Since
the British settlement of New Zealand in the 1800’s, development of urban and
rural areas have sprung up and intensified to what we see today. During this
period the industrial revolution enabled the production of vast amounts of commodities.
Exponential growth enabled by the expansion of machinery for transport and processing
raw materials brought innovation feeding greater developments. Along with this
growth came challenges to managing demands on resources. The clearing of native
forests for pasture and draining of wetlands has reduced the area of native
flora by about 75%. Over time people came to realise that the environmental
effects from human activity would further degrade the environment and have
negative effects on natural cycles.
Early
conservationists saw the intrinsic values of New Zealand’s flora, fauna and
waterways and made their opinions clear by lobbying through parliament to
protect areas of surviving native bush which provide habitat for a multitude of
life forms. Examples of this are Governor George Bowen in 1873 protecting an
area of beech forest in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park; in the Tasman district, Perrine Moncrieff was credited with
being almost single-handedly responsible for setting aside land that would
eventually be the beginnings of Abel Tasman National Park which was officiated in
1942.
These
areas are now protected by the National Parks Act that was introduced in 1980
and the Conservation Act introduced in 1987. Prior to these acts where: the Soil
and Rivers Control Act 1941, the Nature Conservation Council Act 1962, the Water
and Soil Conservation Act 1967 and the Town
and Country Planning Act 1977. These acts were the primary legislation for
exercising control over how individuals and groups interacted with the
environment and its resources before the creation of the Resource Management
Act.
The Resource Management Act
The
Resource Management Act (RMA) came into effect in 1991 to manage increased
environmental problems. It replaced more
than twenty major statutes and fifty other laws related to the environment.
Some of these dated back as far as 1889. The RMA set out to create a more
streamlined way to manage the environment, or more importantly, manage how
people use the environment and natural resources. A review of local government (at the same time) provided legislators with a good opportunity to simplify the
way new legislation would be implemented.
How
we manage the environment is crucial to our economic and social well-being as
New Zealand’s tourism, farming, fishing and forestry industries are reliant on
the soil and water resources. Along with this, overseas markets and consumers
are increasingly eager to know that the products they consume are safe and
produced in an ethical fashion. New Zealand’s tourism sector trades on a clean
green image which has been branded as 100% Pure. This branding has been taken
literally by many foreign markets. However, this image is a direct result of
clever marketing and is far from the reality of environmental health in New
Zealand. The “100%Pure “image has been under scrutiny due
to growing homelessness, increased housing and accommodation issues, traffic congestion and agricultural pollution of waterways.
Locally,
the New Zealand population accepts the logic that the vitality of our economy
and standard of living results from the health of the environment. Although
environmental health is accepted as worth while protecting, the central government continues to push for growth of industry and development. Increased
growth and development manages to be termed as “Sustainable Development” by a
vast range of agencies and this concept of sustainable development was most likely inspired by the Bruntland Report. I think this approach is another form of marketing or
branding and does not actually confront the issues of environmental
degradation. The purpose of the RMA as set out in section 5 states: “The
purpose of this Act is to promote the sustainable management of natural and
physical resources”(Resource
Management Act 1991).
International influences
In
1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
published a report titled “Our Common Future”, also known as the Brundtland Report.
The name Brundtland Report was given in
recognition of former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland due to his
role as Chair of the WCED conference. The idea behind this report was to gain
buyin from a range of nations to deal with growing environmental and
development issues. This document was a culmination of discussions by scientists,
government representatives, industries, institutes, and the general public held
in various parts of the globe.
The Brundtland
Commission's mandate was to:
1. "Re-examine the critical issues of
environment and development and to formulate innovative, concrete, and
realistic action proposals to deal with them;
2. Strengthen international cooperation
on environment and development and to assess and propose new forms of
cooperation that can break out of existing patterns and influence policies and
events in the direction of needed change; and
3. Raise the level of understanding and
commitment to action on the part of individuals, voluntary organizations,
businesses, institutes, and governments".
