Walking over his once-barren farm land, Robin Lilley is proud it’s looking so good. It’s accidentally become an environmental attraction that’s visited by tourists and holiday-makers over summer, largely due to all the streamside planting and fencing he’s completed to protect water quality in the past 15 years.
The Manganui River runs through his farm, which comprises about 177 ha north-east of Stratford where he milks 400 cows.
Most weeks in summer, visitors from Taranaki and overseas stop by to visit the farm.
Normally they camp and fish at a waterhole and clearing. Mr Lilley says he was surprised to get a visit from two foreigners from Europe last year after they’d heard of his farm from a website post on Lonely Planet, the international travel guide. They turned up in summer 2014 wanting to go fishing.
Brown trout are regularly caught from the river running through his farm. It’s another example that the region’s freshwater quality is benefitting from farmers’ riparian fencing and planting.
It’s taken Mr Lilley more than 15 years to plant and fence along the river and tributary waterways. The difference it’s made to his farm is amazing. He says it looks so much nicer and it’s a heck of a lot easier to farm.
He estimates the money he’s spent on fencing and planting he’s probably saved inthe stock that no longer fall into the water. He says he’s just done the riparian work bit-by-bit, planting about 500 plants each year.
Since 2000 he’s gradually completed about 95% of fencing off waterways (6740m) and planting along about three quarters (3000 plants) on his farm.
Mr Lilley was one of the early dairy farmers who signed up for Taranaki’s Riparian Programme, which started in 1993.
Since then 2,483 riparian management plans have been prepared for the intensively farmed ring plain and terraces - 99.5% dairy farmers have one, and 84 % of riparian margins are now fenced and 69.4% planted in Taranaki.
Taranaki Regional Council Land Services Manager, Don Shearman, said improvements can already be seen in the region’s water quality due to the riparian programme.
However, he says, the job’s not over yet and the Council is committed to helping farmers finish fencing and planting by the end of the decade.
Farmers can order the riparian plants they need for this winter and/or for 2017 by contacting the Council on 0800 736 222 or riparian@trc.govt.nz