5616 (2024). Lan Pham to the Minister for the Environment

5616 (2024). Lan Pham to the Minister for the Environment: How many, if any, catchment groups currently exist across Aotearoa?

Hon Penny Simmonds: Different sectors define the term "catchment group" differently, and the groups themselves are often amorphous over time (forming around schools, community groups, issues or sectors, rather than uniform catchment boundaries) and overlapping. As such, the Ministry for the Environment has commissioned work to assess catchment group data from regional councils, primary sector leaders, NGO’s and other central government agencies to help understand this picture at a point in time. Two recent reports from 2022 noted that there may be up to 218 catchment groups in New Zealand.