KEY POINTS:
The Resource Management Act 1991, in existence for 16 years, is supposed to protect New Zealand's environment.
But much of the thinking behind it is now outdated, a remnant of late the 1980s. Does it need a tune-up or a more fundamental makeover to tackle the environmental pressures
of the new century?
In answering that question, the recent OECD review of New Zealand's environmental performance is especially telling.
In the review period (1996-2002) we lost 175 sq km of indigenous habitat. Our lake and river water quality continued to diminish, largely as a result of pollution from farming.
Air quality is still below international standards in some of our cities and poses serious health risks. Our greenhouse gas intensity per capita is fourth highest in the OECD.
It is clear that New Zealand's environmental management has some serious shortcomings.
As the world community is becoming more aware of environmental performance, that situation poses a real threat to our economic welfare.
Some 80 per cent of our foreign exchange earnings are from resource-based sectors, including agriculture and tourism, and rely on the integrity of the clean green image that underpins "Brand New Zealand".
The Resource Management Act governs the use of all air, water and land. It is the toolkit that enables us to manage our environment in a sustainable way.
If we are to lift our environmental performance, it will be under that act. But do we have the right tools, and are those that we have being used properly?
I believe the answer to both questions is no.
As an environmental litigator, the Environmental Defence Society is well-placed to understand the shortcomings of the RMA. It is effects-based law, enabling people to do things with their land so long as the environmental effects are acceptable. It approaches issues largely in a site-specific way.
As a result, it is not good at taking a strategic view and looking at cumulative effects - say of farming run-off - of many activities across broad areas. Its ad hoc approach to sustainable management is hopelessly out of date to meet the new population and development pressures we are facing.
It's not all the act's fault. Implementation has not been good either.
Central government could certainly do more. There is a lack of national direction on key issues even though the act makes provision for it.
For example, a national policy statement on biodiversity has been churning in the bureaucracy for some years and meantime, according to the OECD, we are losing our priceless natural heritage at an alarming rate.
There's no real guidance on landscape conservation either. Tourists come here to see New Zealand's outstanding coastal and high country landscapes but it's left to local councils to decide how much protection to give them. That results in very uneven outcomes around the country.
A national policy statement on landscape is an urgent requirement if we are to preserve the attributes that make New Zealand so attractive to visitors.
When you look at a few contemporary examples of resource management practice by councils, it's not encouraging either.
For example, at Ohiwa near Opotiki, some coastal duneland eroded into the sea in the 1970s. Landowners (ironically) were compensated by being given land at Matata.
More recently, that duneland has accreted and re-emerged from the sea. Now landowners are seeking consent to build and arguably the council, under the RMA, cannot refuse consent because of the way its plan is worded. That is in spite of the opinion of experts that it will again be inundated in the near future.
At Ngunguru in Northland, Landco proposes a 350-lot subdivision on a low-lying spit that is equally vulnerable to storm surges and rising sea levels over time. That developer will find planners and other experts prepared to support the project through the consenting process.
This is even though no one in their right mind would build on sand given the likely impacts of climate change and even just normal storm events on that coast.
Yet the Whangarei District Council and the Northland Regional Council have failed to step in and designate the land for a reserve, which is an option available to them.
On Auckland's west coast, between Muriwai and Bethells Beach, adjacent to a coastal walkway, a landowner has just been given consent to build a house right on the ridgeline of an iconic landform that will be visible for kilometres.
Rodney District Council simply did not adequately consider the landscape effects of that development, which should never have been approved in that location.
Overall, the RMA definitely needs improving to strengthen strategic planning and address climate change. But central and local government need to lift their game if we are to achieve the step-change in environmental performance demanded by our changing world.
* Gary Taylor is chairman of the Environmental Defence Society, which is hosting Beyond the RMA, a two-day conference on the Resource Management Act, in Auckland this week.