Southland region

The fertile Mataura River valley is highly prized for its agricultural production and also contains vast lignite reserves. The valley is home to large-scale industry including the Alliance freezing works at Mataura, the Dongwha Patinna NZ medium density fibreboard (MDF) plant at Tuturau and also the ever-growing Fonterra dairy factory sited at Edendale. At the township of Mataura, the Mataura River flows over an impressive set of waterfalls. These falls were even more outstanding historically, but were blasted so that large-scale industry could effectively harness their power. This area remains of significant importance to local iwi and runanga. The Mataura Falls was, and still is an important kanakana (lamprey) harvesting area and in 2007 was officially announced as a mataitai reserve. The streams and rivers of the Lower Mataura zone, the Mataura mainstem in particular, support very large populations of brown trout and draw equally large numbers of anglers to their banks. The number of angler days spent on the Mataura River each season are some of the highest recorded in the country. Another very important recreational fishery in the Lower Mataura surface water zone is the whitebait fishery. Large numbers of whitebaiters line the shores of the tidal reaches of the Mataura River, particulary near the Big Bend, close to the Fortrose Estuary, trying to catch this delicacy. Environment Southland has an extensive network of permanent water level and automatic rainfall monitoring sites in the Lower Mataura surface water zone. In addition to the permanent recording sites, Environment Southland also undertakes regular monitoring of other streams and waterways within the Lower Mataura surface water zone. This monitoring includes gauging the flow of smaller streams and springs, to gain information on groundwater influences on stream flows and gather low flow information which is important for water allocation management. Within the Lower Mataura surface water zone, a reasonably large amount of surface water has been allocated, the largest of these takes being for industry located at Mataura. The Mataura River Water Conservation Order acts to limit the amount of water available for abstraction from the Mataura River by ensuring a set percentage of the natural flow remains in the river. This is to help protect the outstanding values of the Mataura River.