Rural Delivery: Lake and logs different cases

By ANDRA NEELEY*

The values of the waters of Lake Taupo seem set to test the legislation in the resource management process to its ultimate veto.

This is in contrast to sustainable logging on the West Coast, which was deprived of Resource Management Act (RMA) scrutiny due to Government sensitivity to an urban electorate's concerns over the felling of trees in a distant region.

Does the felling of trees provide an immediate photo opportunity of devastation that can motivate the couch greenies of Auckland, while the gradual nutrification of Lake Taupo will take so long that before the murky water appears, the current set of political masters will have long departed the stage?

The issue of water quality in Lake Taupo arises because of the very good state it is in and the perceived threat it is under from an increase in intensified land use in the catchment.

The history of land use in this country is one of huge developments which saw forests burnt, swamps drained, hills cleared and sheep, beef cattle and dairy cows graze the established pastures and build a national economy dependent on the export of agricultural produce.

During this development stage, early in the century, the land around Lake Taupo was left largely undisturbed. Its volcanic ash and pumice soils lacked fertility and its cobalt-deficient vegetation saw only horses survive its cold tussock landscapes.

About 30 years ago, with knowledge of cobalt deficiency solved, huge taxpayer investment brought much of the west Taupo catchment into production. Its rolling contour made the transformation from tussock and scrub to pasture profitable and much of the land was balloted under Lands and Survey schemes.

Unlike so much of our development, where science has come after to record the damage to water quality and soils, the Lake Taupo catchment provides a unique opportunity to predict what a proposed land use change would have. Because scientists have been recording changes on the catchment from when it was in a pristine state to the present day, there is an opportunity to prevent loss of an environmental value rather than finance the huge remedial costs which so often stand between land users and the environmental standards that the community wants.

If the catchment was to move from extensive sheep and beef production to intensive dairy or beef systems, the impact on the water quality would be utterly scientifically predictable.

On the West Coast, scientific assessments conflicted over the sustainability of Timberland's proposal to log. No such conflict arises about the impact of normal applications of fertiliser for intensive agriculture on the pumice soils of the Lake Taupo catchment.

The debate is one of how much reduction in water clarity is the community prepared to accept, and the equity issues for the impact on current land owners. One of the most interesting features of the RMA is the removal of central Government from the process, and placing of the decision making on to regional government, the community and ultimately the Environment Court.

The Government's mistrust of this process in the West Coast logging case was obvious. They were prepared to put a very large compensation package forward to buy off the deprivation they inflicted on the people of the region.

Therefore, one of the questions in the Lake Taupo case is, if the crystal-clear waters of the lake are a national treasure, should the land owners of the catchment not be compensated by the nation? Does central government have a compensatory duty when people are deprived of economic opportunity for the national good?

* Andra Neeley is a farmer and Waikato regional councillor.