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31 May 2005

OECD review of environmental performance – NGO views.

Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ (CORANZ)

CORANZ is a council of 6 major national outdoor recreation associations formed in 1998. The Council was formed to advocate for and promote the common interests of outdoor recreation participants at the national level. This was because of concern among many outdoor users that, although the outdoors and recreation are very important components of the New Zealand psyche, this has not been reflected by political and official decision making, or by national sports/recreation departments or administrators.

Our member associations include -

· NZ Federation of Freshwater Anglers (trout) · NZ Salmon Anglers Association

· NZ Deerstalkers Association · Public Access New Zealand

· NZ Bowhunters Society · Marlborough Recreational (Sea) Fishers Association

We have a mutually supportive partnership with the national recreational sea fishing group, option4.

The Council advocates for the common interests of the million or more New Zealanders who fish, shoot, tramp, ski, canoe, climb, walk, mountainbike, botanise, photograph and relax in New Zealand’s great outdoors.

The combined membership of our member bodies is some 18,000 with a wider support base of approximately 200,000 individuals. The latter are represented by CORANZ member groups’ constituent organisations who have pledged support for these objects.

The Council’s four Constitution objects are –

1. A Strong Outdoor Recreational User Voice

2. Land and Water Protection and Wise Management

3. Public Ownership and Management

4. Free Public Access to the countryside

The Council is primarily a voluntary organisation, with constituent associations paying their own way. Our office is in Wellington. Our main activities are advocating for a better deal for outdoor recreation, laws to be interpreted fairly, environmental quality, and recreational skills training. We produce a three yearly Outdoor Recreation Election Charter, the last in 2002.

CORANZ views on New Zealand’s environmental performance

New Zealand’s environmental performance is heavily influenced by whether the National or Labour parties is in power. National is a far right party that pursues a transnational capitalist agenda of privatising public utilities and resources, primarily to foreign transnational corporates, to the cost of the local community and the environment. As well it suppressed government expenditure, increased taxes on middle and lower income groups, and suppresses wages and salaries. National was the senior government partner from 1990 to 1999.

Public utilities and resources privatised during this time included – railways and interisland ferries, telecoms, some major energy generators (gas, some electricity), commercial fisheries, electricity lines companies, public transport, and there were proposals to privatise most main roads to toll roads.

The main goal was to remove the environment and the local community as a cost and impediment to foreign corporate profits. Foreign owners generally had little interest in protecting the New Zealand environment or community. The main environmental act, the Resource Management Act (RMA), was attacked to make it even more ineffective. But citizen groups managed to delay the legislation. Roads also were not privatised.

This neo-colonialist National government was voted out in 1999. A centrist Labour coalition government (with help from the Green Party, Alliance, and since 2002, United Future) has governed since December 1999. Though it too has a policy of “free trade” with all and sundry, including China, the United States and Singapore, it has been more caring about the environment.

It has a Jeckell and Hyde attitude to the RMA, but so far it’s improvements have outweighed its attacks. Mediation approaches have greatly speeded appeals and allowed real community group participation, limited financial aid is now available for citizen groups, some privatisations have been barred (community water supply), and national policy statements are favoured.

New Zealand has signed Kyoto, and signalled introduction of a carbon tax. Government favours renewables such as wind, solar, though progress is slow, and fanatically opposed by supply side fossil interests. Environmental initiatives such as surrender of erosion prone South Island High country mountain land from grazing, and returning it to full public parkland is progressing.

A major unsustainable South Island hydro scheme, Project Aqua was stopped after massive cost blowouts and community opposition. Endeavours through a voluntary accord, are being made to clean up dairy pollution in water and aquifers.

CORANZ Views on NZ’s Environmental performance

Since 1999, the main achievements and areas for progress in air, water, waste and nature management have been:

1 South Island High Country Tenure Review (positive impacts on water and soil quality, native biodiversity and natural landscape protection): Continuation with the surrender from Crown pastoral leases of land with natural landscape, native biodiversity, outdoor recreation and water and soil conservation values, and the addition of this primarily mountain land to the public conservation estate. At the same time, land capable of sustainable production is freed from the restrictive pastoral lease tenure, and has become more productive for other uses including vineyards.

There are significant problems with the unfairness and incompetence of the process, especially about providing adequately for public access, and protecting tussocklands, and natural landscapes, because they also have grazing potential. These greatly favour the lessee in negotiations with the Government ie Land Information NZ (LINZ). Government is still working through these problems, seven years after the Act was passed.

