PCE report challenges Government on environment

A new report calls for more environmental protection of the South Island high country at the same time as the Government is weakening the laws and rules that could protect it, the Green Party said today.

The Green Party has welcomed today’s report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) on the environmental impacts of tenure review, especially the recommendation that further deals affecting the high-country land only proceed if environmental protection is guaranteed.

“The PCE’s report confirms Green Party concerns that the current process has resulted in the daylight robbery for our precious biodiversity, further degradation of our lakes and streams, and that protecting what remains is an opportunity to create jobs,” said Green Party Conservation Spokesperson Metiria Turei.

The report states that continued intensification of privatised leases will inevitably result in “significant adverse impacts on adjacent water quality” (p60), contrary to the primary objective of the Crown Pastoral Lease Act, which is to promote ecologically-sustainable land management.

“Water pollution and overuse in New Zealand has already reaching boiling point,” Mrs Turei responded, “yet the PCE is warning us that continuing to intensify farming in high country will vaporise our lakes and streams, and thoroughly ruin our clean green reputation so crucial for tourism and export markets.”

“On water issues alone, this report is a massive wake-up call for the Government, yet right now the Government’s agenda is to weaken the only regulatory tool to fix this problem, the Resource Management Act.”

The report recommends comprehensive rules for water pollution in the Otago and Canterbury Regional Plans under the RMA (p79), and raises concerns about the ‘cumulative consequences’ of both farming practices and water quality (p59-61).

Mrs Turei said, “The PCE’s report makes it clear that environmental protection needs to be strengthened, yet the Government is hell-bent on weakening the RMA at present.”

The report recommends Government-funded control of weeds and tree-planting initiatives to restore forests.

“We are pleased that the report has picked up these weed-control and tree-planting ‘Green New Deal’ economic stimulus and job creation initiatives that we are currently lobbying the Government to adopt,” said Mrs Turei.

Confirming scientific evidence the Greens tabled in Parliament in 2007, the PCE’s report states that for every six hectares of highest-priority conservation land, only one hectare has been actually protected.

Mrs Turei said, “The overwhelming loss of our most threatened biodiversity is shameful. We were very disappointed that the Government’s intervention in 2006 completely ignored the evidence of privatisation and destruction of our chronically threatened ecosystems.”

“We wholeheartedly support the recommendation of a High Country Commission to ensure better environmental outcomes, and the PCE’s call for new and significant reviews to only proceed when environmental protection is demonstrated,” Mrs Turei concluded.