Dairy conversions by New Zealand's biggest farmer, Landcorp, have been given the environmental thumbs-up by the Department of Conservation.
Landcorp's South Island dairy management team have been presented with an award for the environmentally sound way they have set up dairy farms in Westland.
The $20 million dairy conversion startedmore than two years ago.
Landcorp South Island dairy manager John Collie said the new farms had been designed to ensure waterways were protected from effluent and nitrate leaching.
A buffer zone of 1.5m was created along all creeks and waterways, with flax and ferns planted along banks.
Collie said it was cheaper and easier to make farms environmentally sound when starting from scratch.
Older dairy farms faced more difficulties because creeks and streams often cut across the middle of paddocks, making it costly to fence them off.
Landcorp is about to convert 25,700ha of forests between Taupo and Reporoa into pastoral farms, many of them for dairying.
The project will cost $250 million and is expected to add 400,000 stock units to the 1.4 million Landcorp already runs on 100 farms, spread over 368,000ha.
The land, on both sides of State Highway 5, is part of the 105,000ha Central North Island forestry estate bought by Wairakei Pastoral from Tenon, formerly Fletcher Challenge Forests.
The parties will convert the land to pasture as the trees are harvested.
Large-scale dairy conversions have been criticised by some environmentalists who say dairying pollutes waterways and land, particularly round the central North Island lakes.
