Southland has over 28 Catchment Groups, forming a network covering over 85% of the Southland region, and this network is expanding rapidly.

Greater Dipton Catchment Group

Covers the area from Josephville Hill to Kauana, the Taringatura Hills to the Bastion.

Number of members in the CG

Core group of 8 - 10 people, with a wider group of 40 people (and growing!), who join in with events, workshops and projects. 

Date the Catchment Group started

October 2020

Types of people in the group

Very community focused group with a wide variety of people from the Dipton area.

Lots of different farming types are covered, as well as strong links with Dipton School, Dipton Social Committee, Castlerock Wetland Restoration Team, Dipton Fire Brigade and Oreti Community Board.

Everyone is welcome!

Projects completed

In October 2020 the group started with a wonderfully social and well attended community consultation evening at the Dipton Golf Club.

Almost 50 people turned up and had a great time deciding that they wanted a community Catchment Group, and brainstorming ideas for the Catchment Group to do. 

They followed this up with a very successful Lunch Under the Willows event in November at Mulligans Park, where 50 people enjoyed a relaxed lunch and heard some great speakers on the history of Dipton and the health of the local waterways.

The Dipton Social Committee provided a very tasty BBQ lunch, sponsored by Alliance.

Their next event was a Know Your Issues Field Day at Frazer Brown’s Dairy Farm and Brian Russell’s Sheep & Beef Farm in May, with great discussions on keeping sediment on your farms, creating wetlands, hill country development and good management practices.

This was followed by a great woolshed lunch from the Dipton Roadhouse and a chat on Farm Environment Management Plans from B+LNZ.

They then had the opportunity to be involved in a Pastoral Biorefinery workshop run by AgResearch, to see what they thought of this potential emerging ag technology.

The biorefinery is a process taking pasture and turning it into a number of other value added products.

The group asked questions, gave their feedback and ideas about how it could fit into a farm system and where it had the potential to replace parts of an existing farm system.

It was a very though provoking and interesting afternoon.

Next was working with B+LNZ to host two of their new Farm Environment Plan Workshops in June and July.

This was the perfect next step for the group following on from their Know Your Issues Field Day in May.

Day 1 was all about learning about stream assessments, soil analysis, greenhouse gases, biodiversity, climate change, to name a few.

Day 2 was about getting their plans on paper.

B+LNZ gave each attendee a folder packed with tools and resources to help them keep on developing their plans.

Finally, the group (along with the other Southland Catchment Groups) took part in a nationwide eDNA (environmental DNA) water quality monitoring programme, and chose Dipton Stream as their site.

This will provide valuable information on the plants and animals found in and around New Zealand’s waterways.

Projects underway

• Working with Environment Southland to trial a new approach to teach community groups how to monitor the health of their waterways using the SHMAK (Stream Health Monitoring Assessment Kit) – First session was in July. Next session is hoped to be in August/ September 
• Hosting a third B+LNZ Farm Environment Plan Workshops with a focus on climate change - October
• Planning a social, whole of community event with a great speaker – October/ November

Regular meetings are held every 6 to 8 weeks at the Dipton Fire Station, and Catchment Group members also attend twice yearly Southland Catchment Group Forum meetings, as well as Catchment Group training opportunities, such as communication (May 2021) and running effective and fun meetings (June 2021), and Oreti Catchment Group Leaders Get Togethers.

Our Vision, Purpose, Objectives and Values