Commissioner's preface
This year my team and I continued, in addition to examining citizens' concerns and assisting Select Committees, four major studies in environmental sustainability:
- learning and education for sustainability;
- intensification of agriculture and its environmental implications;
- the interface between science and environmental decision-making, and;
- the environmental performance of the electricity industry.
These studies have proved very challenging, given they all involved exploring fundamental questions about how to achieve sustainability. We frequently focused on the big drivers of environmental degradation and what we need to do as a society to, firstly, acknowledge the issues and, secondly, to develop the necessary institutions, legislation, economic instruments and overall awareness (learnings) to do things differently.
Since becoming Commissioner I have placed increased emphasis on assisting environmental Select Committees. This year our major piece of work was to act as an advisor to the Local Government and Environment Select Committee as they examined the Resource Management Act (Waitaki Catchments) Amendment Bill. I was pleased to do this as a number of my investigations have examined both urban and rural water allocation issues. This Bill brought to a head the weaknesses in our water allocation processes, and highlights the need for better processes and the development of a system for trading water.
The number of citizens' concerns received was similar to recent years, and continued the trend of being generated mostly by dissatisfaction with local authority decisions. Too many still appeared to be the product of weaknesses in district plans which lead to activities that produce objections. Others were the product of proposed roading activities – an area I anticipate will generate more complaints as the number of major projects increases. One good outcome, however, was the Transit NZ decision to include a tunnel through Johnson’s Hill on the Albany-Puhoi motorway extension. I applaud that decision given my earlier challenge to Transit NZ to develop explicit policies on tunnelling versus cuttings.
My 2003 - 2004 total revenue was $2.130 million, an increase of 15 percent on the previous year. This increase was primarily a product of increased investment in my environmental assessment of the electricity industry, and the relocation of my offices within the Reserve Bank building.
This year I continued my triple bottom line reporting which revealed some areas of increased consumption (e.g. electricity) as a product of our shift to a larger office. However, in many areas we continued to decrease consumption and increase recycling.
