Three researchers talk about how Auckland's environment isn't quite as green as we thought, and what we can do to improve.
Auckland consistently ranks highly in lists of the world's best cities but is never number one. So what would it take to turn Auckland into a first-class city? This week the Herald begins a 10-day series examining some of the biggest hurdles Auckland faces, from housing and transport to entertainment and education. We look at what we are doing, what we need to do, and why Auckland's success matters to the rest of the country. In the second part of the series we look at the environment
Q: How do you feel Auckland compares globally for the wellbeing of our environment? A: Compared with many urban areas internationally, Auckland is home to some great biodiversity jewels: the Hunuas, the Waitakeres, Hauraki Gulf Islands and myriad reserves in between comprising beautiful coastline including shellbanks, rich mangrove forests and huge coastal pohutukawa forest.
We are extraordinarily lucky to live alongside them, but we sometimes aren't very good at living with them.
Sustainability and public transport connections also don't seem to be well considered in most instances, so development precedes sufficient infrastructure, resulting in overall reduced resilience.
Q: What, in your view, are the main drivers of environmental harm or damage in Auckland? A: It's likely a combination of development, pollution, biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and others.
Biodiversity loss is a serious concern, and is not helped by insufficient maintenance budgets for regional and district parks management and other functions.
We have an astonishing natural environment and we need to address the drivers of loss, but also identify the barriers to conservation.
Q: How is this expected to change or deteriorate as the city's population grows? A: Urbanisation is essentially an irreversible process and the choices we make now will have intergenerational implications.
There is a narrow window of time in which we can make good choices, such as where to provide for nature to develop and remain connected, how to house people, where to locate hubs of services and how to manage the great volume of people needing to move from place to place.
The window is closing, so it seems like we're at a bit of a fork in the road.
And all of the decisions we make have massive implications for the ability of indigenous biodiversity to persist and for social wellbeing overall.
Good cities for tui, are good cities for people too.
A long term strategic view is needed if we are to manage future challenges for Auckland and retain our natural heritage in the process.
A brilliant sunset highlights Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Q: What are steps that we could take to remedy the issue in the short term? A: The immense upheaval to the planning system in Auckland combined with the Department of Conservation (DOC) restructure has been hard on the staff in both organisations and has detracted from long term goals like biodiversity maintenance protection.
The dust is settling and it's time to really get stuck in.
And where the rules are in place, we need to ensure they are monitored and enforced.
Vanishing Nature really illustrated the degree of the implementation gap, New Zealand-wide.
Lots of issues are under-cooked in the plan as it stands and the public interest is not well-represented in a long and resource-intensive planning process with no participatory funding for individuals, community groups and NGOs.
The Environmental Defence Society has felt this keenly.
Protecting the public interest in nature conservation is a crucial outcome of the PAUP.
Sediment is a real concern. Fine sediment settling on the sea floor has huge implications of water quality and biodiversity.
Sixty-nine per cent of the Auckland region is actually the marine environment including the harbours and yet the controls on sediment loss in the PAUP are very weak.
Urban biodiversity has enormous economic, ecological, social and cultural value and yet we have reduced our protection of these to mainly scheduled items - pretending nature is static and unchanging.
Traditionally, New Zealand doesn't implement economic incentives for retaining nature or engaging in environmentally sensitive design - and we desperately need to diversify the tools we use to get the outcomes we need.
Firstly, we need to connect people with nature - and this is so important in a city of 1.5 million people with such natural jewels close by.
Secondly, we need investment in community outreach and conservation programmes.
Unfortunately, this is the reverse of what we see happening at Auckland Council, where funding for proactive community engagement on environmental matters has been slashed in the Auckland Long-Term Plan.
Community groups are amazingly active in Auckland, but they need secure funding, institutional recognition and to be celebrated.
In urban areas, engagement with the population is crucial to build a strong social mandate for conservation there and in the wilderness.
Thirdly, we need investment in science and traditional knowledge to build better understanding of natural processes and the special species we share the isthmus with.
This means experienced staff in council, in DOC and in other organisations such as Landcare Research being funded and retained to provide those insights.
Again, we are seeing the reverse with loss of focus on biodiversity research, loss of biodiversity expertise in those organisations and low political support for biodiversity functions.
Lastly, we need to better fund frontline conservation.
A lot of New Zealand's threatened ecosystems are located really close to where people live, and Auckland is a great example of that.
Planting, pest control and other conservation management tasks need money, expertise and long term commitment.
For many species, there isn't much time and there is a need to urgently upscale.
