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Environment New Zealand 2007 draft conclusion chapter

This document is a draft chapter that was circulated for peer review in the development of Environment New Zealand 2007, the Ministry’s second state of the environment report that was released in January 2008. The Ministry has decided to release the draft chapter to ensure transparent communications with its stakeholders.

The Ministry stands by its decision not to have a conclusions chapter in the report.

The decision was made to let the facts in the report speak for themselves. The substance of the draft conclusions chapter is contained in the Minister’s foreword to the report, the separate summary document, and throughout the report itself.

The pressures on the environment from intensification of land use and agriculture are widely covered in the report. They were highlighted in a summary of key findings when the report was released, and reiterated publicly at the launch event in January.

A peer review of the draft conclusions chapter by central government agencies and regional councils made clear that its qualitative content was not in line with the factual nature of the report.

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Chapter 13: Summing Up

Earlier chapters have examined the various pressures on and changes in key aspects of the New Zealand environment.

In doing so, a number of common themes and trends have emerged which represent key influences on and characteristics of the state of our environment. This chapter discusses these influences and characteristics, their implications for sustainable resource management and environmental policy in New Zealand and identifies areas for priority action.

The themes and trends raised in this chapter will also have broader relevance to New Zealand’s political, business, iwi and community leaders as they make regulatory, investment and governance decisions which influence the lifestyles and values of New Zealanders.

Environmental pressures past and present

1 Historic influences on our environment

As Section One of this report illustrates, New Zealand’s environment continues to face some important pressures. While many of the pressures facing the New Zealand environment reflect our evolving lifestyles, some of them reflect our historical and cultural legacy.

From earliest human settlement, New Zealanders have relied on the use of natural resources from the sea and on the land for our economic wellbeing and development. Our temperate climate, comparatively vast areas of productive land with respect to our population size, and abundant rainfall in most areas have provided New Zealand with excellent growing conditions. With over 18,000 kilometres of coastline and one of the largest maritime areas in the world, New Zealand also has access to a wide range of marine resources.

The legacy of primary production

Over the past century, up to half of New Zealand’s total land area has been used for agricultural production, horticulture, forestry and other primary production. Today, at around 40 percent of our land area, primary production still makes up a much higher proportion of our land use than is common in other developed countries. In this way, we differ significantly from our OECD counterparts, which often have a historical tradition of industrial production and manufacturing and a proportionally smaller land area dedicated to primary production.

Our reliance on primary production has important implications for the types and scale of environmental pressures New Zealand faces today in comparison to other developed countries. As highlighted in the Land chapter, while we are exposed to much lower levels of pollutants and legacy contamination from industrial sources than other OECD countries, New Zealand faces proportionately higher levels of pollutants and contaminants from our primary production. To illustrate this point, around 50 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the agricultural sector, compared with an average of 10 to 15 percent for most developed countries.

Fertilisers and agrichemicals

Decades of land-based primary production and its associated reliance on fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and other agrichemicals – many of which are now known to be harmful to humans and the environment – has left New Zealand with a suite of ‘legacy’ pressures on the environment. These include increased levels of phosphates and nitrates entering our waterways (for example, Lake Taupo) today as the result of land use practices half a century ago; localised sites around the country which are contaminated as a result of historical horticultural, forestry and agricultural practices; and health effects experienced in communities today caused by chemicals released into the environment in the past.

Changing land cover

Extensive primary production in the past has also changed the type of land cover on large tracts of New Zealand land. Past clearance of native forestry and scrubland and drainage of wetlands has reduced the distribution of habitat for many of our native species, increased the erosion risk in many areas, and affected our soils. While the majority of large-scale change in land cover occurred in New Zealand decades ago, the continuing impacts of this change in land use can be felt in many parts of our environment today, e.g. induced hill country erosion, a high number of extinct and threatened native species.

2 Changing pressures on our environment

The pressures our environment faces today are not necessarily the same as those experienced in past years and decades. As our population has grown and our lifestyles have changed, pressures on our environment have also evolved over time.

Some pressures are reducing…

In relative terms, some pressures on our environment have reduced as technology has evolved, the way we use our resources has changed or as standards to protect our health and the environment have strengthened. For example, vehicle technology and tighter fuel standards in recent years help reduce the impact of fuel use on air quality; new fishing methods are in place to minimise harm to seabirds; and legislative controls on hazardous substances have significantly reduced risks to both human health and the environment.

…while others are growing

Other pressures have increased as we have moved to use our natural resources more intensively, developed and used ‘new’ resources from the natural environment, or increased our levels of consumption of goods and services. As an example, over recent decades, we have seen a significant shift towards more intensive agricultural production; quota allocation has commenced for a number of fish species not previously commercially fished (for example, orange roughy); and our increasing wealth, combined with higher availability of and lower costs for many consumer goods, has led to New Zealanders buying more today than we did in the past.

Our pressures echo those felt internationally…

New Zealand is not alone in facing these changing pressures on our environment. Most, if not all, other countries around the world face similar changes in technology, regulatory frameworks and lifestyles, similar increases in population and similarly evolving consumption patterns.

