Government to strengthen direction on New Zealand's environment challenges

The New Zealand government is preparing to roll out a series of policy statements to tackle the country's growing raft of environmental and ecological problems, Environment Minister Nick Smith said Thursday.

Releasing a new official guide on implementing the government's 2014 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, Smith said national policy statements were also being considered for urban development, aquaculture, biodiversity and natural hazards.

New national environmental standards were being proposed for telecommunications facilities, plantation forestry, pest control, air quality and contaminated soils.

"We are stepping up our program of national policy statements, national environmental standards and national guidance to get better environmental results at less cost," Smith said in a published speech to a major national conference on the country's biodiversity challenges in Auckland.

"There is a huge amount of work ahead with each of these initiatives. The purpose in outlining this program is to start the process of consultation with key sector groups on how we can use these tools to make our system of resource management work better, " Smith said.

"We can get better environmental outcomes in areas like water quality and pest control, as well as better economic results in areas such as housing and telecommunications through stronger and clearer policies and standards."

The area of biodiversity was fraught with difficulty that governments of all persuasions had failed to progress.

"Positions have been highly polarized between those who view property rights as an absolute right to do whatever they wish on their own land, to those whose passions for nature are so strong that they see no difference between national parks and private land," said Smith.

"This issue is being re-litigated repeatedly across the country and we need stronger national guidance," he said.

"People are tired of the uncertainty and are looking for national direction and consistency."

Parliament would also be passing a new law on environmental reporting this month to "give improved integrity to New Zealand's clean, green brand," he said.

"We have been the only OECD (Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development) country without a statutory requirement for regular and independent reporting on the state of the environment," said Smith.

The new law would come into effect next year with six-monthly rolling reports on each of the domains starting with the freshwater domain in the middle of next year. Endi