The Commission also focused
its attention in the areas of human population growth, food security, the loss
of species and genetic resources, energy, industry, and human settlements realizing that all of these are connected and cannot be treated in isolation
one from another.
The Brundtland Report (the
report) also recognised that human development in relation to poverty
reduction, gender equity and wealth distribution was critical to forming
strategies on environmental conservation. The report also recognised that there
are environmental limits to economic growth in industrialised nations. The
report however could not identify what or who is responsible for environmental
degradation, but made reference to principles governing market led economic
growth and suggested that this could be reformed and introduced the term 'sustainable development'.
The concept of sustainable
development has now become one of the more common strap lines used by a range
of agencies worldwide. Sustainable development refers to a mode of human
development, in which resource use aims to meet human needs while ensuring the
sustainability of natural systems and the environmental status now and into the
future. Other key contributions of the report include recognition that
environmental problems are interlocking and require active participation from
all sectors of society.
Since the 1960’s there has
been a range of international political agendas and conferences pertaining to
environmental protection, such as: Biosphere conference, Polluter Pays
Principle, Conference on Human Environment, CITES the convention on
international trade in endangered species, Habitat Conference, Conference on
Desertification, Convention on Long Range Trans-boundary Air Pollution, The
United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea, The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change(IPCC), Earth Summit the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Kyoto
Protocol and the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Sustainable development structure as seen through the eyes of the World Bank, 2018.
These international
meetings and agreements are a sign that global politicians/corporations are
willing to look at solutions for environmental issues. Unfortunately, the
environmental problems continue to worsen as developing nations grow
exponentially. Increased demand from these nations continues to push economic
growth and is spurred on by mainstream corporations, politicians and media and
seen as necessary to maintain forward momentum for advancement to greater
wealth. The Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme is an excellent example of how
corporate greed can devise ways to profit from pollution. Corruption at the
uppermost levels of government continues to persuade and coerce public opinion
to accept these initiatives as being beneficial for the economy and of low
impact to the environment.
In the words the famous
scientist, broadcaster and author David Suzuki (2012):
"Scientists believe the earth has
experienced five major extinctions in its history, all caused by physical
forces. This time humans are the cause. Biologists estimate that we are losing
about thirty thousand species a year, or about three every hour, through
alteration of the landscape and the atmosphere, pollution, over exploitation of
plants and animals and introduction of alien species into ecosystems".
The point I am trying to
make is that the majority of documents pertaining to environmental protection
are not actually doing what they are intended to do and until world leaders restructure
their thinking and economic systems, humans will continue to cause the demise
of the life support mechanisms which supports life itself.
Sustainability
The environmental movement that
is based on a desire to protect the biosphere has largely been corrupted by the 'sustainability movement' which is based on a desire to maintain our
comfortable lifestyles and continue with growth. This fundamental shift
in values has gone from compassion for all living beings and the land to a
selfish desire to feel good about our inherently destructive way of life. The
sustainability movement makes mention of our capacity to 'change' with a focus
on the responsibility of individuals to make lifestyle choices within the
existing structures of civilization.
To achieve a truly sustainable
culture by this means is highly unlikely. Continued growth of industrial
infrastructure is incompatible with a healthy planet and if life on Earth is to
continue, the global political and economic structures need to be restructured. David
C. Korten (2010) an American economist and writer made the following statement
in his book titled Agenda for a New Economy:
"Wall Street operates as a criminal syndicate
engaged in financial scams and extortion rackets that impose unbearable costs
on society while serving no beneficial function not better served in other
ways. The need is not to repair Wall Street but to replace it with institutions
devoted to serving the financial needs of ordinary people in ways that are
fair, honest and consistent with the reality of our human dependence on the
Earths biosphere".
