Appendix 1: The Project Brief
Background
The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord is a voluntary industry-led Accord that was signed on 26 May 2003 by Hon Marian Hobbs Minister for the Environment, Hon Jim Sutton Minister of Agriculture, Henry van der Heyden Chairman of Fonterra, and Neil Clarke, Regional Affairs Committee Chairman of Local Government New Zealand.
The Accord aims to improve the health and quality of waterways, including streams, rivers, groundwater, and wetlands, in dairying regions where Fonterra has a presence. Fonterra shareholders represent 96 percent of all dairy farmers in New Zealand. Five targets are set that need to be met by Fonterra within given timeframes. These targets are:
- dairy cattle excluded from 50 percent of streams, rivers and lakes by 2007, 90 percent by 2012
- fifty percent of regular crossing points have bridges or culverts by 2007, 90 percent by 2012
- 100 percent of farm dairy effluent discharges to comply with resource consents and regional plans immediately
- 100 percent of dairy farms to have in place systems to manage nutrient inputs and outputs by 2007
- 50 percent of regionally significant wetlands to be fenced by 2005, 90 percent by 2007.
There are also less tangible 'roles and responsibilities' that each of the parties are required to work towards.
The first report on progress towards accord targets was released on 6 December 2004. Ninety-nine percent of farmers took part in the survey to obtain the results in this Snapshot of Progress report.
Scope
In order to support the Accord, the Accord partners wish to develop and implement a long-term monitoring and reporting strategy. The long-term reporting strategy will have two main purposes, identifying:
- progress towards meeting the targets of the Accord
- how effective, in terms of environmental outcomes, meeting the Accord targets has been across the country.
The monitoring and reporting strategy will identify the various data sources and how they will be used to build up a 'picture' of what has been done to implement the Accord across the country and the environmental outcomes that have arisen from meeting these targets. For both main tasks, the monitoring and reporting strategy will specify:
- the data sets or information to be used to build this 'picture'
- any 'gaps' that occur in the current monitoring information available. Particularly, the ability of the available information to provide a comprehensive picture across the country, or its ability to identify cause and effect relationships with the implementation of the Accord
- the roles and responsibilities of each of the main Accord parties in the collection, analysis, interpretation, collation and dissemination of the monitoring results
- the timeframes for public reporting.
Monitoring progress against Accord targets
Monitoring the progress towards meeting the five targets of the Accord can be loosely described as the 'public' aspect of the long-term reporting strategy. While progress towards the targets is of interest to the Accord partners, it will also provide tangible evidence for the general public of the commitment of the partners towards on-the-ground actions and improvements.
Monitoring progress of the Accord against the set targets will primarily be carried out by Fonterra through their annual on-farm environmental and animal welfare surveys. However, the monitoring and reporting strategy will also need to identify any corroborative monitoring information being collected by other parties.
Monitoring the environmental effectiveness of Accord targets
This second part is important as it gives a measure of the 'effectiveness' of the Accord in meeting its overall aim of 'improving the health and quality of waterways, including streams, rivers, groundwater, and wetlands, in dairying regions where Fonterra has a presence'.
Monitoring of the effectiveness of the Accord is unlikely to involve the design and implementation of additional monitoring programmes by the Accord partners. Rather, it will seek to utilise existing monitoring information currently being collected to provide a quantitative or semi-quantitative 'indication' of the effectiveness of the farmer's efforts. Having said this, the results of the gaps analysis may be used to revise or refine existing monitoring programmes to ensure the existing monitoring effort provides suitable information to monitor the environmental outcomes of the Accord. These negotiations are outside the scope of this brief.
The environmental outcomes of the Accord are potentially extensive. The strategy will need to consider at least the following:
- the cumulative benefits, or otherwise, of implementing Accord targets, e.g. catchment scale water quality, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity etc
- the benefits, or otherwise, of implementing measures at an individual farm level including both environmental (surface and groundwater quality, biodiversity etc) and long-term farm sustainability (soil health, impacts/changes in overall farm management)
- trends in dairying on a regional and farm basis.
The contractor will also be required to determine the 'appropriateness' of any data source selected for assessing the effectiveness of the Accord. Factors to consider when determining this include:
- whether the data set can be obtained over the entire country or just in certain regions
- the compatibility of the methodology used in obtaining the data across the country
- how effectively the data measures the environmental effects of implementing Accord targets.
Preliminary work has been done to identify relevant data sources across the country. The results of this will be made available to the contractor. However, it will be the responsibility of the contractor to complete this task and to document all information sources identified/ considered.
Farmer perception of the Accord
Farmer perceptions and future intentions information is not a requirement of this monitoring strategy. A survey methodology is currently being developed and will be undertaken as part of a Masters student thesis.
Tasks
In compiling the first draft of this strategy, the consultant shall:
- survey all Accord parties to compile a list of potentially suitable information sources/ monitoring programmes, including the detailed design of each
- survey NIWA, Crown Research Institutes (Landcare, Crop and Food, AgResearch, etc), Dairy Insight, Dexcel and relevant universities to compile a list of potentially suitable monitoring or research programmes, including the detailed design of each
- develop an assessment framework to assess the suitability of each data set
- undertake the assessment of all information sources in accordance with the assessment framework
- undertake a gaps analysis to identify gaps in both the spatial coverage of appropriate monitoring across the country and/or the ability of existing monitoring to be used to specifically to monitor the effects of the Accord
- develop an appropriate monitoring and reporting strategy to meet the objectives outlined above.
Deliverables
After one month, the contractor will present the gaps analysis to a workshop, organised by MfE. The workshop will involve representatives from regional councils. From this workshop, the draft monitoring and reporting strategy will be developed.
At the conclusion of the contract, a draft of a long-term reporting strategy for the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord will be provided to the Ministry for the Environment. The Ministry for the Environment will further discuss and develop this draft with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Fonterra, and regional councils.
