Rules and incentives aimed at reducing nutrient loss to improve Lake Rotorua's water quality are the main agenda as Bay of Plenty Regional Council sits down with landowners in the Lakes catchment.

Next Monday and Tuesday council and the Lake Rotorua Stakeholder Advisory Group are hosting two public meetings to speak with landowners before three open days later in the month.

The meetings and open days come after landowners and council agreed on an approach for allocating nitrogen loss for land use in the Lake Rotorua catchment.

It was agreed the framework shared the risk, responsibility and cost of achieving the sustainable nitrogen limit set for Lake Rotorua between the two parties – part of the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Programme.

'We would encourage all landowners to come along to hear what's happening,” says Natural Resource Operations general manager Warwick Murray.

'We need to achieve significant nitrogen reductions from the pastoral sector to reach the sustainable nitrogen load for Lake Rotorua.

'We will now start work to develop rules and incentives that will help us achieve sustainable improvements in water quality while maintaining a viable rural sector.”

The agreed rules and incentives approach will involve an integrated programme of nitrogen discharge allowances, incentives and gorse conversion to achieve the catchment's required nutrient reductions.

The agreed approach is the result of a collaborative process to deliver improved water quality and maintain a viable rural sector in the Lake Rotorua catchment.

'Having agreed on broad terms on the way forward we now need to start working on the detail,” says Warwick.

'We want to make sure that all rural landowners in the Lake Rotorua catchment know and understand what's happening and that's what these meetings are about.”

The public meetings will be held on Monday 21 October at 6pm at the Ngongotaha Hall and on Tuesday 22 October at 6pm at Apumoana Marae.

Open Days will be held on October 29 and 30 and November 1 from 9am to 4pm and at the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, 1125 Arawa Street, Rotorua.