles weren't being sold and things were pretty basic."

Eyles was told by council chairman at the time, the late Doug Walker, to do what he could to get more trees in the ground. Fortunately, in Garth's first week, he had to front the first round of the Regional Landcare Scheme-a new grants scheme to give incentives for groups and farmers to carry out planting and biodiversity programmes.

The council had realised very little soil conservation work was being done and this needed to change. Once they introduced that scheme, with its initial $250,000 in grants, and reverted back to building one-on-one relationships with farmers and working with them to develop more sustainable land use practices, progress started to be made. Since that programme began, there has been a huge change in the attitude of farmers towards their environment.

Farmers have become quite green, despite what the community hears from pressure groups and some individuals. There has been a huge change in thinking in the past 15 years.

"Looking across Hawke's Bay from Te Mata peak in the 1960s you'd see hardly any trees. Now they're everywhere."

He says there has been a huge change in the attitude of farmers towards their environment and a huge increase in the number of trees being planted in the formerly pastoral desert that was Hawke's Bay.

"... Bola had shaken the whole place up and created a whole lot of thinking and identified the need to get more trees in the ground."

Eyles had enjoyed working with a number of farmers, such as James Hunter, Sam Robinson and Alec Olsen.

"The sort of leaders who are willing to have their places used by the regional council to show off various aspects of sustainable land use. They are great value to any community."

He said the council always had the attitude it's better to encourage land use change than regulate for it.

Since he started, the land management team numbers have gone up from three to eight staff. They look at $800,000 worth of grants going out into the community for both soil conservation and biodiversity protection tasks and over 25 new on-farm wetlands are being created each year.

"We are about 12th in the country for bush areas retired with QEII covenants thanks to the grant system. I believe this has happened because we share the costs of planting and fencing with the landowner and QEII."

Hawke's Bay dairy farmers have also been retiring waterways.

"We work closely with organisations like the Farm Forestry Association, Fish and Game and DoC because we understand we've all got to work together to move towards council's vision of creating an environment that is nice and healthy to live in. I'm not just talking the propaganda, I believe that."

Eyles made special mention of pole nursery manager Gus Guthrie and long-serving staff members Neil Faulknor (Waipukurau), Peter Manson (Wairoa) and Joe Devonport (Napier).

He says they formed the experienced core of the group because for soil conservation to be successful, advisors need to have the confidence of their local community and to do that they have to be part of that community. These guys have walked the talk in that time and his job has been to give them the tools to get on with it and do it.

He said work on wind erosion control started with Faulknor's shelter belt schemes then the focus moved to the Ruataniwha and Heretaunga Plains.

"We've had significant input into changing the practices of cropping in the wind-erodable areas through encouraging the introduction on minimum tillage, strip tillage and conservation tillage and we've lately moved into water efficiency with Dan Bloomer initially and now Andrew Curtis."

A third of cultivation in Hawke's Bay is now done with minimum or conservation tillage.

"We're still getting wind erosion but it is lessening and the techniques are having a positive effect on the soil. The soil remains, productivity stays, costs are down and the whole soil is being enhanced - it's a classic win-win situation."

Steve Cave, Warwick Hesketh and Ian Milner are the new faces on the block at the regional council now and Eyles said it's their job to provide sustainable water and soil environments so the landowners can grow the crops they need to make a living.

He said they have to be aware of the potential impacts of new crops and new cropping systems and advocate for these practices to be sustainable.

At some stage in the future if these uses are not sustainable, the council may need to regulate to protect the soil. He hoped in this case they will be bottom line regulations just to catch those that refuse to move with the times.

"If we want to have an environment that is safe for future generations to live in, we have to protect the soils, and this is what I think we've been doing, quite successfully, with the community."

Eyles said he would continue to give his time and expertise at the Tutira Country Park, which he described as one of the highlights of his job.

"I've been involved with the park since we (the council) bought it in 1998 and I have been fascinated to watch the changes that have happened."

He says the planting of over 700 exotic trees in the lower erodable hill slopes forming the dual function of erosion control and beautification has given a great environment for the public of Hawke's Bay to go and enjoy themselves while looking after the waters of Lake Tutira as much as they can.

He also enjoyed helping with the rehabilitation of council-owned wetlands like Peka Peka, Horseshoe and Waitangi.

Eyles started back in 1965 in Taupo as a MAF soil conversation advisor doing land use capability assessments across the northern end of Lake Taupo (before the development of the road from Kinloch across to Western Bays).

He was transferred to the Ministry of Works Water and Soil Division based in Palmerston North when they took over water and soil conservation.

After a short stint in Hawke's Bay, which included time spent on the Tangoio Soil Conservation Reserve demonstration farm, he went to Khon Kaen University in northeast Thailand lecturing in tropic soil genesis-the theory of soil formation-a subject he knew little about.

When he returned to Palmerston North in 1972, the Ministry of Works was just starting its national resource survey. A newly-married Garth then moved to Wellington where he was involved with setting up the classifications for the NZ land resource inventory -a survey of mapped soil, rocks, slope, erosion and vegetation. This involved an assessment of the land's capability for long term sustained development (from North Cape to Bluff) and a second survey assessing the country's potential for erosion map.

He took over management of the North Island section of the national survey when he returned to Palmerston North in 1976 (until it was finished). He continued to work for MOW after it changed to DSIR Land Resources then became Landcare Research.

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