A shot of cash can help save our natural capital

In 2012, Sir David Attenborough, reflecting on 60 years of natural history film-making, said: ‘‘For me, as for countless others, the natural world is the greatest of all treasures. And yet, in my lifetime, we have damaged it more severely than in the whole of human history.’’

Attenborough’s observations apply wherever human activity is focused on extracting and maximising economic benefit from the natural world.

However, relatively few of these activities are ecologically sustainable, and even in our country we have a legacy of ongoing habitat destruction.

The natural capital that we deplete today provides fewer choices for future generations, as ecosystems become more disturbed, less biodiverse, less resilient, and more vulnerable.

That is why the Government’s announcement of $140 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) for the West Coast transition from coal is farsighted. This is the West Coast’s second ecological package. In 2001, $92m was invested to transition from native-forest harvesting. It highlights the important concept that capital is necessary to help local communities transition to more ecologically sustainable industries – substantial capital that only a government can provide.

Otherwise, as occurred in the 1980s free-market reforms, small communities bear the heavy economic and social costs of abrupt regulatory change. These communities are heavily dependent on primary industries.

This is the case for pine harvesting, which is pouring millions of tons of topsoil into streams and coastal areas, in places like the East Coast and Marlborough Sounds, which depend on forestry.

But in these areas the land is too unstable, soils too erodible, and the clear-felling and tracking too corrosive to retain topsoil, leading to significant impacts in sensitive ecosystems.

In the Marlborough Sounds, community groups and industry are preparing a $50m PGF proposal to create a trust to address legacy and transition issues in an equitable way. With appropriate representation, governance, and operating principles, the trust would buy cutting or replanting rights, install coastal setbacks of at least 100m, and retire steep erosion-prone faces.

It would also foster new economic opportunities such as walking and bike trails, ma¯ nuka honey, alternative forestry, ecotourism and nature conservation.

The PGF could also play a critical role in solving the largest environmental issue by scale that New Zealand faces outside of climate change.

Every year within our coastal waters alone, over a million kilometres of heavy trawl equipment criss-crosses the sea floor, impacting fragile reefforming organisms, and stirring up sediment plumes.

The government’s own reporting shows the scale of damage to our seabed ecosystems from 1990 to 2014 is comparable to that of the Brazilian Amazon. The damage over millions of hectares varies in intensity, frequency, and patchiness, just like deforestation, and the actual area can only be estimated from voyage data.

Our scientists have also shown that biodiverse marine habitats that capture carbon, cycle nutrients, stabilise sediments, and provide shelter and feeding areas for marine life, are being hammered.

These ecosystems are the marine equivalent of oldgrowth forests, the wondrous long-lived sponge gardens, horse-mussel beds, and coral-like reefs, which provide complex biodiverse habitats.

So what, you might ask? Why shouldn’t I be able to eat affordable terakihi, snapper and monkfish?

This is eerily reminiscent of the desire for rimu floors in the days of clear-felling native forests, where old-growth habitat was cut down over thousands of hectares.

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle describes it like this: ‘‘Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life. It’s akin to using a bulldozer to catch a butterfly, destroying a whole ecosystem for the sake of a few pounds of protein.’’

New Zealand has an internationalscale environmental issue, which we have not been ready to acknowledge. The PGF offers a timely and appropriate capital mechanism to help the fishing industry transition away from bottom-trawling.

So rather than using the influence of political donations to stall the inevitable evolution towards ecological sustainability, an industry proposal in partnership with local communities to ensure enduring fishing jobs would be more futurefocused.

This collaborative approach is essential if New Zealand is to meet its international biodiversity obligations, most recently reaffirmed in Egypt by the minister of conservation.

In launching the NZ Biodiversity Strategy in 2000, then prime minister Helen Clark said: ‘‘Biodiversity is everyone’s business.’’

The PGF offers a unique opportunity to invest in local community wellbeing, and to move to a future that the next David Attenborough might highlight as an exemplar in the coming age of habitat restoration. Having some four decades, involved in land development and having cycled a number of trails in New Zealand and overseas, I have some knowledge to what is required to form a cycle path along various terrain.

From the premise that cyclists do not cycle in the sea (or within the tidal zone) and that surfers do not surf on the land, I have looked into what could be the issues where recent publicity suggests there is a conflict.

Having walked Mangamaunu Bay and perused aerial photographs, I consider that the cycle/ walking path can be constructed without any effect on the wave action of the surf beach.

There are sections at the southern end of the bay where the construction of a boardwalk cycle /walkway will be necessary. This structure can be located some height above mean water mark, and this boardwalk could could be used by surfers to access their desired launching area.

The remainder of the cycle/walkway track can be formed following the land contour within the vegetation zone between the railway and the sea. A 1.5 to 2 metre width metalled is sufficient and can be formed with minimal excavation.

The Kaikoura Earthquake of 2016 raised the land significantly, leaving it now well above high tide level.

Having a cycle/walking track formed around Mangamaunu’s coastline will also benefit surfers, as this will provide much easier access to their launching sites from designated car parks.

Perhaps opponents to the construction of a cycle/walking trail around publicly owned land of Mangamaunu could respond to this letter and explain what the conflicts of interest are.