Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

I'm a great believer in the philosophy of 'working together, we can all achieve so much more”. We are starting to see the fruits of this in and around the Tauranga Harbour.

There are many interested parties regarding the harbour – there are three Councils – the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Western Bay of Plenty District Council and Tauranga City Council.

There are a number of government departments, educational and research entities, tangata whenua, the Port of Tauranga, numerous business interests and the community at large – not to mention the many interest groups which abound.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council invests lots of resources into various activities to manage and protect the natural resources of the harbour and surrounding catchments.

The Council now coordinates all of its activities through its Tauranga Harbour Programme, overseen by the Tauranga Harbour programme coordinator, so that all of this work is linked up.

But we now have some really good coordination between community groups who work and play in and around the harbour. We have the Tauranga Harbour Estuary Manager's Forum – where the various Care Groups do such wonderful voluntary work protecting and restoring areas around the harbour fringes share their ideas. There are now meetings being held with landowners in the various catchments that feed into the harbour, to help develop catchment plans which will ultimately address sedimentation into the harbour. And we have the Tauranga Harbour Recreation Users Forums (Northern and Southern) which are going from strength to strength.

This week I attended a meeting of the combined Tauranga Harbour Recreation Users Forum. It was great to see so many organisations represented, and so many harbour users from a range of locations and activities.

We received a presentation on what was being done to address the problems of the harbour – sedimentation, mangroves, biodiversity, water quality – to mention a few. The results of the latest survey of recreational use and perceptions of Tauranga Harbour were also reported, together with updates from Council officers and issues raised by forum members.

The passion and concern for Tauranga Harbour was obvious, as was the desire for more work to be done to protect and restore the precious habitats around our harbour.

I left the meeting incredibly heartened. Together we will achieve so much more. If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on neesj@xtra.co.nz or ring me on 07 579-5150. Or you can check out my website at www.janenees.co.nz