Philippa Stevenson: Sound of green turning a nasty shade of dark-brown

COMMENT

Pick a town, any town, and somewhere in it this month you'll have found a group gathered to talk about environmental issues.

Drop a pin in the map between Taupo and Otahuhu and it would have pricked a knot of worry and almost universal opposition to state-owned national grid operator Transpower's plans to string 200km of high-voltage pylons up to 70m tall through the central North Island.

What price this course of action to ensure electricity to Auckland and the north when it could, many fear, damage the environment and impact on health, farms and property values of those south of the power needy?

Take another stab at the map, land on green countryside and there'll be someone wondering how green it really is and for how much longer. They'll be thumbing through the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's report on the downside of decades of intensive agriculture.

Commissioner Morgan Williams took a punt on the cost of staying an unsustainable course. "Not only will they [farmers] antagonise other New Zealanders who want clean water for health and recreational reasons, they will also risk access for their products to lucrative overseas markets."

Another finger on the map and it's a grapegrower in Canterbury unable to get sufficient water to his vines because river levels are already too low, or a large dairy farm operation contemplating suing for water it thinks it's entitled to.

They're calculating the cost of not getting the water while others are analysing the effect if they do.

Slide the digit up to Manawatu and then on to the Bay of Plenty. Not too little water here but too much from destructive floods in February and July. How much will it cost to ensure it doesn't happen again? How much not to?

Hover over Auckland for a cacophony of complaint - the roar from Western Springs speedway is not loud enough to drown the howl of 8000 home owners lumbered with a label of contaminated land. No one's keen to tot up how much to prove what's hot and what's not.

There's more - high nitrogen levels in Taupo, glugged-up Rotorua lakes, dried-up, drying up or toxic Waikato and Northland lakes and wetlands, arid conditions on the east coast, waterlogged ones on the west.

With all that debate and weighing of options, who would have thought it a good time to host yet another bunch of meetings to talk about the environment?

Couldn't anyone interested in the state of play, the issues of community concern, just have cocked an ear?

Not the Ministry for the Environment. The ministry that aims to "deliver the environment New Zealanders expect and deserve" began a nationwide series of 15 meetings in Hamilton and Mt Maunganui on Tuesday. Like last year's first Talk Environment roadshow it was to be, the ministry says, "an interaction on events of our time".

To help it "develop policies that meet our environmental, social and economic needs", the ministry picked three topics - the Resource Management Act and environmental standards, the 2002 waste strategy, and flood management.

All that, and a hearty breakfast, to be digested in just 90 minutes.

Could this really be a useful exercise? I asked. Yes, indeed, I was informed, a very informative exchange. Look at what we learned last year - that you want us to work with communities, improve co-ordination and performance, inform, educate and help with resources and skills.

And what do you think the message has been this year?

Leadership. People want leadership on environmental matters.

Later, I'm told, under new ministry chief executive Barry Carbon, policy wonks hiding in fortress Wellington are out. Responsible, accountable and practical "just do it" types are in.

Well, I'm not sure I saw much of that at my meeting. Maybe I just imagined that whiff of "we're from the Government, we're here to help".

Maybe I didn't detect a hint of "with the right document, the right policy, everything will fall into place".

Did they hear that man say we have enough policy and what's needed are priorities and practical, on-the-ground management of things fragile or threatened - and a good dose of enforcement for the backsliders and transgressors. Did they see others nod in agreement, and hear others chime in?

No wonder the ministry thinks there is a call for leadership. Why wouldn't it? Where's it been all this time? The environment is in dire need of a champion.

Out here, knee-deep in environmental issues, we want leadership with the clout to say less talk and more do.

Ministry for the Environment

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