Pressure groups' important role

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 19

Pressure groups' important role

PA Wellington Environmental pressure groups of the sort that had recently emerged in New Zealand had a very important role to play, said the Minister for the Environment (Mr V. S. Young) in Wellington. Opening the annual conference of the New Zealand Conference on Environment and Conservation, Mr Young said it was the duty of such groups to see that decisionmakers took into account the environmental considerations which underlay so; many developmental deci-; sions.

It was useless being “environmentally enlightened and sensitive” if that sensitivity had no means of expression.

“In the last analysis decision-making is a political process,” Mr Young said. “We can be enlightened and sensitive to the last degree, but if our sensitivity has no means of political expression it will be irrelevant,” he said.

Referring to environmental problems which should be taken into account in assessing both short-term and long-term implications of proposals, Mr Young said that Man had to adopt an attitude to change “that allows us to evaluate benefits in terms of our continuing welfare. “This makes decisionmaking more difficult, but it also makes for better decisions,” he said, “I am sure that if our ancestors had had the knowledge of Nature available to us, they would have hesitated more often before seeking to bend nature to their will.” Many of the environment

,tal problems faced by New Zealand today resulted from the unforeseen repercussions of early changes of land use. Some had been beneficial, and some rewarding, but many had been ill-researched and badly executed. "To understand the extent iof the environmental change in New Zealand that Man has accomplished — if that is the term — we could recall that this country was once entirely forested.” Mr Young said.