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In its Environment 2010 Strategy document the Government stated its vision for the New Zealand environment to 2010 and beyond as a clean, healthy and unique environment, sustaining nature and people's needs and aspirations.
A defining feature of our lifestyle is proximity and access to our coasts, mountains, forests, lakes and rivers. As living standards rise, people increasingly recognise the benefits of protecting the environment, both for themselves and their communities.
We have a heritage entrusted to us to protect for future generations. More than this, our economy depends on our natural resources. Tourism, now one of our biggest industries, is based and depends on the clean, green image of our country, while our agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishing industries rely increasingly on the continued good management of the environment to promote our exports.
Environmental issues require, by their very nature, a long term perspective. Through the Resource Management Act 1991, New Zealand committed itself to managing natural and physical resources sustainably and to taking into account the needs of future generations.
Since the publication of the 1994 Government strategy document, the Government has conducted a systematic evaluation of the environmental issues facing New Zealand. Entitled Environment 2010 Strategy, it set out for the first time a strategic overview of the way we as New Zealanders deal with environmental issues. It also identified the environmental challenges and problems we must address over the next 14 years, lists the priorities and provides a framework for dealing with them.
Maintaining the quality of water is a key environmental priority. There are major dangers of deteriorating water quality caused by runoff from agriculture and roads. In some areas, unsustainable land use practices such as overgrazing and loss of protective strips along streams and rivers lead to loss of sediment and destruction of aquatic habitat.
In cities, inadequate treatment or disposal of sewage and industrial effluent, together with stormwater runoff, damage water quality. Central and local government are beginning to tackle these problems, with steps such as establishing guidelines and standards, and requiring water users to bear more of the cost of their impact on the environment.
Another well recognised major environmental risk is that of damage to our forests and lands by pests, particularly possums. Possums now infest more than 90 per cent of the New Zealand countryside, every night eating an estimated 21,000 tonnes of foliage from trees and shrubs, native forests, threatening the survival of our native animals and plants and spreading bovine TB to our cattle and farmed deer in some areas.
Increased resources have been put into controlling possums and the Government has recognised that continuing investment in possum control must be made if we are to make in-roads into alleviating the possum problem.
Ecosystems are in a greater state of collapse than earlier thought. Consequently a number of our native plants and animals are threatened with extinction. More emphasis is being put into recovery programmes, including creating inland and offshore islands as safe havens for our threatened native species.
We face risks from the accidental or deliberate introduction of exotic flora and fauna. Foreign organisms can affect primary sector productivity, human health, native plants and animals. Accidental introduction of Asian gypsy moth or Asian tiger mosquito would be very damaging.
There is a threat of the spread of harmful marine organisms such as the Pacific seastar through ballast water discharges. These potential hazards are being addressed through careful analysis and the development of protocols for systematic risk assessment.
New Zealand faces difficulty in meeting its existing CO2 emissions target, and there is a prospect of international moves towards stricter commitments and timetables.
Because our CO2 absorption from forestry is now less than earlier projected, and with greater emissions arising from faster economic growth, we need to reconsider the implications of our policies for stabilising net emissions. In recent months the Government has established a working group to provide careful evaluation of the policy options on this issue.
Increasing demands on our natural resources from a strongly growing economy places our clean, green image at risk. In the past decade, tourism sector growth has soared, with arrivals up nearly 20 per cent in two years and expected to continue to grow 10 per cent per annum to the year 2000.
The potential overuse of some resources represents a challenge to the way they are managed. If developments in tourism and other sectors are not to be frustrated, growth has to be sensitive to New Zealand's unique environment, and our natural resources need to be well managed by both central and local government agencies.
Measuring the state of our environment and the progress we are making towards our environmental goals is an essential step. We need better and more reliable environmental information and quality standards. In particular, the Government will focus on moving forward the collection of environmental indicator information and on monitoring the impact of the Resource Management Act.
Risk management will also be a focus. The Government is developing a consistent risk analysis protocol for use among government departments, and a framework for comparing environmental risks is being examined. This will take into account the environmental risks and the severity of potential consequences. It is aimed at improving environmental priority settings.
The Government will focus on tackling the hard issues:
The Government will put in place a strategy for sustainable land management, including the coordination of research and information and making this relevant and available to land users.
The Government will tackle the key problem of runoff from agriculture and urban areas and will progressively put in place guidelines and standards for key aspects of water quality.
The Government will supply adequate funding for the Department of Conservation to carry out the Government's objectives for priority areas such as pests, weeds, threatened species, and to maintain its extensive network of tracks and facilities around the conservation estate which are being used by an increasing number of visitors.
A national biodiversity strategy will be developed, and the Government will take steps to protect species from habitat loss and predation by pests.
A larger number of at-risk natural species than previously thought have been identified and resources are needed to protect this important part of our bio-diversity.
The Government will continue to promote the uptake of energy efficiency and renewables, through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, through the energy sector reforms and through funding research and science in this sector.
Now that petrol is about to become lead-free, the Government will move to address other harmful environmental effects of transport. The Land Transport Pricing Study will help to establish the most important priorities, and how best to adjust transport prices to address them.
The Government has introduced the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Bill and will make it operative through establishing the Environmental Risk Management Authority. Further action will also be taken on contaminated site clean-up and establishing liability for orphan sites.
Enhancing the environment is the responsibility of all New Zealanders. Individuals, communities, non-governmental organisations, iwi, industry, local and central government all play a role in attaining this vision of New Zealand.