Obstacles frustrating environmental campaign

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 3

Obstacles frustrating environmental campaign

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington Three main obstacles are frustrating the campaign to improve standards of environmental management in New Zealand, according to the Commissioner for the Environment, Mr Ken Piddington.

He told Parliament in his annual report that it was not easy to judge whether the over-all state of the environment in New Zealand was changing for the better or the worse. Resources were not available to monitor the various environmental indicators and, even if they were, it was probable that the evidence would be inconclusive. The three obstacles were: 0 The priority which was given to the short term as against the long term, with the result that conventional thinking governed the search for solutions and many options were closed. • The instinct for adversary debate (and therefore conflict) as against round-the-table consensus. 0 Patterns of “compartmentalised thinking” which rejected the value of taking an integrated view (and therefore did not accept that environmental review had an important contribution to make to the over-all task facing decisionmakers).

Mr Piddington said these obstacles were ingrained into the constitutional framework and worked against the solution of environmental problems, which arose at a speed and on a scale that exceeded the adaptability of conventional systems. There was a coalition of resistence to change within New Zealand’s institutions, he said. Pressure on the environment was now noticeable in almost all parts of New Zealand and chances for environmental enhancement were sometimes missed, Mr Piddington said.