Sustainability is popular with corporations, media and
government because it fits perfectly with their aims. Maintain power,
increase growth and make people believe that they have power when they
don’t. Telling everyone to carry with business as usual and most importantly, keep consuming. Also, creating
and reinforcing the belief that voting for minor changes and buying more stuff
will solve all of our problems. Those in power have a highly effective strategy
for maintaining 'economic growth' and corporate controlled democracy. It could be
argued that sustainability is more about making our resources last longer into
the future and therefore reassuring future development and commerce for human
kind. It could also be said that sustainability is not really about
environmental protection but more about allowing growth in a slightly sustainable
fashion. Environmental health over financial wealth needs
to become the foundation for environmental law not only in New Zealand, but
globally.
According to Alan Giplin (1996) the definition of Environmental
Law:
It
is a body of state and federal statutes intended to protect the environment,
wildlife, land and beauty, prevent pollution or over cutting of forests, save
endangered species, conserve water, develop and follow general plans and
prevent damaging practices.
These laws often give individuals and groups the right to bring
legal actions or seek court orders to enforce the protections or demand
revisions of private and public activity which may have detrimental effects on
the environment (Gaplin).
The definition of Law:
Any
system of regulations to govern the conduct of a community, society or nation,
in response to the need for regularity, consistency and justice based upon
collective human experience
(Gaplin).
I believe laws are based on morals, values and beliefs and are designed to
put right the wrongs and also deter people from doing wrong. These ideals are
developed in communities that have a belief that the law will serve them and
bring order. Laws are subjective in the sense that sectors of a community can
agree or disagree with the law (what is right and what is wrong?). Hence,
people do not always follow what is legally correct depending on their moral
stand point. Laws can be changed to suit a certain sector of society depending
on who has the power. This has happened throughout history and continues today.
Corruption of ideals at state levels has the ability to sway the law to assist
those with power to become more powerful, and for the wealthy to attain more
wealth.
For example, fishing laws may change to reduce the catch quota for
recreational fishers, while at the same time commercial fishing will have no
change to their catch limit. This situation potentially reduces the ability of
the commoner to provide for themselves while allowing a commercial company to
profit more. The government in this case would also stand to profit more by
taxing the commercial company which increases government’s income.
At another level, laws could be changed to regulate commercial
fishing net configuration to allow small fish (illegal size) to escape before
being pulled up on deck where they die, and are then thrown back. New Zealand governing
fishing agency, Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) see’s no logic in regulating
net configuration and therefore will not enforce this as law or promote it as commercial
fishing best practice. Sectors of society see the benefit of commercial fishing
net configuration to sustain future fish stocks while MPI disagrees. In my
opinion, this is a missed opportunity for sustaining a valuable natural
resource and is a tragedy of the commons and thus a breach of the laws of logic.
Frédéric Bastiat, a French
economist, statesman, and author stated in his book titled The Law (1848):
“The
law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The
law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an
entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed!
Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to
punish! If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to
call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it”.
Law Reform
Laws are subject to change depending on government leadership
focus. Recently New Zealand was under the governorship of the National Party.
Their focuses was on 'creating jobs' and 'growing the economy' and have little
regard for environmental effects. This mindset has expanded through changes
to the RMA. Mainstream public of New Zealand are largely indifferent to law
reform, unless it directly affects their welfare or way of life. Fringe groups
and individuals on the other hand, are keen to counter these reforms with
petitions, submissions and protests. Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell was interviewed (2013) regarding the reform of the RMA and made the following comment:
"However,
the changes announced today will remove the requirement for decision-makers to
consider the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of the environment, or
to consider amenity values. It will also remove the requirement to consider the
fact that natural and physical resources are finite”.
People that are passionate about environmental protection are usually
the ones pushing for laws to protect the environment and have a tough task to
persuade governments to follow the laws they have instated. Governments can
counter by changing laws to benefit a certain group while at the same time
diminish the rights of the general populous. I believe that laws are only good
if they serve the purpose they are intended, and provide for the environment
and the people. Placing environmental health over personal, political or
commercial gain needs to prevail if humans are serious about sustainable development.
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