Simon Upton urges cross-party consensus on New Zealand environmental goals
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton is calling for cross-party consensus on the country's overarching environmental goals.
"We support the Government's move to introduce an Environmental Reporting Bill that mandates the provision of comprehensive environmental information for New Zealanders," says DairyNZ's strategy and investment leader for sustainability, Dr Rick Pridmore.
"This will give us the potential for greater consistency in environmental monitoring across New Zealand. For too long, inconsistency has prevented us from getting a shared understanding on the state of our environment.
"As councils work with communities on setting limits for freshwater quality and quantity around the country to meet the requirements of the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, we are going to need credible environmental information. It will be essential for us to understand where we are already doing well, and where we need to focus our efforts.
"Science has significant potential to improve the efficiency of decision-making processes. By starting from a clear, science-based definition of the problem we need to solve, we can all put more energy into working together to develop solutions."
DairyNZ submitted in support of the changes under the 2012 Resource Management Reform Bill that will enable the regulation of environmental reporting.
"We have supported the involvement of the Government Statistician and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in this robust reporting regime. Having this level of independent oversight will strengthen the reliability and accessibility of the data, as well as allaying any fears of political interference," he says.
