Is NZ undermining its ‘greenest country’ status?

Is NZ undermining its ‘greenest country’ status?
Graham Land, Aug 09, 2013

A few years ago New Zealand announced its intention to become the first environmentally sustainable country. By preserving their already pretty well preserved nature, the Kiwis would benefit from eco-tourism. With the shortest history of human habitation and lowest record of human-driven environmental impact, I’d say they had a bit of a head start.

But recently it’s come out that some of New Zealand’s environmental credentials are spurious, especially its “100% Pure” marketing campaign.

Of course no country could live up to being 100% pure environmentally speaking. It’s a bit tautological, anyway. Doesn’t “pure” already denote 100%?

Waikato River. Pic: Abaconda Management Group (Flickr CC)

Recent revelations about contaminated dairy products and polluted rivers have put a stain on New Zealand’s good image. In fact, the two are intertwined.
From Reuters:

More than 60 percent of New Zealand rivers monitored by the Environment Ministry had “poor” or “very poor” water quality and were rated as unsafe for swimming due to pollution.
Dairy farming, which has a lot riding on New Zealand’s strong environmental reputation, has been a significant cause of poor river quality due to fertiliser and effluent runoff. Unlike many other countries, New Zealand cows are kept on grassy pastures year-round, a major selling point for its $9 billion annual global dairy trade.

A 20-year long lack of regulation on farm waste and no regular national reports on the state of its environment (the only OECD country to not do so) are not exactly conducive to becoming the world’s first sustainable nation.

Fortunately sometimes a bit of an international media exposé and accompanying shaming can produce results. In the wake of these revelations, New Zealand’s government has just announced that they will begin producing regular state of the environment reports.
From NZN:

The reporting system will provide information on air, climate and atmosphere, freshwater, marine and land states, with biodiversity as a theme across all five domains.
One environmental domain report will be released every six months and a “comprehensive synthesis” report will be released every three years.

However, New Zealand is not about to stop dairy farming, one of its largest industries. So how is it going to prevent the pollution of its lakes and rivers from agricultural nitrogen runoff?

New Zealand is big on grass-fed dairy cows. Pic: Matthew Flynn (Flickr CC)

At least New Zealanders seem to have quite high standards when it comes to water quality and the environment even if their industry and national government don’t. If the people know about such problems, something is much more likely to be done about them.

Waikato region, home to some of the country’s most beloved lakes and rivers, performed a 20-year study on its waterways. Results were shocking, but have prompted action.
From Fairfax NZ News:

Last year the regional council embarked on its Healthy Rivers: Plan for Change project, a $2.4m initiative to amend the Waikato Regional Plan.
The purpose is to manage adverse effects from discharges to land and water in the Waikato and Waipa catchments.

After all, no one wants to be wandering through lush hills only to find a hobbit floating belly up in an algae-choked mountain lake.