20 neighbourhoods adopt their drain to stop freshwater pollution. WAI Wanaka visits neighbourhoods to show them how their drains and stormwater works and where it drains into (freshwater lakes and rivers). These sessions bring neighbours together where they commit to adopting their drain and protecting it from pollutants every week. Each session includes how their stormwater system functions, drilling steel fish on the drain, common pollutants to look for, and continued support and education.
Wanaka is an amazing place! While our lakes and waterways are beautiful, they are declining, due to the combined impacts of massive urban growth, land use change, pollutants, climate change and invasive species. We've seen this too often in other parts of Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world, and we know that we're not immune. This project will provide support enable our community to work together for healthy ecosystems and community wellbeing for future generations.
Our objective is to build a strong, collaborative model for community stewardship. By focusing on the urban catchment areas, we help form urban groups to understand their impact and protect the water that travels from their drains to our lake where our drinking water comes from. We work with schools to create educational opportunities to test water and learn about invertebrates and educate residents on how to test water and understand the impact our actions can have on our water supply.
Our communities prefer to be proactive. To effectively measure environmental outcomes over time, WAI Wanaka is developing a catchment-wide catchment monitoring model so we can ensure that future generations, including visitors to the area, will continue to enjoy the outstanding landscapes of Wanaka the same way we do today.
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