The Greens are pointing the finger at the Government and Environment Canterbury over the Our Fresh Water 2017 report.

The Ministry of Environment and Stats NZ released it yesterday.

It shows Canterbury takes up two thirds of the country's consented irrigation water, and one of the four declining freshwater fish in New Zealand is the Canterbury galaxias.

Greens water spokesperson Catherine Delahunty says Canterbury's water consumption is disheartening.

"It's very disturbing when you realise the implications of that for things like native fish, things like the long term sustainability of water for your region.

"This report confirms what people in Canterbury have long believed."

ECan chairman David Bedford disagrees.

"One of the great things about Canterbury is that it's in a place where it has access to large volumes of water. We're on the east side of the Alps, we have access to a huge amount of alpine water."

But Ms Delahunty said part of the problem is that Government still chooses half of ECan's Council.

"There needs to be a full restoration of the rights for people to vote for their own representatives. One of the reasons ECan was basically gutted was because people were standing up and saying 'hey, what about our rivers'."

Though Mr Bedford said that's not fair.

"Without having the government-appointed commissioners from 2010 up until now, we would not have made the progress that we've made in terms of putting in place regulations."