Tauranga public meeting
Friday 3 November
Waste policy
Waste minimisation
- Supermarkets in Auckland produce a significant amount of waste. $60,000 annual cost reduced to $20,000. The practice on the shop floor is not consistent with the Packaging Accord.
- Foodstuffs Auckland - $50,000 for rubbish. It is estimated that 80% of this is recyclable. There is similar waste of easily recycled plastics from kiwifruit pack houses.
- A framework of resources and practitioners for minimising waste is needed.
- School to undertake a project on how Air NZ can minimise waste and write to them with suggestions.
- We need more restrictions of ‘bad’ products. Products that we do not want should be banned under the Packaging Accord.
- New Zealand needs to take the lead on preventing packaging that is not recyclable from entering the country.
Education and information
- Education is important for everyone, including kids and the general public.
Product stewardship
- Product stewardship legislation is necessary and beneficial to make sure the responsibility lies with manufacturers.
National environmental standards
General comments
- There is concern about the impacts on forestry operations on transmission lines.
- There is concern about sedimentation rates into estuaries from subdivisions. The same amount of concern should be shown about estuaries as about lakes.
- The lack of controls on dairy framing and forestry is concerning.
- Coastal rentals/royalties are a sore point. The New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS) is indicating this.
- Biodiversity should be addressed by national controls.
- National Environmental Standards address issues of national importance. There should be more NES and central government should provide funding for their implementation.
- Agriculture has a huge impact on the environment. Historically people think that they have the right to do what they want or their land. Farmers should be required to stop polluting.
- We need to meet groundwater needs for the future.
- Government has got us into the situation by allowing intensification of farming and now they take it away for environmental reasons. They should offer compensation.
- Nutrients need to be managed on the land so that they do not get into the water. Innovative products can deal with this.
- More research is needed into land use.
- A combination of strategies is needed to mop up nutrients as they enter at the lake edge.
- Farmers are slow to uptake information. But as science and farming practices change, behaviour can change.
Water
Flood risk management and catchment management
- It is hard to predict and pre-empt small local storms. These are a feature in the Bay of Plenty.
- Concentrate on the measures at the beginning of catchments rather than fixing the problem at the end. Sub-canopy is really important. Dealt with by pest control.
- It should not be assumed that everything is ok if you can see a green canopy. Integrated catchment management has a pest control component.
- A workforce is needed to address pest control. Control should focus on browsers.
- Who takes leadership in integrated catchment management?
- Central government should fund regional councils to undertake pest control in DOC forest and private land. There are links with flood control and water supply (run-off effects). DoC should collaborate with adjoining land owners.
- Government should set up a separate Vote to provide funding for catchment management.
- What are the recession curve changes due to vegetation cover? Vegetation cover influences availability, flood issues, carbon sink?
- Some information is coming from Environment Waikato and Environment Bay of Plenty.
- An integrated team approach is needed to ensure everyone is doing their bit.
- Auditing of environmental effects post-harvesting of timber is not being done. A functioning auditing process is needed.
- Hauling logs through streams and gullies should be made illegal.
- Protecting native forests is a very expensive process. Fencing is expensive as strong fences are needed to prevent stock from intruding.
- There are some innovative things we can do. For example, the Otumoetai College Programme where at-risk kids are working on possum browser control.
- Do not commercialise pest species.
- Provide incentives and disincentives to encourage riparian management.
- Environment Waikato is doing excellent job. The Western Bay of Plenty has an excellent process making subdivision easier if ecological features such as wetlands are restored and protect. Farmers in Raglan are leading initiatives.
- Riparian strips create a conflict between recreation and conservation purposes.
- There should no building or development on flood plains or other inappropriate places.
Water allocation and usage
- There are water allocation issues associated with viticulture development.
- Wastewater treatment standard costs 17 million for 600 people
- People do not understand where water goes to after they use it, for example stormwater in lakes areas.
- Environment Bay of Plenty’s regulatory approach is very good.
- Subdivisions have water management implications. There is a district planning control issue. How can we do it better? E.g. storage takes and water holding. Better design is important.
- Water has been so cheap there is no incentive to conserve it.
Water quality
- When run off occurs, one of the results is siltation in the harbour.
- Removal of vegetation cover leads to run off and erosion. Post management and replanting of native bush is important.
- Inspection of wetlands is important.
- Soil types underpin our ability to mange water quality.
- Farming has an impact on the water quality in lakes. Incentives should be provided for dairy farms to adopt better practices.