But our key sectors are particularly vulnerable

However, it is the very aspects of New Zealand’s environment that underpin our economic wealth through tourism and primary production – our iconic flora and fauna, our stunning wilderness areas and our rural landscapes– which are particularly vulnerable to increasing pressures. This is perhaps the critical area where New Zealand differs from other developed countries: other countries do not rely so heavily on the preservation of their natural environment for their economic wellbeing.

3 Key influences on our environment today

a Intensification of primary production

As highlighted in the Oceans, Freshwater and Land chapters of this report, New Zealand’s continued reliance on primary production for much of our economic wealth continues to shape the pressures on our environment today.

Intensified use of our marine resources

As technological capability grows, certain global commodities become scarcer and global market demand for seafood increases, the use of marine resources is intensifying internationally. This use can take the form of fishing and trawling, sand mining, extraction of minerals and fossil fuels from the marine environment and other human activity in the marine environment. Emerging and potential activities in the marine environment include energy generation from wave and tidal power, seabed mining and sequestration of greenhouse gases below the seafloor.

As the Oceans chapter reports, fishing and trawling have the largest impact on the New Zealand marine environment, both inshore and offshore. This impact includes bycatch, habitat destruction, and the indirect and wider ecosystem impacts of large-scale removals of marine resources from the marine environment.

The number of species in New Zealand’s quota management system has more than doubled in the past ten years as the fisheries sector has begun to fish new species. Sixty-five percent of the commercial catch is from fish stocks that have been scientifically assessed (that is, fish stocks about which we know enough to be able to determine the sustainable maximum yield). This illustrates that there is still more to be done to understand the impact of commercial? fishing on a number of fishstocks.

85 percent of assessed fishstocks have been sustainably fished and 15 percent have been overfished and are now recovering. In response, fisheries closures are in place for sensitive habitats such as seamounts, and it has been agreed that 30 percent of the EEZ will be closed to seabed trawling. Other fisheries restrictions such as customary fisheries closures and restrictions, have become more common over the past decade in recognition of the growing pressures on our fisheries.

Marine protection has increased considerably in the past decade, with 7 percent of our territorial sea now in marine reserve. The Government has also recently announced its commitment to improving regulation of environmental effects in New Zealand's exclusive economic zone to promote environmentally responsible access to its resources while ensuring human impacts do not threaten the integrity of oceans ecosystems.

However, despite these steps, it is clear that pressures on our marine resources remain and will continue to need careful management into the future. In addition, as long as knowledge of our marine ecosystems remains incomplete, it is difficult to accurately assess the impacts of human activity in the marine environment. While good progress has been made in the past decade in terms of putting in place better marine monitoring and research (including a commitment in Budget 2007 of $900,000 for research on inshore commercial catches), more can be done to boost understanding of marine ecosystems in order to ensure that management regimes for the marine environment are adequate.

Intensified land use

As highlighted in the Land chapter, the past decade has seen a significant intensification of land use, particularly pastoral land use. This is arguably the largest pressure today on New Zealand’s land, freshwaters and coastal oceans, and atmosphere, despite sectoral efforts to minimise the environmental impact of our land-based primary production. This pressure is particularly important given the proportion of New Zealand’s land area dedicated to pastoral production.

The intensification of land use in New Zealand has led to sharp increases in the development and irrigation of high-producing exotic pastures on suitable land. New Zealand currently uses 2-3 times more water per person than most other OECD countries. Allocation of water in New Zealand has increased by around 50 percent over little more than a decade, driven mainly by an increase in land area under irrigation. Irrigation now uses almost 80 per cent of all water allocated. Demand for water is also increasing, particularly in areas already short of water. Drier parts of the country have the highest demand: Canterbury and Otago account for three quarters of all water allocated in New Zealand.

Intensification of pastoral land use has led to a noticeable increase in the use of fertilisers. Total fertiliser use has doubled and the use of nitrogen fertiliser has increased tenfold in New Zealand in the past two decades. This, combined with increased animal wastes from higher stocking rates, has affected the quality of our surface waterways, groundwater and coastal marine environment in many areas around New Zealand.

Intensified land use also affects our land and atmosphere. As the Land chapter illustrates, higher animal stocking rates have compacted many of our soils leading to increased run-off and erosion risk. Intensive farming and cropping have reduced soil quality and increased erosion in some areas, as has the recent large-scale conversion of forestry to pasture. As reported in the Atmosphere chapter, significant increases in herd sizes have also increased our total greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. This is particularly so for larger-sized animals which produce more greenhouse gases than smaller-sized animals: dairy cows excrete almost 7 times the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in their faeces and urine as breeding sheep ewes.

