Winston Peters: Make green image a reality

There was good news for part of New Zealand this week in a sector-wide decision to clean up the Manawatu River.
The Manawatu begins its run in pristine origins to slowly degrade into what some claim is the dirtiest river in the Southern Hemisphere. That is, of course, untrue but nevertheless it has over time become a national disgrace.
That there is a decision from that province and the government to begin its restoration is surely welcome. The Environmental Protection Authority has been set up and not before time. Improving water quality is part of its raison d'etre .
Painting a background to these events is the 100 per cent Pure campaign which was the subject of an attack on the British television programme Hard Talk in which Prime Minister John Key suffered the discomfort of explaining the campaign slogan against the facts. The interviewer used the judgment of a Massey University scientist, Mike Joy, and challenged the Prime Minister to both explain and defend the 100 per cent Pure claim.
Not surprisingly he could not and it has been a long time since any New Zealand Prime Minister could have. For like a number of countries gifted with great natural beauty and assets we have taken them for granted and done far too little to keep them that way.
Unfortunately in the controversy that followed the prime minister's appearance the debate has descended to the ridiculous. This includes Associate Tourism Minister Jonathan Coleman's saying that the 100 per cent Pure campaign was "aspirational", whilst a metropolitan newspaper claimed it "as true a slogan as it ever was" which beggars comprehension.
Mr Key made two statements. First, that if anyone went to New Zealand they "would find it as clean, green and pristine" as they probably expected. Second, that there would be no other country in the world cleaner. Sadly the Prime Minister is wrong on both counts and he clearly has far too many New Zealanders who think the same when it comes to our environmental claims.
Many of us can recall growing up in rural New Zealand where appalling amounts of agricultural effluent were deliberately leaked in to our creeks and rivers, so much so that one could smell and taste it in the water. As a youngster a number of us used a lagoon at the end of a creek which occasionally flushed in to a Northland beach.
Being just a metre and a half deep it would be brilliantly tepid by a midsummer afternoon and we thought we were in swimming heaven. Given what was baking in that lagoon it's a wonder some of us are still alive.
Imagine also one's disappointment not too long ago looking over a dairy farm that was to become the new Ngawha Prison and seeing a bridge over a stream covered with bovine effluent 400cm deep and dripping in to the water system.
That's a picture that has been common all around our country. The great thing about the Manawatu decision this week was that the farming community was throwing its weight behind cleaning the river up and that attitude is needed all around New Zealand. There is much that farming and business can do in this respect and to be fair government needs to consider short-term incentives for these groups to help them contribute to the clean-up.
And a little bit of nationwide humility would help as well. We need to recognise that some First World countries are environmentally light years ahead of us and learn and borrow some of their initiatives.
Running through the middle of Stockholm City in Sweden is a river that is testimony to that nation's commitment to clean, green best practice. Sweden is a wealthy country like Norway and both have a lot to teach us.
One day recently looking into that river I was staggered by the pristine condition of the water where the bottom of the river bed was as clear as any mountain river, with not a scrap of litter. Three old pensioners had just caught a salmon from that river smack in the middle of the capital and there were prospects of catching more.
It's moments like these that would persuade any sceptic of how we are missing out. Any visit to a similar stream or river in any of our cities or towns is testimony to that. Rubbish, scum and the organism growth from fertilisers that first, should never have got in to the stream and second, is a waste of nutritional investment abound everywhere usually on top of half a metre of mud.
It makes little sense to paint the environmentalists as extremists. On this issue what they are asking for, in enlightened countries, is the norm. However, all of us have to pay for the clean-up whether it be our lakes, rivers or beaches. We are still a primary production country in terms of our wealth. That is to all of our benefits which should surely reflect a collaborative will to contribute towards making the slogan, 100 per cent Pure, justified and not some tourism enticement.