- Biodiversity is important, not just people!
Climate change
Adaptation and mitigation
- Should geothermal energy be subsidised by Government?
- Adaptation is about exploring opportunities and impacts.
- The five tonne challenge should be implemented.
- Adaptation needs to be balanced with mitigation.
- “It’s not doom and gloom, it’s a challenge”.
- We need to look towards making our own operations more sustainable.
Education and information
- Work from the Ministry needs to be more widely communicated.
- There is very little information for schools. What projects can they be involved in?
- The climate change website needs to be promoted.
- Information needs to be made accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders.
- It would be good to use television to inform.
- Personalisation brings people on board.
- Central government should use regional/local government as a conduit for information dissemination. Information should be delivered by local regional government.
- The community wants information.
- The Ministry should run an education programme through schools.
- How the information is framed is important, e.g. taking action will save you money.
- Climate change is accepted as a reality nowadays. The public want to do something. Education packs are an obvious start and media coverage also important.
General comments
- The government is too airy-fairy.
- The big crunch questions are around energy and transport.
- Government has fallen behind where the public are at.
- Government needs to take “action”.
- Economics is a barrier. Is government adequately funded?
Environmental reporting
General comments
- Will the general public look at technical documents? Community groups should inform what we provide to the public.
- There is no correlation between councils reporting on LTCCPs and MfE.
- General reports need to tell people where they can get detailed information.
- There are problems with making comparisons at a national level because of differences in climate and geology.
- It is useful for one region to see what happens in another region and learn from it.
- The internet should be used more to provide people with information.
- Reporting comes from the perspective of government priorities. How can community aspirations be incorporated in to relevant indicators?
- Cultural issues are often not heard in the process of developing indicators and reporting.
- Maori work at hapu level, not iwi. Maori are not one body.
General interest
Energy
- In Scandinavia, planning is being decentralised. Could we do this in New Zealand?
- Energy efficiency is a consideration in the RMA.
Waste
- Amberley is recycling everything. Recycling needs to be cheaper than land filling if it is going to work. Government should provide incentives to encourage recycling and innovative use of materials.
- Labelling products so that people know what they can do with their waste will contribute to waste management.
- Our ecological foot print is too large. We need to move to a regulatory approach.
Climate change
- Switching from forestry to dairy has climate change impacts. Forestry owner should get the benefits of carbon credits.
- There is an issue around carbon credits of exploitation of developing countries-our excess is their deficit
- Our own behaviour makes it difficult to tell developing nations not to do what we have done while we continue to enjoy the benefits. Developed nations need to provide leadership to the rest of the world.
- Emissions from power generation and vehicle emissions are a major issue.
- Car pooling and public transport should be encouraged. The purchase of hybrid vehicles for car fleets should be promoted.
- Government should be spending money on the development of new technologies.
Education and information
- Education is needed to promote behavioural change and the encourage people to implement changes towards living sustainably.
- MfE needs to produce national guidance on cumulative effects.
- Environmental education is needed to raise awareness of the problems with the economic only model.
- Should MfE be more involved in education?
- The Ministry of Education is reviewing the curriculum now. MfE could comment on the curriculum.
- Board of trustees have control over whether to include environmental education in curriculum.
- MfE could contribute funding to help poorer areas with environmental education.
- How can environmental education be incorporated into the crowded curriculum? Teachers need to learn to teach environmental education. Environmental education can be part of all subjects.
- We are distracted from environmental concerns by sport, entertainment, etc.
- Tauranga Intermediate School is doing the “future problem solving programme”. This is about identifying problems and solutions. The school also has rubbish duty once a week and there is a conservation group.
General comments
- More regulation is needed in relation to solar panels and other aspects of sustainable building design. Direction is required from central government.
- There are cross boundary issues for flood management. The approach of territorial local authorities (TLAs) and regional government is ad hoc. They need to look at flood risk management in an integrated way. MFE should provide guidance and a standardised approach to flood management.
- Locals do not want the proposed 1 km long Waihi beach rock wall. Locals want a sandy beach. The wall will affect sand. Beach drainage should be used instead. The purpose of the wall is to prevent erosion of land. A case is being heard in the Environment Court in relation to the wall.
- The Ministry needs to provide guidance on coastal management, for example via a standard. Clarity is needed in policy statements.
- Ministry guidance is preferable to Environment Court decisions.
- Business does not want to be involved in dispute resolution
Last updated: 13 March 2008
