High country not place it was

The Canterbury High Country has changed with much of the traditional camaraderie and goodwill no longer existent.

My husband grew up on an iconic Canterbury high country station on the shores of an iconic high country lake; not Lake Taylor but similar - all horse, hat, mountains and tussock.

His family farmed Merinos and Angus cattle. The cattle had ready access to the main lake - though they were excluded from a smaller lake which was sensitive to nutrient enrichment; something that my father-in-law had done decades before the words 'nutrient enrichment' entered anyone's vocab.

A family friend worked for the Fish and Game Council and every year Fish and Game officers would stay at the farm while they did their monitoring work.

There wasn't a DoC campground next door - in fact there was no public access to the lake at all; but the family provided access (maintained at their expense).

Throughout the fishing season the place would be busy with anglers and boaties; many inter-generational family friends, some newcomers.

The backdoor of the ancient family homestead was awash with trout, salmon, boxes of garden vegies and bottles of something cold as gifts of appreciation.

From what I know, the water was pristine (still is), the fish were aplenty (still are), and cattle did not wear nappies.

So I asked the boss, 'what has gone wrong? He believes the situation described above still exists in many places.

But there are an increasing number of cases where that bond of kiwi-ness has been lost.

He blames both sides - some farms have gone into the hands of 'newcomers' to the farming world who don't want to share; and there are an increasing number of visitors who don't respect the properties they are traversing through.

Those that leave gates open, a trail of rubbish or worse to mark their travels, light fires, harm stock, or drive their flash four-wheel drives over nesting birds and fragile plants.

Bureaucracy doesn't help - 'I'll just give each angler a health and safety briefing before they hop on to the place as I am now liable if I haven't warned them not to hook a finger with their fly.'

We discussed stock access to lakes.

He replied 'depends on what livestock and what access.' Like most things in this world all livestock access is not equal in terms of impacts on water quality.

Cattle like water. So if you graze a large mob of cattle near a small water body they can cause sediment, E.coli and nitrate loadings in water.

Dairy cows get a bit of a rap because their richer diet means they tend to defecate more frequently and it's richer in nitrogen.

That's why Fonterra require suppliers to exclude dairy cattle from rivers and streams.

Grazing cattle at stocking rates of say 1 cow per 20 hectares or similar, that you find in a traditional high country situation, does not have the same impact. It's a numbers thing and that's reflected in the water quality you find on properties that farm in that manner - think the high country farm we all own at Molesworth.

So why don't high country farmers fence their cattle out? Well again that's a numbers and practicality issue.

In the high country those lakes and rivers are important sources of stockwater and unlike troughs and pipes they don't freeze in the severe frosts that these places can get from April to November.

When rivers flood frequently or lake levels are manipulated for hydro-electricity generation or opening to the sea, where do you put your fence?

And at the risk of sounding like a farmer whining - there is in this case a very serious cost issues with trying to fence off lake and rivers in the scale of that sort of country I asked the boss about fencing.

He reckoned there would be uproar if he had put fences around the lakes on our place, how would people access them to fish?

And I'm not sure the farm would have featured on the 50c stamp as an iconic New Zealand landscape with cattle fences all around the shore.

So what's the answer - for farmers mob-stocking cattle near a water body, put up a hot-wire (and a warning sign to keep WorkSafe NZ happy).

For everyone else - when you see the hot-wires don't take them down or leave abusive messages, make sure you look after your own mess before growling at others, and try making friends with the people in whose world you are visiting.

That way if you do see cattle hanging around where they shouldn't, you can call in and let the farmer know so they can fix it.

And because you are now friends, you can have a yarn about the fishing, the weather, and the cattle prices over a cold one - just like we used to.