Speaking to a large audience last week at MTG’s Century Theatre, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton underscored that future land use must be both environmentally and economically viable.

His remarks presented the themes of the major report he released last year, titled: Going with the grain: Changing land uses to fit a changing landscape.

In the report, Upton argues: “As a country we have few tools for improving the environment where environmental goals impose a cost that landowners are unable to bear. The implementation of environmental policies is often pushed onto regional councils, which are left to confront landowners, who in some cases – but not all – lack the resources to deliver what is expected of them. In cases where landowners do lack resources, their precarious position might be further compromised by increased pressures from global food companies and banks that will increasingly require them to measure and reduce emissions as well as make biodiversity improvements.”

In his remarks, Upton noted the serious deficiencies in information need to effectively plan viable land use. The information is complex, expensive and doesn’t align with property boundaries. The result is that blanket rules are often applied that miss the opportunities to really zero in on the most serious hot spots. It’s the responsibility of the central government to invest in providing far more detailed environmental data correlated to land uses; that burden can’t rest with landowners and local councils.

Upton was speaking at the invitation of the impressive Ahuriri Tributaries Catchment Group Trust, chaired by Robert Pattullo. Upton strongly supports the catchment-wide approach to planning mitigation of environmental impacts. He sees them as excellent vehicles for customising to local circumstances and driving peer-to-peer the needed land use changes. However, he noted these were tough to maintain over time as volunteers leaders faced time and funding constraints and natural burnout in a context where beneficial change takes years to accomplish.

Hawke’s Bay currently has 31 active catchment groups who collectively farm around 864,000 hectares.

Upton didn’t comment on water allocation and its relationship to ‘locking in’ current land uses, which might or might not be best uses from either an environmental and/or economic standpoint. When questioned on this, he referred the audience to his report.

In his report Upton is a supporter of water storage “in principle, but there need to be strong environmental limits in place within a catchment before investment in water infrastructure occurs. Ideally, water storage should be used to provide security of supply to high-value uses, rather than to increase water use per se.” He continues, “we lack the tools to enforce such [environmental] limits effectively at the farm scale, and therefore great caution is needed when considering the use of public money for water storage schemes.”

Controversially, he supports water pricing. “A price on water would act as a resource rental, recognising both the damage to the environment of taking water and its value as an input into a commercial undertaking (residential use could be exempt). This would provide an incentive to ensure that water is allocated to its highest value use. A charge could also provide revenue to safeguard the future of that resource.”

Going with the grain: Changing land uses to fit a changing landscape should be required reading for anyone involved in plotting future farming land use in Hawke’s Bay. Thankfully, a show of hands indicated that many have done so.

Finally, Upton also hammered the prospect of NZ continuing to use carbon credits from trees to meet the country’s emission targets. In his view, use of these credits should be limited to offsetting only methane emissions, with revenues ringfenced for improved farming land use. His analysis is presented in his office’s latest report, Alt-F Reset: Examining the drivers of forestry in New Zealand’.