Tim Mackle, DairyNZ chief executive.

The Vision is Clear: Let’s Improve our Waterways is now streaming across the country, showing the work being done by dairy farmers and other New Zealanders to benefit rivers, streams, lakes and beaches. It calls on all Kiwis to follow the movement, get involved and look after New Zealand’s waterways.

The campaign can be heard on the radio, seen on Facebook and Twitter, and read about in the paper. We’re encouraging people to visit thevisionisclear.co.nz.

Launched on November 1, The Vision is Clear got off to a great start: the first week’s Facebook post reached 327,669 people and 93,000 viewed the video in the first five days.

On day one of the campaign, an article ran on The NZ Herald’s website homepage sharing the movement’s purpose and encouraging all Kiwis to get behind the campaign. The article reached thousands of people, with more than half from Auckland. Articles will continue to roll out in December, reviewing the state of all New Zealand waterways and the research underway by the dairy sector to improve water quality.

So why are we doing this? Well, in part because you, New Zealand’s dairy farmers, have being doing great work to look after your waterways – and we need to showcase this. DairyNZ is also working on solutions to reduce dairying’s impact on the environment. We all know there’s more work to be done.

And we know most of you have invested heavily in this – not only financially, but also personally – with your time, energy and passion.

Dairy can play its part but we can’t do it alone. Water quality is affected by many other users. We knew we had to do something differently and so we took a leadership position – ‘why not get the whole country doing their bit, as well as dairy farmers?’ – to work together to improve the state of our waterways.

We’re really excited about The Vision is Clear: how it could change the way New Zealanders think about their own impact on water and how they can care for their local waterways.

Support The Vision is Clear movement

We need you to get involved and support The Vision is Clear.

Please check out thevisionisclear.co.nz, view the videos and share the stories on social media. The ‘story of a river’ video is one to look out for.

Why get behind the movement? Because if everyone plays their part, it all adds up to cleaner waterways for New Zealand.

This article was originally published in Inside Dairy December 2018