Both the government and industry have recognised the importance of the farming sector adopting more sustainable land use practices. As a result, a myriad of programmes have been put in place to reduce the impact of primary production on our land and waterways. For example, the dairy industry’s ‘Strategic Framework for Dairy Farming Future 2005-2015’and HortNZ’s Strategy in response to the Sustainable Water Programme of Action aim to increase nutrient use and efficiency on farms, decrease the quantity of nutrient loss to water ways and ground water, and to achieve and maintain acceptable standards of soil, water and air quality. The Government’s climate change consultation document ‘Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change’ supports the principles of the earlier Sustainable Land Management Strategy by proposing a range of options to reduce greenhouse emissions from changing land use (particularly conversion from low-intensity forestry to high-intensity dairying), including pricing measures which internalise some of the costs to the environment of intensifying land use.

Despite these positive initiatives, the sheer scale of existing pastoral land-use in New Zealand combined with recent record dairy returns mean that intensification of land use is likely to continue to pose a significant challenge to our environment for some time, even if stringent pricing and regulatory regimes are agreed and put in place.

Economic drivers and land use

As noted in the Land chapter, land use in New Zealand continues to change as our population grows, land prices change and international commodity prices fluctuate. The present rapid shift towards more intensive land use reflects the fact that land use decisions in New Zealand are primarily driven by socio-economic forces.

High market prices at any given time for particular commodities can cause farmers to convert from one land use to another. As an example, the national dairy herd has grown by around a third in the past 15 years as farmers have responded to economic signals by converting exotic forestry, suitable drystock pasture, or existing dairy farms into more intensive dairy farms. As a further example, wine-producing land has increased by nearly 30 percent as land use has diversified in response to fluctuating commodity prices.

In some cases, however, economic drivers can also result in a shift to less intensive land use. For example, the 1990s saw record levels of conversion of pasture (much of it on steep hill country) into forestry in response to high international log prices. In some parts of the country this trend is now reversing, with conversion of exotic forestry back into pasture as log prices have fallen.

Tourism and the environment

Tourism can sometimes act as a brake on the trend towards more intensive land use. Our single largest foreign exchange earner, tourism contributes significantly to the New Zealand economy, particularly in areas outside of the main centres. In some high-value tourist areas it competes with or replaces primary production as the largest employer.

As tourism relies on our ‘100 per cent pure’ image to promote New Zealand overseas and attract overseas visitors to our unique natural landscapes and outdoor activities, it is in the industry’s interest to protect the environment and ensure its viability into the future. Reflecting this, a number of participants in the sector have actively pursued sustainable tourism practices, including through the Sustainable Tourism Charter.

However, while tourism generally drives conservation of the natural environment, it can also put pressure on it through increased numbers of visitors travelling to and recreating in our wilderness areas, increased use of infrastructure, increased consumption of natural resources and increased waste generation. The industry’s own long term development strategy (‘New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2015’) aims to increase tourist numbers by four percent per annum to 3.1 million international visitor arrivals by 2012 and this has some significant implications for both fragile ecosystems, and infrastructure and services in largely rural towns and settlements.

b Increasing population pressures

Pressure on the environment through increasing numbers of people is not a phenomenon unique to tourism. New Zealand’s growing population places additional pressures on our environment. Even if each New Zealander significantly reduced his or her impact on the environment through more sustainable transport, active energy conservation, increased recycling and a myriad of other actions, it would be difficult to reduce the total the impact of our total population on the environment if our population were growing significantly. And this is indeed the situation we have been faced with: as noted in the “Our Environment and People” chapter, in the past decade, the New Zealand population increased by 11 percent. Put simply, the more of us there are, the greater the pressures on our environment are likely to be.

A growing population brings about increasing housing pressures which can result in increasing urban expansion, rural subdivision and infill housing. This in turn leads to higher levels of hard surfacing, increased stormwater runoff and land compaction, as well as increased demands on infrastructure such as water, energy, telecommunications, sewerage, roading and other transport infrastructure. As the majority of New Zealand's population lives on or near the coastline, an increasing population is expected to put greater pressure on our coastal environment. Expansion of our towns and cities can also lead to the loss of valuable ecosystems and soils which adjoin some of our built-up areas.

Urbanisation of the population

While much of our land use is still rural, 86 per cent of our population now live in towns and cities. This makes New Zealand one of the most urbanised nations in the world and presents some significant environmental pressures. For example, urban waterways are often the most polluted of all waterways in New Zealand and transport high levels of bacteria, nutrients (such as nitrates and phosphates) and sediments from built-up areas into the marine environment. Harbours and estuaries are particularly vulnerable to accumulating pollutants from nearby urban settlements.

‘Expansion out’ vs ‘expansion up’

The area of land under human settlements increased in New Zealand by 2.5% or 5,500 hectares between 1997 and 2002. The large majority of this is expected to be on the margins of existing urban or rural settlements. This expansion is driven at least in part by our cultural heritage of ‘out not up’ – i.e. our preference for stand-alone housing on individual sections rather than high-density (medium-rise or high-rise) housing, although the latter is becoming more common as a means of limiting urban sprawl in some of our main centres.

