Protecting Aotearoa's Unique Braided Rivers w/ Ann Brower: Rāhina 22 January, 2024

Aotearoa, and particularly Te Wai Pounamu, The South Island, is home to unique braided rivers, or rivers that are both land and water, with channels throughout the rivers that cause the rivers to change throughout the seasons. In early 2023, a group of scientists, lawyers, planners, policy experts and engineers formed a group named ‘The Land the law forgot’, which hopes to advocate for the protection of braided rivers, which sometimes go unspoken for in legislation as a grey area between land and water. Advocacy from the group has in part resulted in the Natural and Built Environments Act (2023) which exempts braided rivers from the same umbrella as riverbeds under the previous resource management act, and means they can be protected under their own circumstances. 

Rosetta spoke to Professor Ann Brower of the University of Canterbury School of Earth and Environment, who is the lead author of the recently published research paper, New Zealand’s braided rivers: The land the law forgot, about how braided rivers need to be protected moving forward.