2.2 Significant Resources of the District
The text below describes the significant resources of the District. Council is required to promote the sustainable management of these natural and physical resources. The District has steady population growth, particularly in the three main townships, and this is based primarily on the rural producing hinterland which in recent years is continuing to support major rural processing industries.
The Council’s Strategic Plan identifies the vision and actions that are to be taken by Council to provide services to the community and to promote and facilitate continuing economic development in the District.
The Strategic Plan states with regard to economic development that Council will liaise with and provide information for investors and identify specific needs and, where appropriate, act as a facilitator.
Matamata-Piako District is bounded in the east by the Kaimai Ranges and in the west by older ranges. In between lies the valley of the Hauraki Plains. Over time the Waihou, Waitoa and Piako Rivers have moved back and forth across the Plains, depositing shingle and silt and creating swamps and wetland areas, and helping to create the present landscape of flat alluvial plains and peat swamp. Geologically the plains are made of sedimentary and alluvial deposits. Soil types on the plains are largely a mix of gley soils with yellow brown loams.
The Piako-Waitoa River catchment occupies a significant proportion of the District. The catchment has medium rainfall, negligible summer flow, and downstream of Morrinsville the catchment was swamp before it was drained. The Waihou River and its tributaries provide significant trout habitat, including spawning for both rainbow and brown trout, and trout fisheries. The Piako River Scheme provides river widening, deepening, straightening and stop-banking. Much of the catchment is now used for dairying whilst the adjacent Waihou catchment has a significant proportion of indigenous bush along the Kaimai-Mamaku Ranges with sheep and dry stock on the eastern hills. Much of the agricultural development and the lower areas of Te Aroha township are dependent on the river drainage schemes. Springs are notable in the Waihou catchment. The Waihou River has major flood protection structures.
The District has a well established dairy industry with 82% of the total land area being modified for farming and in grassland, lucerne and tussock. Dairy cattle are by far the most numerous of livestock carried (368,237 cattle September 1996) with sheep being the next highest productive group at 108,730 animals. The District supplies approximately 12% of total New Zealand milk fat (by weight). Beef, deer, pigs and goats are also notable productive groups. In February 1996 there were 1,184 people working full-time or part-time on 2,762 full time properties. Overall, thirty five percent of the labour force of the District is employed in the primary sector (i.e. agriculture, hunting and forestry). The planting and harvesting of forests, and the transportation and processing of their products make forestry an important industry in the District.
The District’s land resource also accommodates the three rural townships, numerous rural villages and many processing and manufacturing industries. In the past, some of the major rural industries have generated adverse effects on the rural environment, for example, smell nuisance from animal rendering and by-products plants, pig and poultry farms.
Regional Council research has shown that the catchment’s main waterways are significantly nutrient-enriched (particularly in nitrate) compared with other New Zealand streams draining pasture. Water quality degradation is a product of the community’s land use activities.
Generally speaking the District has significant primary production capabilities with the river plains having Class I to III classification under the former National Water and Soil Organisation’s Land Use Inventory system. However, the District’s agriculture is dependent on the continual maintenance of the Piako and Waihou River schemes (drainage/flood control).
Prospecting and mining activity in the District has been concentrated along the Kaimai-Mamaku Ranges, especially in the vicinity of Mt Te Aroha. A significant peat resource exists on the plains and peat has in the past been extracted by Waikato Peat Products NZ Ltd from an 80ha site near to the north-west of the District boundary. The western ranges of the District have also attracted recent investigations for precious and semi precious metals.
Aggregates are a significant resource of Matamata-Piako District. There are three principal types of aggregate resources in the District, volcanic and greywacke rock types suitable for the manufacture of crushed aggregate for roading, construction and building purposes and sand used for similar purposes as well as for watering, horticulture and miscellaneous use. Although quarrying should pose no greater threat to the environment than many other industries, any new quarrying activity proposed in the District must be subject to the appropriate consideration of environmental effects. The quarry on the slopes of the Kaimai Ranges has significant visual impact.
Along the Kaimai Ranges and in the vicinity of Mt Te Aroha there is a long mining history, particularly for precious metals (gold and silver). The District contains the legacy of New Zealand’s only significant base metal mine, the Tui mine at Te Aroha. The Tui mine was operated by the Norpac Mining Company between 1966 and 1973, and produced copper, lead and zinc concentrates in addition to silver and gold. The mine closed suddenly in 1973 without adequate rehabilitation or environmental protection measures in place. The Tui mine tailings sit high on the slopes of Mt Te Aroha. Discharges from the mine and tailings have permanently polluted the northern branch of the Tunakohoia Stream (which was previously used as a major source of water supply for the Te Aroha township), as well as the Tui Stream itself. The tailings require regular maintenance and there have been problems identifying who should bear the cost of this work. At present the Council is involved in regular inspections and maintenance at its cost.
The Kopuatai Peat Dome is the largest raised (domed) bog in New Zealand. It is also the only significantly unaltered restiad bog left in New Zealand. As the last remaining example of its type remaining intact, and because it supports a vegetation type unique in New Zealand and therefore the world, the site is of outstanding conservation value. It is an important location for at least nine nationally threatened plant species and is valuable habitat for endemic mudfish and eels. The surrounding seasonally flooded mineralised areas provide habitat for over 50 species of birds and the North Island’s best remaining example of kahikatea swamp forest. Kopuatai is one of only five wetlands in New Zealand listed as a site of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
The District also has notable areas of indigenous forest particularly along the three main rivers and their tributaries and the Kaimai Ranges. These, the wetlands, waterways, and lakes and their margins which connect them and fragments of indigenous vegetation throughout the District are significant for their support of the viability, extent and diversity of the ecosystems including indigenous aquatic and terrestrial fauna and micro-organisms. These ecological systems and their biological diversity are significant in their own right and in their contribution to landscape, amenity characteristics and natural features of the District.