As high density housing and compact urban design can help reduce the environmental impacts associated with transportation (e.g. lessen fossil fuel consumption, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions), the challenge for New Zealand decision-makers is to lighten the impact of an increasing urban population by encouraging higher density buildings and more sustainable urban lifestyles, particularly in our main centres. Auckland is a particular case in point, with over a third of New Zealand’s total population residing in an area larger than Los Angeles. While good progress has been made in Auckland in investing in public transport and rejuvenating urban centres, a new approach may be needed to tackle the environmental and other pressures of a growing population. The Government’s new Auckland Strategy aims to achieve such a new approach through ….

The very low population density outside of our major towns and cities puts pressure on our environment in different ways. Our isolated, spread-out population in rural areas imposes some practical and cost limitations to the provision and uptake of public transport, provision of full waste management services and availability and uptake of some technologies and services (for example, broadband, which can facilitate teleworking, is not yet available in some isolated, rural locations in New Zealand).

Our changing households

Not only do we have a growing population in New Zealand, we are also living in increasingly small households (i.e. the average number of people in each household is decreasing). As highlighted in the ‘Our Environment and People’ chapter, couple-only and one-person households are the fastest growing household types in New Zealand and are projected to increase the most over the next 15 years, particularly as our population continues to age, average fertility rates decline and lifestyles change.

The changing composition of our households has implications for the environment. On a per person basis, those living alone or in couples also generally consume more resources (and generate more waste) than those living in larger households. As an example, one person consumes the same amount of power watching a television in front of a heater as a family of four, all other factors being equal. Put simply, there are environmental economies of scale in larger households, yet the future trend in New Zealand is for an increasing number of smaller households.

c Increasing consumption and waste

New Zealanders are using more natural resources than ever before, both on a per person basis and as a country. In other words, we are using more resources to live and maintain our lifestyles than in the past.

Our lifestyle choices, the amount of goods and services we consume, and the environmental efficiency with which they are produced, all affect the size and nature of our impact on the environment.

As we get wealthier, technologies and goods become more widely available, and goods and services come down in price, consumption patterns in New Zealand have also changed, as highlighted in the Household Consumption chapter. This has implications for both our consumption of natural resources and the waste that this produces.

Transport use

New Zealand's transport system has been shaped by the fact that we are a small population occupying a comparatively long? land area. The expansion of suburbs some distance away from workplaces and city centres is another factor in this development. Road transport – most of it passenger cars – has become the central element of New Zealand’s transport system, and, lately, New Zealanders have become even more reliant on road transport. With the fourth-highest rate of vehicle ownership among OECD countries, we now have three times as many vehicles as we did in the 1950s.

Not only do we have more vehicles than in the past, we are tending to buy larger vehicles and use them more: the total distance travelled by vehicles on our roads more than doubled over the past 20 years. Recent years have shown, however, large increases in the use of public transportation.

As reported in the Transport, Air and Atmosphere chapters, this increasing use of vehicles and the fossil fuels that power them is putting pressure on the environment and human health. The consumption of fossil fuels creates exhaust emissions that affect urban air quality, run-off from roads impairs water quality, greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of transport fuels contribute to climate change, and end-of-life oil and vehicles require careful disposal.

Energy use

All forms of energy generation and consumption have an impact on the environment. While New Zealand is endowed with a diverse mix of local energy sources, of which a large proportion of which are renewable, increasing consumption has led to greater reliance on imported fossil fuels. The growing proportion of non-renewable energy in New Zealand’s energy mix contributes to increased greenhouse gas and harmful particulate emissions, which have negative impacts on the environment and human health.

In New Zealand, as in other countries, energy consumption has grown significantly in recent decades. The Energy chapter reports that much of this stems from our growing population and growing demand for transport fuels as we drive our vehicles further. For the first time, the household sector was the largest energy user in New Zealand in 2006. This reflects both the increasing average size of our houses, the increasing use of electrical appliances in the home as they become both more common and more affordable, and the growing reliance on our vehicles.

Whether in the household, commercial or industrial sector, using electricity more efficiently than we do now saves the energy user money. It also directly reduces the need to build new generation sources and transmission lines. New Zealand companies also become more competitive internationally and lower their carbon footprint as they reduce their energy usage and costs.

Consumption and Waste

Consumption inevitably results in waste. As New Zealand’s population and rate of consumption increases so, too, does the amount of waste we are generating.

As noted in the Waste chapter, improperly disposed of, waste can pose a risk to human health and the environment. In recent years, New Zealand has focused on improving its management of waste, with a reduction in the total amount of landfills in operation, the introduction of environmental controls such as engineered liners and leachate collection systems. Some landfills are also collecting waste gas and using it as a source of energy. While some outstanding waste challenges remain – for example, ensuring that hazardous wastes are appropriately disposed of – waste is largely managed in this country in such a way as to pose minimal risks to the environment and human health.

