Juggling environment and economy a difficult act to pull off
Balancing protection of the environment with development of the economy is a tricky task for any government. In a small country like New Zealand, where open spaces and landscape are a cornerstone of our reputation and success, it is even more of a delicate trapeze act.
The Department of Conservation is the government agency dealing with this difficult conundrum. On the one hand it leads and monitors the traditional programmes protecting flora and fauna, and land values, that might be expected of such a department; on the other, it is a commercial venture, making money for the government from licences and concessions.
In recent years, and affected by budget cuts and restructuring, the department has been compelled to place a heavier emphasis on its commercial side. The National Government has encouraged that and advocated the ethos that the conservation estate has a variety of purposes. What that means is that rather than locking away the majority of that estate, ways should be found to make money from as much of it as possible.
As we also know, the Government has gone even further, testing the waters over prospecting and mining, and inciting a hue and cry by suggesting that some conservation land should be freed-up to allow companies to prospect for minerals there.
The recent announcement of international approval for the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark-Sky Reserve marked one of the great successes of environmental protection in this country. Conservation Department directorgeneral Al Morrison chose the accompanying third International Starlight Conference to outline his priorities in terms of the environment and the economy.
Morrison told his largely sympathetic audience the time had come to put the environ- ment ahead of the economy. The world could no longer afford the luxury of worrying about environmental matters only when the economy was strong and it was ‘‘an absurdity’’ that the prevailing political view was that to be environmentally healthy a nation first had to economically wealthy, he said.
Instead, nature had to be put in the ‘‘engine room’’ and it needed to be made clear the economy was just one part of a healthy environment.
Morrison’s choice of location and occasion for his statements was particularly interesting. The recognition for the area actually seems somewhat ironic, given that the careful guardianship of the Mackenzie Basin’s famous dark skies and the efforts to minimise light pollution are at odds with the area’s other environmental issues, notably the proliferation of intensive dairying in one of New Zealand’s driest places and its effect on fragile ecosystems.
It also has to remembered that the area’s environment has changed markedly since the construction of the Waitaki River hydro-electric power scheme, which generates a quarter of the country’s electricity.
An interesting counterpoint to Morrison’s views came from millionaire economist Gareth Morgan at the weekend’s Forest and Bird conference. Morgan warned the country needed to steer away from the ‘‘green extreme’’ of anti-economic development that was affecting the work of mainstream conservationists. He pressed for ‘‘considered conservation’’ instead.
We believe there is high value for New Zealand in its environment as a tourism earner. Tourism is our secondbiggest export industry, behind dairying, but is a fickle business, with spending power purely based on the economy of the tourists’ own country.
When the economies of Asian nations and Australia get the wobbles, it is reflected in the tourism take here.
New Zealand is also a protein creator, producing meat, fish and meat. This provides a more reliable source of income than tourism. However, making protein requires land and water, which in turn impinges on landscape and the environment. Anyone driving between Twizel and Omarama who has seen centre-pivot irrigators up to a kilometre long along the road can vouch for that.
Neither the economy nor the environment should dominate. Our society is based on economic development built on environmental protection. We can’t afford to put the economy second.