KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's hosting of World Environment Day reflects in part the high regard the rest of the world has for our environment.
It sees us as clean and green and we seek to exploit that reputation to sell our country and our products abroad.
Until recently, we have also taken something of a lead on the biggest environmental problem facing the planet - climate change.
It's not my intention to seek to undermine our economic welfare by slamming our environmental record as a sham. To do so would be a gross overstatement.
New Zealand is still relatively clean and green. We've been able to free-ride on our low population density, on our isolation from other countries' problems and on the fact that we haven't had much time, historically speaking, to mess things up.
But it has to be said that we are now facing some big environmental challenges and unless we respond to them promptly and decisively, we will pay the cost. That's because the world is far more concerned about environmental performance than it was even five years ago.
There has been an exponential rise in environmental awareness driven in large part - but not exclusively - by climate change. Consumers in developed countries are becoming far more discerning about how products are made, whether they cause pollution, what their carbon footprint is and where they come from.
Whether we like it or not, consumers in our key markets are getting very interested in local products, food miles and overall environmental sustainability. Marks & Spencer and Tescos in Britain are both into carbon-labelling their products.
Our exporters can expect more intensive interrogation around production processes and attention to the environment. Some exporters are already ahead of the game. Many vineyards, for example, are certified as sustainable or carbon-neutral and are commanding premium prices in overseas markets - and that sector is going to top $1 billion in exports shortly. Fonterra, our biggest exporter, has started work to quantify its carbon footprint - a huge exercise.
So the world is changing and some of our companies are adapting. But it's too slow. New Zealand's rivers and streams are still grossly polluted, largely from unsustainable dairying practices.
Yes, there are voluntary clean stream initiatives - but we are still miles from achieving that target. And many of our lakes are dying as a result of nitrate and phosphorus runoff.
The recent OECD review told us that between 1996 and 2002 - over just six years - New Zealand had a net loss of 175 sq km of indigenous habitat. That is an extraordinary amount and a sizeable proportion of it was conversion of regenerating native forest to pasture.
Every time a new dairy farm is created out of forest clearance we take a double hit on our carbon inventory - we lose the carbon stored in the forest and add to the 50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from farming.
So while we rely on agriculture for our economic welfare, farming in New Zealand still has a long way to go before it can claim to be truly sustainable. This creates a huge risk for all of us. If our international reputation takes a hit, and the export sector is impacted, we all suffer. We may be the most efficient farmers in the world but we're not the cleanest.
And there's a big gulf, it seems, between farmers and city dwellers, the other big group of consumers. Like those in our overseas markets, New Zealand consumers are very concerned about environmental values and look askance at some of the rhetoric coming from the farming sector. Farmers' groups regularly rail against the use of the Resource Management Act to control water pollution or to protect remnant forests. And townies see themselves subsidising farmers for their Kyoto obligations for years to come, at a time when they are paying record prices for their dairy staples. That hurts.
But it's not all one-way traffic. We should remember it's rural dwellers who pay many of the environmental costs of the infrastructure necessary to make towns work.
Power pylons, wind farms, thermal generators, quarries, mines, state highways, water supplies are all located in the countryside and can have seriously adverse impacts on the environment. There must be better ways of reducing those impacts, perhaps through cities becoming more sustainable and self-sufficient.
My point is that we need a strong and constructive relationship between town and country so we can position New Zealand strongly in the rapidly changing global environment in which our nation does business.
We could start with farmers toning down their extreme anti-environment rhetoric and accepting that a more enlightened approach is required. We need the farming sector to invest its new wealth into cleaning up our rivers and streams, stopping the wholesale clearance of regenerating native forests, paying their (very small) Kyoto obligations, weaning themselves off taxpayer subsidies and facing up to the new standards of environmental performance the world is demanding.
We need our towns and cities to become more self-sufficient and less rapacious in their demands on the countryside.
There are some positive signs this might be happening but we don't have long if we look at international trends. World Environment Day is a good opportunity for New Zealanders to take stock and strive for a step-change in our environmental performance.
* Gary Taylor is chairman of the Environmental Defence Society. In partnership with Federated Farmers, Lincoln University and the NZ Landcare Trust, it is hosting a national conference: Conflict in Paradise: Transforming Rural New Zealand, Langham Hotel, Auckland, June 11-12. See www.edsconference.com