Perhaps more importantly, waste represents an inefficient use of valuable resources. Much of the waste we bury in New Zealand landfills and cleanfills are materials which can potentially be recovered from the waste stream for recycling or reprocessing. Today, increasing attention is being given to minimising both the amount of waste generated and the amount of waste disposed of by business, householders and communities. To do so, a greater proportion of the waste stream is reused, recycled or reprocessed.

The desire to be less wasteful of our resources has driven demand for energy efficient products such as ‘energy saver’ light bulbs. Simple actions by a major supermarket chain, such as packing more items per bag and asking customers buying only a few items whether they need a plastic bag, reduced the number of plastic bags used over the course of a year by 29 million. Such initiatives can also contribute to resource efficiency.

Resource efficiency

An emerging global trend over the past decade or so has been international attention to using valuable natural resources more efficiently. This means using as few raw materials as possible to generate a product or service, and generating as few waste materials as possible. The primary drivers for resource efficiency are to reduce costs – both the costs of purchasing raw materials and the costs of managing wastes from them. The savings from using raw materials and natural resources more efficiently can be used elsewhere in the production chain or to invest in further efficiencies of production or manufacture, or they can be used to increase profitability.

Using resources more efficiently and avoiding wasteful consumption often bring wider benefits for both human and environmental health. Reducing vehicle emissions (a form of gaseous waste) will improve air quality and public health as well as limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Better insulating our homes so that they use less energy from home heating reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, while also having important benefits for human health.

The challenge for New Zealand, as well as internationally, is to reach a point where environmental gains made through resource efficiency are not overridden by a continued overall increase in consumption as our population grows, our wealth increases and our lifestyle choices evolve.

d Increasing competition for resources

In recent decades, New Zealand has largely been in the fortunate position of having manageable competing demands on our natural resources. Our low population and our relatively large tracts of land and ocean have resulted in comparatively light competition for resources by global standards. However, we appear to have reached a point where competing needs and values are pushing some resources to their limits in some parts of the country.

As a trading nation, competing demand for resources in New Zealand is often primarily influenced by consumer demand internationally and resulting global commodity prices. Record prices for dairy commodities are likely to result in continued rapid conversion from beef or sheep farming to dairy farming on suitable land. Other competing land uses – such as forestry – have also not been able to compete against such strong economic returns.

As our population grows, so too do competing demands for land resources on the urban fringe. Such land can be used for agriculture, horticulture and lifestyle blocks, as well as urban expansion. At present, such demand is particularly evident in the greater Auckland area, where urban expansion is the dominant competing land use, influenced by strong increasing population and our preference for stand-alone housing.

The pressure of competing demands for resources is also apparent in our marine environment. Recent consultation on proposed marine reserves, and fisheries, energy and oceans policies indicate that competing uses for the marine environment are at the forefront of environmental management concerns. The recent debates in New Zealand on the pros and cons of seabed mining, sand extraction from beaches, and generation of energy from tidal and wave power illustrate the degree of competition between values to use marine resources and values to protect the marine environment.

Likewise, competing values for energy generation have been particularly evident as New Zealand develops its climate change policies and a national energy strategy. Proponents of thermal generation argue that it is necessary for security of energy supply in New Zealand. Proponents of renewable energy argue that security of supply will follow once new renewable energy generation comes to market. Those in favour of hydro generation compete with those who want to protect our undammed waterways for recreational and landscape values. The new phenomenon of wind farms has also created a values-divide in many parts of New Zealand. While some New Zealanders want to protect the scenic values of our ridgelines and rural landscapes, others view wind farms as the only way to achieve a sustainable energy future. These competing uses for our ridgelines are relatively new phenomena.

Unless our population and resource needs unexpectedly decrease in future, it is expected that competition between the use and protection of our natural resources will intensify in future. The fundamental challenge in future will be to find a sustainable balance between these competing needs and values.

Local-level versus national-level decision-making

As competing demands on our environment have historically been low, New Zealanders have also been used to using or managing the resources on their land and in their waterways without reference to wider regional or national priorities, values or demands.

However, as pressures have increased on the environment and competing demands for natural resources have grown, so too have controls on the use and management of these resources. This has created a shift in values about land use and resource use. For example, it is better understood today that decisions on the use or management of a local resource may affect the regional or even national availability or health of that resource.

As signalled in the chapter Our Environment and People, local (devolved) decision-making on the environment is a hallmark of environmental governance in New Zealand. Decisions on the use and management of natural resources are generally taken at the local level by those who know them best. However, balancing local needs with regional or national priorities is often a difficult and complex process. Politicians and resource managers are often tasked with weighing up and making decisions on competing priorities for the use or management of natural resources, and they often do so within a wider context of weighing up the economic and social well-being of the community in which the decision is to be taken.

Sometimes, a compromise is reached. At other times, a trade-off is required to protect an environmental or health ‘bottom line’. As an example, the national environmental standards for air quality protect human health by reducing particulate emissions from wood burning heaters. In order to achieve the degree of protection required, trade-offs were made which resulted in changes to home heating in New Zealand. These changes included the banning of open fires in some areas and the prohibition of some types of wood burners which did not meet the necessary standard.