2 Greater Ability to participate in the RMA, via Environmental Legal Aid Fund, and Mediation: The introduction of the Environmental Legal Aid Fund by the labour-Greens Government in 2001, though limited to $20,000 per case, ahs assisted community groups be represented. A second initiative, mediation between the parties has helped reach compromises that may not have happened through a court legal process, and reduced costs, sped up conclusions. However a Bill before Parliament seeks to allow central Government impose its views on communities in a most extreme way, with no checks and balances.

Downsides:

3 Government’s Water programme of Action; Freshwater Pollution, and Cheap water Shortage because of Intensification of Land Use: Intensification of land use eg for irrigated vineyards, irrigated dairy farms, is putting pressure on New Zealand’s freshwater resources in some regions. As a consequence, and to continue New Zealand’s primary exports, Government has instituted a so called “Water Programme of Action”, to free up water for industry exploitation.

Summer river flows and water quality in drier eastern regions eg Canterbury, Hawkes Bay, Marlborough etc are most at risk. New Zealand is not short of water as regular extreme floods, some in summer, testify. What industry is short of is cheap water.

CORANZ supports embracing water harvesting – saving water from high flow periods to use in droughts, and collecting and storing it above its area of use to minimise pumping costs. This happened in Central Otago in the 1930s. But Government wants to take water from minimum flows in summer droughts. This is costly economically (it uses scarce electricity to pump the water) and environmentally. We have concerns about privatisation of water and pollution, rather than the community investigating and adopting sustainable measures.

Also, all the 1960s thinking about grabbing water for additional supply side hydro schemes, in place of energy Demand Side Management, energy efficiency and distributed generation, is surfacing again. This highlights New Zealanders do not understand or like, some of the basic concepts of long term sustainability. Or of the end of cheap oil.

Since 1982, nationally important wild and scenic rivers have been able to be protected from damming, abstraction etc, by national water conservation orders (NWCOs) to protect the amenity or intrinsic values of waters in their natural state.

Departments are now trying to undermine this protection concept by defining water bodies of national importance for exploitation eg for irrigation, hydro generation, industrial pollution etc. Such uses have nothing to do with a specific natural qualities of the water body. They are often uses that can be met by any water body eg irrigation, or by a new one eg water harvesting. Their sole reason for being seems to confuse, and by so doing make it easier to grab the water, as “there is no alternative” (TINA).

This is a blatant attempt by officials to undermine protective mechanisms for water bodies and confuse decision makers. Rivers that had been totally dammed eg the Waikato, Upper Waitaki, were not even rated as important for hydro electricity, highlighting Officials’ farcical approach.

True consultation on this project has been non-existent. Departmental staff take no notice of what NGO groups say. Minutes do not reflect what happened. There is no financial assistance to Environmental NGOs to allow them to participate.

4 Government Approved Commercial Overfishing of many sea fish Species: New Zealand’s much hyped commercial Quota Management System (QMS) seems always to allow Mfish (Ministry of Fisheries) to create commercial overfishing, with subsequent collapse of the fishery. This has happened with the long lived species orange roughy, and with the major hoki fishery. Problems also arise from the industry habit of fishing for species when they congregate to spawn. Hardly a sustainable practice.

A large part of the problem is that the QMS privatises the fishery to commercial participants, so eliminating effective community participation. Also, unlike the RMA Legal Aid fund, there is no public funding of community and recreational participation in the process. Consequently, NGOs do not have the time or resources to adequately represent their interests.

In contrast, the commercial sector has pots of dough, and makes far more than it spends lobbying by skewing the system in its favour, and against long term sustainability.

We also have grave concerns that the scientific knowledge needed to successfully manage the sea fishery sustainably is not there, as the commercial industry controls the science programme. Officials seem to have lost understanding of the sea fish food chain relationship between species, where one species feeds on others, and little allowance is made for it in the QMS.

There is also a desire by the Department to privatise all species, no matter how small the sustainable catch, or the fact that some species are primarily recreational eg kahawai, kingfish or traditional eg eels. Usually when the commercial fishers collapse their fishery, the recreational and traditional fishery catches are also cut back. Normally the precautionary principle is not followed, and it seems that the Government is reluctant to reduce commercial catches under the QMS because of financial penalties.

Recently MFish moved to put recreational shellfish into the commercial QMS. They did not even bother to do a resource assessment for these four species. (Full submissions available) New Zealand already has a bad record of wiping out shellfish species eg toheroa, probably paua soon. The Ministry seems to have no idea of what sustainability is.

