Marie Brown: Answer there if we want to halt loss

Improvements to captive breeding techniques that have seen the kakapo rescued from extinction is an example of a practical solution, but they cost.

Opinion

In the second of two parts on our ‘vanishing nature’, Marie Brown looks at solving the biodiversity crisis.

Yesterday we highlighted the importance of protecting nature, demonstrated how it underpins our long-term prosperity and showed that we are not doing a good enough job of protecting it.

And we established it was because there are loads of incentives to cause harm to the environment and far fewer to protect it.

Every problem has a solution, though.

We think the solutions exist at three levels: the practical level (on-the-ground conservation stuff), the tactical (balancing public and private interests) and the strategic (game-changer solutions that make more people want nature protected).

We need solutions at all of these levels and they need to work together. The good news, of course, is that some of these solutions already exist or are in progress.

Practical solutions are those that help us to use what resources we have more effectively and new ones appear all the time. Improvements to captive breeding techniques that have seen species like the black robin and the kakapo rescued from extinction are an example, as is more recent research on using pheromone lures to control pests at low densities.

Practical methods and approaches are developed through investment in science, innovation and in supporting the conservation sector to upscale them. Everyone wants these solutions because they make hard jobs easier (for example, pest control), so they also tend to have political support.

But they cost money and we already know money is hard to get.

Tactical solutions like law and policy balance the interests of the wider public in protecting nature with the goals of those wanting to degrade nature for their own gain. We've already talked about how this is difficult because the stronger player usually wins the game.

However, clear law and policy and other tactical solutions are still critical. They set environmental bottom lines, control harmful activities and require consideration of things like Te Tiriti o Waitangi. While New Zealand has a lot of these, some are not fit for purpose.

Take our marine law and policy. The almost obsolete Marine Reserves Act 1971 makes no mention of Te Tiriti, provides for only one tool - no-take marine reserves - and only allows for reserves to be established for "scientific" purposes. Such a narrow focus for such a crucial framework. We recommend far more modern and effective marine legislation.

The protection of wildlife, especially threatened species, needs some work - the opaque interaction between the RMA and the Wildlife Act 1953 sees the likes of lizards routinely falling through statutory gaps.

National guidance to councils is essential to improve consistency and standards of management throughout the country, and the long-awaited and oft-drafted Proposed National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity could well fill that gap.

Strategic solutions are the real game-changers. Instead of stakeholders all wanting different things that require "balancing", strategic solutions drive everyone towards the same outcomes, even if for different reasons.

A good example of a strategic solution is a partnerships approach that draws on the collective strength of all stakeholders toward a goal.

The Department of Conservation's recent reorienting in this direction shows some promise, although we suggest how it could and should be enhanced so it will protect nature in the process.

Other strategic solutions could involve novel economic institutions designed to compensate society for the value of nature consumed for private gain. This would generate substantial funding, which could then be directed to conservation to help fill the funding gap.

The really striking thing about these kinds of game-changer solutions, though, is that they also make lower-level solutions much easier to implement (more money from taxing damage means more money for conservation).

But all kinds of solutions are critical in their own way for the challenge that is turning the tide on the loss of nature in New Zealand.

In Vanishing Nature, we recommend six key tasks to achieve necessary change:

• Improve and right-size funding for conservation of nature

• Design economic tools that incentivise conservation and penalise harm

• Mobilise the public to prompt/provide leadership and vision

• Improve the effectiveness of legislation and implement it well

• Improve accountability and monitoring to accurately track outcomes

• Improve resourcing and support for critical frontline conservation

Protecting New Zealand's fragile natural world will take energy and commitment and substantial progress across all six of these areas. Its loss is not inevitable: it is a choice.

Vanishing Nature: facing New Zealand's biodiversity crisis, by Marie A. Brown, R. T. Theo Stephens, Raewyn Peart and Bevis Fedder, Environmental Defence Society, 2015.

Dr Marie Brown is the senior policy analyst at the EDS.