The environment, a rather catch-all definition for all the living and inanimate things which affect human existence, has always been a poor cousin to the economy.
Work to protect the environment is often inadequately funded and like an after-thought. It is all richly ironic, as the environment was here long before we were and will continue to be, in some form or another, well after the economies of the world have shut down and we are long gone.
While the tensions between the environment and the economy are nothing new, the politicising, or even weaponising, of the environment seems to be getting worse, at the same time as funding carries on falling. This use of the environment to make and score political points is happening around the world and on our own doorstep. Here, regional councils are in the thick of it, and have been riding a difficult wave between environmental protection and government intervention for decades.
It is hard to forget what the John Key National government did to Environment Canterbury in 2010, sacking democratically elected councillors and bringing in appointed commissioners because some ministers believed not enough progress was being made on allocating the region’s precious water.
Now we have the Otago Regional Council involved in argy-bargying with the government, again over water, specifically over the rewriting of the national policy statement for freshwater management.
Relations between the council and Environment Minister Penny Simmonds have been sour during the past year. Councillors had voted not to pause work on the council’s land and water plan while the government continued its freshwater and resource management reforms. Eventually the minister intervened at the last gasp to stop the council from notifying its plan.
A spokeswoman for Ms Simmonds asked for that to be corrected in the record, saying the minister had only tentatively been scheduled to appear at the start of the meeting if she was available.
The fact Cr Michael Laws showed a calendar entry for the meeting from the ministry entitled "ORC with Minister Simmonds and MfE officials" gives a pretty clear impression the minister would be there. Also, one might think she would go out of her way to make time to front up on this controversial issue when she had taken such strong action against the council.
Meanwhile this week, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton warned of the risks of not investing in environmental monitoring and data. Without that, it was impossible to know if parts of the environment were getting better or worse, he said.
It was wrong for people to view the gathering of such data as a drain on the nation’s finances when it could actually help make consenting easier and we would "know just how close to the edge of the cliff we are or aren’t", Mr Upton said.
The commissioner was right to tell the select committee this should be a funding priority. Without robust data, any policies to protect the environment and New Zealanders’ homes and livelihoods will be flimsy.
United States President Donald Trump is now engaging in a war on climate change and its science, one which extends to cutting funding for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and the National Weather Service, which provides data on the air and oceans free to the world.
Scientists are concerned that eroding funding for US weather forecasting services will affect the entire globe’s ability to prepare for dangerous storms, merely because the climate-warming narrative does not fit Trump’s agenda. We turn our back on the environment and environmental monitoring at our peril.
