The chairman of the Government-supported Land and Water Forum acknowledged yesterday that the legislation axing Environment Canterbury has severely tested the Forum.
Former diplomat Alastair Bisley needed all his diplomatic skills at the Environmental Defence Society’s annual conference in Auckland – Reform in Paradise -where he reported on progress with the Land and Water Forum.
The Forum was initiated two years ago as a way to bring diverse parties – farmers, fishers, Fonterra, iwi, irrigators an others – together to try and improve freshwater quality.
Nick Smith won Cabinet funding for it as a vehicle to progress his much-professed ambitions to improve water quality. Then he shat on it with the ECAN legislation.
Yesterday also, even one of the Creech review team admitted he had sympathy for ECAN and acknowledged the lack of national water standards from the Government. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3769946/Govt-reviewer-admits-sympathy-for-ECan
Bisley indicated the Land and Water Forum was briefed about the abolition of Environment Canterbury’s councillors; what clearly came as a nasty surpise was handing the new ECAN commissioners powers to amend or rescind Water Conservation Orders protecting Canterbury rivers like the Rakaia and Rangitata. Five parties to the Land and Water Forum went publicly ballistic.
Alastair Bisley could only say that what tests you makes you stronger. My own question to him was how he could reconcile the Forum’s wish to improve water quality when John Key has stated publicly that he wants new water in place in Canterbury in the next year – an impossible timeframe to achieve any environmental improvements.
Alastair pointed to new water storage taking pressure off aquifers. Correct, but not a solution to increased effluent and nitrates which a new rush of water will also create and further degrade water quality.
Have to say that it was galling to watch John Key coming in earlier at the EDS conference by video link and saying no less than 5 times that the government attached great importance to getting the balance right between economic and environmental growth. Sorry but that is fundamentally contradicted by his agenda for rapid new water to provide election year lines and photo ops around ‘step change’ growth which will again come at the environment’s expense. And all of that puts our whole economic base at risk, as several speakers said yesterday.
Prof Caroline Saunders from Lincoln Unversity said she was astonished at the state of Canterbury rivers when she came here 14 years ago – from the less than pristine Newcastle-on-Tyne. That was before the Canty dairy boom really kicked in. Caroline affirmed our prosperity rested on marketing and delivering on our environmental sustaintainability. Marks and Spencers sustainability head said the recent reporting in Britain questioning our ‘clean, green’ image was a ‘warning shot’ across our economic bows. It’s almost unbelievable that this Government continues to think it can get more economic cake by flicking crumbs to environmental outcomes. More reforming Paradise than reform of it.
What a dog’s breakfast!
I wish people would stop talking about new water. A patently stupid concept. There is only what water there is. It falls out of the sky, it comes down to earth and is stored on land or below land, in rivers, seas, lakes, ocean, dams and aquifers. Then we use it and it gets recycled. I pointed this out to the commissioners at ECan in my oral submission and they sat looking at me horrified.
However, any policy made that ignores a patent truth is going to end in disaster. Yes we can store more of the rainfall in designated places – if it falls in the right place, this will just mean less somewhere else. Yes we can use more of the already stored water for irrigation – this will just mean there is less for non-farming purposes.
Please talk about what it really is: taking more water from the rivers etc to use for agriculture and industry, with minimal oversight to ensure there is enough for people further downstream – Adelaide here we follow in your footsteps!
Yeah its a mess in Adelaide, no one who can afford it touches the tap water there. And the daily water usage restrictions are pretty bad almost all through the year. I love the city but its going to be out of water in <15 years.
One thing Fitzsimmons used to say that was undeniable:
“The Economy is a wholly owed subsidiary of the Environment”…
Clever I thought…
“I pointed this out to the commissioners at ECan in my oral submission and they sat looking at me horrified.” LOL
Priceless.
Oh yes, you’d think they’d learn from Australia, I’m scared
Have patience, this will all get sorted out in the end
Chris73
Do you mean do nothing, or even roll over?
While your advice may suit your perspective, rigorous exploration of what is behind the changes and what are the consequences is the beginnings of sorting it out.
Politicians will do whatever they are pressured to do when short term commercial gains are involved. That has been clearly demonstrated but now the public need information and expert opinion on the environmental consequences as well as the political expediencies.
Long term there seems to be a buck in this for a small group and the rest carry the negative consequences.