Fish passage: implementation guidance on Essential Freshwater policies and regulations
Guidance for councils, farmers, farm advisors and others on restoring and protecting fish passage.
Image: Image courtesy of Cawthron
What’s happening
From 2020 regulations apply to:
- reclaiming and maintaining rivers
- new culverts and weirs
- new instream structures
- any work around wetlands.
The regulations do not apply to existing structures prior to September 2020 or customary weirs.
Why the regulations are needed
See the following resources on this page:
- webinar: raising the bar on ecosystem health – wetlands, rivers and fish
- factsheet: fish passage.
What you may need to do
If you are doing any work on a river or stream, find out what is needed to ensure fish passage is not impeded.
See MfE guidance on the Rivers and streams web page and resources below.
For more on environmental matters that affect farming communities see the Rural hub
Includes an overview of the regulations related to fish passage
The following policies and regulations include provisions for fish passage in rivers.
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020
National Environmental Standards for Freshwater 2020
Councils also have additional requirements under their regional plans and fish passage action plans.
NES-F and applying it to Fish Passage
- Regulations for Fish Passage poster [PDF, 418 KB]
This PDF poster helps to explain the regulations for Fish Passage.
View the webinar presentation [PDF, 7.7 MB]