A further example of where local priorities compete against regional or national-level priorities is energy generation. Wind generation is often regarded as a clean and efficient form of electricity generation that will help New Zealand to meet its growing demand for electricity in a renewable way. However, local opposition to wind farms (due to their potential visual, noise and landscape impacts) can restrict their development.

Greater national-level guidance or regulation which aids decision-makers to make local decisions within a clear framework to achieve national-level environmental or health outcomes may help reduce the tension between competing local priorities and regional or national-level priorities.

Reducing our footprint

Changing values for the environment

Changing environmental values in New Zealand

The environment is important to New Zealanders for many reasons. As an outdoor-loving people, our relationship with the environment is a defining feature of who we are as a nation. Our iconic natural areas and rural landscapes are an important element of our national identity. These values are reflected in the very high area of land set aside in New Zealand (35% of our total land area ¹ ) for conservation and recreational purposes, which is significantly higher than most OECD countries.

However, as an increasing number of us live in urban environments, our understanding of and relationship with the environment is slowly changing. This is also driven by our evolving society – with 23 percent of New Zealanders now born overseas, the values that New Zealanders hold about the environment cannot help but change as different cultural perspectives and attitudes come to bear.

Another emerging shift in environmental values in New Zealand is evidence of a growing acceptance that those polluting the environment should have to pay the costs of this pollution, rather than just passing those costs on to the wider community or the country to pick up in due course. As all economic activities have environmental impacts, one way of encouraging less polluting activities is to internalise the environmental costs of economic activities by imposing these costs on polluters. It seems that New Zealanders today are more prepared than they were in the past to see the prices faced by consumers reflect the environmental as well as the production costs.

In response, a number of economic instruments and polluter-pays tools have been consulted on, or debated in recent months. These include charging for deforestation above a certain level for certain types of land as part of climate change policies, the development of a ‘cap and trade’ greenhouse gas emissions trading regime to manage New Zealand’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the development of a ‘cap and trade’ regime for the Lake Taupo catchment in order to manage nutrients entering Lake Taupo from urban and rural sources, and recent debates about the need to charge for water used for farm irrigation.

New Zealanders’ attitudes towards the environment are also changing in line with the growing international awareness and interest in the environment that we are now experiencing.

Changing global environmental values

As a nation, we frequently use images of the natural environment to present New Zealand to the rest of the world. Our stunning natural scenery brings us tourism wealth and underpins our ‘clean and green’ reputation internationally. Our ‘100 per cent pure’ image is used to promote New Zealand internationally, attracting overseas visitors through marketing of our unique scenic landscapes and outdoor activities. This image creates an expectation of a clean and healthy environment.

In addition, our primary production sectors trade heavily on our environmental sustainability. Our reputation for producing high-quality, natural products and natural foodstuffs is a major competitive advantage for New Zealand and one which is important to maintain. New Zealand therefore has a very high stake in maintaining a high-quality, natural environment.

Increasingly, global consumer demand for goods and services produced in an environmentally sustainable manner influences how New Zealand companies procure and use natural resources and dispose of their waste. Changing consumer values are likely to remain an important driver of New Zealand business practice into the future. As a trading nation, New Zealand businesses are accustomed to responding to international consumer preferences.

As a country which trades on its long-established clean and green reputation, New Zealand also stands to gain a lot from the emerging ‘green’ consumer preference. However, as environmental sustainability becomes more mainstream globally, New Zealand needs to both demonstrate and defend its green credentials and ensure that it keeps up with the shifting global ‘green benchmark’ if it is to protect its economic revenues.

Climate change and food miles

The present global focus on climate change has changed environmental values in some quite specific ways. Consumer attention to the ‘carbon footprint’ of goods and services is an emerging value for the environment which has implications for New Zealand, as a geographically isolated nation a long distance from any of its major markets.

This emerging value has manifest itself through an international focus on ‘food miles’ - the amount of energy used to transport food. More accurately, carbon footprinting and food miles should calculate the energy associated with the production and transport of food. While New Zealand’s export products must travel considerable distances to reach some key overseas markets, they are generally produced in a less energy-intensive manner than in the United Kingdom. In the case of agriculture, New Zealand farmers tend to apply less fertiliser than their European counterparts and graze their animals in outdoor pastures year-round, rather than housing them in barns on supplementary feed. When these aspects are taken into account, New Zealand products compare favourably to their international counterparts. However incorrect, consumer perceptions about food miles in some of New Zealand’s key markets do have the potential to damage consumer confidence in some New Zealand export products.

A number of New Zealand businesses have responded to the potential food miles risks by calculating and managing the carbon footprint for their products. New Zealand producers and exporters will need to continue to invest in reducing the energy intensity and environmental impacts of their products to counter overseas claims about New Zealand goods. Likewise, if New Zealand is to continue to promote our high quality environment to attract international visitors, it is in the tourism industry’s interest to ensure that it remains a reality.

