Abstract
The third phase of a multi‐stakeholder, integrated catchment management project at the Whatawhata Research Centre is described. Land use and management changes were implemented to improve economic and environmental performance of the Mangaotama case study catchment farm. The major changes included: afforestation of 160 of the 296 ha catchment farm with pine and native trees, riparian management of the entire 20 km of stream network via fencing and/or forestry, restoration of 5 ha of existing native forest, and intensification of the remaining pastoral component to a high fecundity ewe flock and bull beef finishing. Marked improvements were observed in the key environmental and economic performance indicators. In particular, declines in sediment (76%) and phosphorus (62%) loads and faecal coliform (43%) levels were observed, native forest fragments showed early signs of recovery in terms of sapling numbers and vegetative cover, and the pastoral enterprise recorded increased per hectare production of lamb (87%) and beef (170%). There were implementation challenges with the better matching of land use to land capability, but this study demonstrated that significant progress can be made in the short‐term.
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