It seems that my comments, oft repeated on these pages, about New Zealand's less than stellar performance in major environmental issues is about to be seriously questioned by a report, not yet officially released, but published in the New York Times and in the news here today (
Link). According to this report, New Zealand is first in the world on a number of environmental indices. The report is called
2006 Environmental Environment Index, a pilot nation-by-nation study jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities. It measures things like ozone levels, clean drinking water, low greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable fisheries. Whilst of course, it is indeed praiseworthy that New Zealand appears in such a position, at the risk of appearing churlish, there are quite a few things I do not understand about this report. For a more in depth analysis, I shall have to wait until the report is fully published, the way the ranking of countries was calculated, and the gamut of environmental measurements employed. But here are a few things that occur to me.
Last year, New Zealand was 14th in ranking. What exactly has New Zealand done in the last year to pull it up fourteen places? I am not aware of any policy or policies that could have made that much difference in so short a space of time.
New Zealand fisheries indeed to do operate on a more sustainable basis than many others but it is also true that all our fisheries are under pressure, some extreme, some less so. You should consider this: every year in New Zealand waters over 2000 local and overseas commercial fishing vessels catch more than 550,000 tonnes of fish. They do this by setting 10,000 km of nets and over 50 million hooks and making 100,000 trawls and 90,000 dredge tows. This adds up to industrial-scale pressures on fish and the wider marine environment. According the the Forest and Bird Best Fish Guide 2005-6, (Link from which the figures mentioned were taken, no fishery scores in the "green" or "best choice" category. It is worth reading this report. Of great concern is the high loss of life of some of the world's most magnificent seabirds, the mollymawks and albatrosses, drowned by long lining, and the unseen, unknown damage to the sea floor from heavy trawls. It is doubtful if this environmental report has taken these into account. If New Zealand has gained browny points for sustainable fisheries it surely indicates what must be the appalling state of fisheries in other countries.
I don't believe it is possible to rank countries on ozone depletion - in fact, I don't really know what this means. I await the full report
Drinking water. That's good, and certainly it is an important environmental and social issue, but I would suggest the quality of our rivers, streams, lakes and coastal waters are a more significant environmental issue. In this, we are bound to come pretty high on any international comparison, our lack of population and major industries are the factor here, but there are problems with eutrophication of many rivers and streams, especially in farming areas. This is a problem that is worsening where there has been widespread conversion of land to dairy farming. There are also major problems in one of our largest lakes, Taupo. (Link)
Last year Canada was sixth ranked in the world. As Canada is the world's third worst culprit in CO2 emissions and had a spectacular failure of its huge cod fishery a few years ago, it is difficult to see how it got so high. I think the David Suzuki Foundation would agree: "Canada lags behind in almost every (environmental) performance indicator."(Link)
New Zealand's per-capita greenhouse gas emissions are, according to these figures (Link) the fifth worst in the world (2003). I find this difficult to reconcile with this report that says low greenhouse gases are one of the measures used. Additionally, our increase in greenhouse gases over the last few years has been considerable, CO2 emissions increase 37% since 1990, and agricultural methane emissions by 15.6% since 1990, averaging about 25% for the two together. (Link). I find this equally difficult to reconcile with New Zealand's jump from 14th in the world to first. Certainly our CO2 emissions are less than many countries, with still 60-65% of power generation with renewable resources, and our high proportion of agricultural methane emissions, but our increasing reliance on fossil fuels for power generation is one of the factors related to increasing CO2 emissions, along with our inordinate love of the big motor-cars and SUVs.
I await the full report with interest, but as things stand, I am somewhat sceptical of New Zealand's new-found greenness.