Towards a sustainable New Zealand

As this report has highlighted, the parts of our environment that New Zealanders consider to be our natural birthright - our air, land, atmosphere, biodiversity, oceans and freshwater – have all been affected by human activity.

Given heightened attention globally on the need to reduce the environmental impacts of lifestyles and purchasing choices, the efficient use and protection of our natural resources remains essential to the continued social, economic and environmental well-being of New Zealand. While increasing economic growth at the same time as reducing our environmental footprint is a significant challenge for New Zealand, significant economic opportunities exist for New Zealand if we can become a truly sustainable nation.

The choices that our decision-makers make, both now and in future, will determine the quality of the environment we will hand to future generations.

To guide decision-making to achieve sustainability outcomes, the key findings from each chapter in this report are recapped below.

Smarter household purchasing….

Experience shows that rising standards of living often go hand in hand with greater environmental awareness. Today, consumers are becoming increasingly interested in reducing the impact of their shopping habits on the environment, and many are taking action to do so. As consumers, by buying only what we need, choosing products with less packaging, and choosing durable products instead of disposable ones, we can reduce the negative impacts of our consumption on the environment. The challenge will be to achieve this without sacrificing living standards. The issue of "sustainable household consumption" as a fundamental component of sustainable development is likely to remain on the national and international policy agenda for some time.

…..better waste management and lower waste….

While we have been a little slow off the starting blocks, waste management practices in New Zealand have improved over the past decade through the closure of substandard landfills, better management of remaining landfills, greater recycling efforts, and the adoption of new laws, waste management plans, and the New Zealand Waste Strategy 2002. Various industries have taken a lead in managing the waste produced in their sector, and it is this we need to build on if we are to move towards becoming a zero waste society. Looking ahead, new waste minimisation legislation, when enacted, will enable us to further advance with regard to minimising waste generation. Encouraging industry to take further responsibility for waste avoidance, influencing purchasing choices, and moving to producing ‘lower waste’ goods must all be an integral part of future waste management in New Zealand. Furthermore, we must do better in monitoring waste flows and, in due course, also gain a greater understanding of the flow of materials and substances (e.g. metals, minerals, wood, nutrients) through our economy.

…and all aboard for greener transport

The pervasive environmental impact of our ever-growing mobility in the form of air pollution, congestion, noise, and GHG emissions obliges us to look for a more sustainable transport system. This will not be easy. The role of road transport in the mix of transport modes is the key question to be resolved. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport – one of our fastest growing emissions sectors – is likely to drive greater effort to improve vehicle technology (hybrid vehicles, greater fuel efficiency) and increase the use of alternative (non-fossil) transport fuels (such as biofuels and electric vehicles). Such measures alone, however, will not be enough if we continue to buy more and bigger vehicles and drive them farther. Public transport and other measures (e.g. urban planning, teleworking) must therefore be a larger part of the mix than they have been so far.

….can help us achieve our energy and climate change goals

The Government's Climate change policies, the 2007 New Zealand Energy Strategy, and the 2007 National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy have set out the measures that will guide our path to a sustainable energy future. These new policies confirm that the prospect of long-term rising energy costs and the need to combat climate change demands a further intensification of the current emphasis on efficiency, conservation and renewable energy. Safeguarding security of supply will also remain a prime concern. Much of the required efficiency gains will have to be achieved in the domestic transport sector, given that the sector is the single largest, and one of our fastest growing, energy consumer in New Zealand. Plenty of scope for efficiency improvements also exists in the residential sector, and attention has now turned to this through improvements to the Building Code and the new Solar Water Heating programme.

The problem of climate change will not be solved tomorrow. Our country must continue to assume its part of the global responsibility and engage with the international community in implementing cooperative solutions. Like other 'Kyoto' countries, it is in New Zealand’s long-term interests to develop, implement and, no doubt, adapt and refine long-term policies and initiatives to reduce greenhouse emissions and enlarge forest sinks. What is clear, however, is that even under the most optimistic scenario, a certain degree of climate change will occur or may already be occurring. In addition to reducing emissions, we will therefore need to adapt to the impact of changing climate – both positive and negative - and this will be a challenge for all sectors in New Zealand.

Moreover, the quest to become a 'carbon neutral' country will be a tremendous challenge requiring a veritable economic transformation. Given New Zealand's marketing position as a 'clean green' country, our economic success will strongly depend on our performance in the climate change area and, more particularly, in keeping down the 'carbon footprint' of our export products.

Economic drivers for more sustainable use of our soils and land…

Driven by the growing market demand for 'clean green' products, New Zealand's primary industry associations are increasingly adopting environmental management systems to demonstrate their sectors' commitment to sustainable primary production. Examples of existing initiatives are Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (490 members in 2006), Forest Stewardship Council standards (covering one-third of New Zealand’s commercial plantation forests), Market Focused (a dairy farmers’ EMS initiative in 2001), and Official Organic Assurance (as of 2003, 800 farms were either certified or converting to organic). Ultimately, all land will need to be managed, and seen to be managed, in an integrated way, taking account of erosion, soil health, the impact of nutrients on waterways, and now also climate change.