Unfortunately, commercial interests take a short term view, that overfishing now is more important than sustainable fishing for the next 50 years. Often Quota Management areas are enormous, allowing pillaging in some areas while saying the total take is sustainable, when the industry is simply mining the resource. Overfishing by the commercial sector leads to reductions in the recreational catch. The main goal of Mfish seems to be to squeeze out recreational and indigenous fishing from as many areas as possible as soon as possible.

The ecosystem is also damaged because poaching of paua (abalone), crayfish and other prize species, are often as large as the permitted commercial take. The world’s sea wild fisheries have been mainly in decline since about 1985. The New Zealand sea wild fishery is also in rapid decline, the QMS notwithstanding.

5 Lack of Scientific Understanding of the Marine and estuarine Ecosystems and consequent Incompetent Marine Management: Carries on from point 4 above. The value of freshwater springs, and beach water interfaces as sources of food for marine species are not recognised. Pine trees, which produce one of the most effective natural weed killers, planted on shorelines also kill sea ecosystems. Treated water released from sewage plants is not recognised as far different from ordinary sea water etc.

Conclusion: How are New Zealand’s government agencies, businesses and other organisations performing:

Government agencies

Mfish, and MfE (Water Programme of Action) don’t take sustainability, or public consultation seriously. DOC struggles, and has a very narrow protectionist view, and favours international tourism.

Businesses are variable.

The Sea Fishing industry has no concept of or care for sustainable fisheries. The Energy and Electricity industries promote exponential growth and supply side management even these are obviously unsustainable in the medium term. The Tourism industry also believes in exponential growth. But some parts of it are aware that 100% Pure means significant restraint. The Fiordland Marine Park concept shows NGOs and tourist businesses can work together to move towards sustainability.

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Public Participation in Environmental Management

Access to Information: It is too easy for agencies subject to the OIA (Official Information Act) to deny or delay the release of information.

Public Consultation and participation

Mechanisms exist for public consultation with most key Government agencies eg Department of Conservation, Ministry for the Environment, Environmental Risk Management Authority, Ministry of Fisheries eg regular meetings with senior officials. We value these. As well, ministers and Members of parliament are very accessible, which we greatly value also.

But being heard and taken account of, doesn’t always follow. In New Zealand, there is the opportunity through the media, to raise issues. This is usually a pre-requisite for true debate, and sometime Officials, but more likely Government ministers can be convinced. As expressed above, this is highly dependent on which government is in power.

Agenda 21 and other initiatives

Apart from lobbying for sustainable government policies, see our list of key issues, we are not directly involved in any specific Agenda 21 initiatives. Outdoor recreation users help the Department of Conservation by owning and maintaining some back country huts, sometimes with Departmental assistance<>

Sustainable Development

Economic Instruments

Centrist parties seem to scared to tax bads. Right wing governments of course want to privatise pollution, to allow speculation and manipulation in it and to create rights that make equitable solutions impossible for the community to attain.

A small carbon tax ($12/tonne) is to be introduced in 2007, if the current government stays in power. Pollution charges do not appear to be on the agenda. Water is not charged for by the community. Little incentive for energy conservation, because of a major Carbon exploiter lobby.

Sectoral policies

Minimalist interference with the market. Unsatisfactory. Eg over exploitation of our sea fishery – see above, driven by short term economics.

A sector where significant progress has been made is transport. Here there is major support for public transport, and other non-car modes (walking, cycling). But the private road transport still gets the lion’s share of funding. Road congestion in major cities has been made worse by cheap Japanese car imports.

New Zealand’s energy policy is in disarray, with the electricity “market” clearly not working, except for generators and lines companies, all of which are making record exponentially rising profits. Government’s light handed regulation looks more like a light fingered scam.

Agriculture: Progress was being made on cleaning up dairy effluent. South Island tenure review is a two way split of high country wildlands, that will protect the environment, and free up the very conservative large high country leases, for more flexible, hopefully sustainable management. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has shown leadership in pointing the way to more sustainable paths in many sectors.

Integration

What are your organisation’s views on the environment-social interface: progress towards integration, environmental justice, education and awareness? One difficulty has been the gutting of independent science. Government science has been privatised to Crown Research Institutes whose main task is to make money, not do appropriate science. New Zealand lags Australia and other western countrie badly in this regard. Science capability in DOC and the MfE is minimal.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment

Dr Hugh Barr, Secretary

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Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand, (Inc.) Dated: June 2005