… greater protection of our valuable freshwater resource….

Past and present generations of New Zealanders have grown up with the idea that we would always enjoy an abundance of clean water, no matter what. In recent times, however, we have begun to recognise that the resource is not infinite and that it matters a great deal how we manage it. Water is an environmental, social and economic good and our water management policies need to take account of all three aspects. Also, the developing role of tangata whenua in water management (witness the institutional role of Tainui in managing the Waikato River, as announced in May 2007) is a further, new element in New Zealand water management arrangements.

The control of point-source pollution of freshwater under the RMA is now well in hand, and attention has turned to reducing diffuse pollution from intensive land use and urban runoff. As a result, there is greater emphasis than in the past on managing intensively used land through stream bank planting, nutrient budgeting and exclusion of stock from waterways through bridging and fencing. Much more work needs to be done in this area and while we know that pressures are on the increase, we do not know yet whether present approaches will be sufficient to reverse current trends. The situation requires careful monitoring and adaptive management.

As for water quantity, the tremendous increase in recent years in the volume of water allocated underscores the urgency of balancing the competing needs of water users – recreational users, town water suppliers, hydroelectricity generators, tourist operators and farmers – and reconciling these with the needs of aquatic species. For that, we need to better understand the environmental flow requirements of streams and rivers at different times of the year and how much water we are actually using. It is also clear we need to increase the efficiency of water use by all sectors. The Sustainable Water Programme of Action on water is currently exploring a raft of measures to address these issues.

….as well as our oceans and their ecosystems

The Government is developing an Oceans policy with the intention of achieving a more coordinated and integrated approach to marine management. In fact, for some years already, the management focus has shifted from single species to the effect of human activities on whole ecosystems. One aspect is the implementation of a national network of marine protected areas. Improving the regulation of environmental impacts in the Exclusive Economic Zone is another. Recent years have also seen the emergence of innovative local initiatives for coastal management such as the Fiordland Marine Area. The impact of introduced species and climate change on marine ecosystems, fisheries and marine species is also deservedly receiving increasing attention as a pressure on our marine environment.

Land-based pressures on the inshore marine environment, as well as pressures on fisheries stocks can be expected to persist and therefore continue to pose a challenge to the health of the marine environment. Controlling biosecurity threats to fisheries, marine protected areas, and wider coastal amenity values pose a burden on the New Zealand economy. Increasing marine-based trade and travel, and climate change may exacerbate existing pressures. We need accurate, targeted information if we are to be successful in safeguarding the marine area.

Improving our air quality is a priority….

Today, the main focus for improving air quality in New Zealand is to reduce PM₁₀ emissions from home heating and traffic. That more people die in New Zealand each year as a result of air We are tracking the effectiveness of the National Environmental Standards for air quality to ensure that levels of PM10 meet the target set for 2013. We also must develop a better understanding of PM2.5 concentrations around New Zealand, and assess how sulphur dioxide concentrations in our towns and cities measure up against recently revised World Health Organization guidelines.

Given that the Resource Management Act is not the most appropriate instrument for controlling air pollution from transport, other work is underway to minimise the impact of air pollution from road transport, such as a visible smoke test for the warrant of fitness, and emissions standards for imported vehicles. But as discussed in the Transport chapter, improvements in fuels and vehicle technology alone will not be enough to bring down air pollution from road transport. Other measures such as a convenient, affordable and attractive public transport system, and, in the long run, changing the shape of our urban environment, will also need to be part of the mix.

….as is protecting our unique biodiversity

In 2007, biodiversity in New Zealand faces the same pressures – notably introduced animal pest and weed species – as it did ten years ago. Native plants and animals that survived the initial habitat modification caused by human settlement continue to be threatened by predators and competitors. What has changed in the past ten years, however, is the greater area under pest control on both public and private land, much of it especially targeted at the habitats of the most threatened species. Also, the effort per unit area has been intensified, thanks to increased funding from DoC, local government, and the Animal Health Board. Moreover, pest control has become more effective as we are learning from experience and develop better technology. The recent introduction of new DoC traps for stoats, as well as enhanced control regimes on DoC’s offshore and mainland island projects, demonstrate the evolving nature of pest control in New Zealand. We have also put in a greater effort at stopping new pest plants and animals at the borders by improving biosecurity. This is important not only for native biodiversity, but also for the introduced species on which much of our economy depends.

The New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy and the Statement of National Priorities for the protection of indigenous biodiversity on private land will continue to guide activities in this area, such as extending legal protection for the land environments and ecosystems that are not yet well covered in the protected area system, or protecting biodiversity on private land. Further improving pest control and biosecurity will remain key priorities. The active participation of regional and territorial councils, national and local environmental NGOs, individual citizens and landholders will be a necessary part of achieving the NZBS's desired outcomes.

Footnotes

This figure is incorrect. The correct figure is just over 32% of New Zealand's total land area. Return to paragraph.