Think of green infrastructure as forests and wetlands. Blue infrastructure refers to marine ecosystems - another hugely important asset to New Zealand.
The term "natural capital" was introduced a few decades ago to emphasise that ecosystems are the critical foundation and a priceless asset of healthy economies. Economies and human wellbeing ultimately depend on healthy ecosystems.
Market-based activities are but one means to the end goal of delivering human wellbeing. The rampant pursuit of a "growth for growth's sake" is backfiring and eroding the most fundamental and basic asset New Zealand has.
Just as "grey infrastructure" delivers transport, energy and water services, the natural world's "green-blue infrastructure" provides us with essential services such as food, purification of water, regulation of floods, pollination, regulation of climate, formation of soil, cultural, spiritual, recreation and educational services. The best thing is that these "ecosystem services" are free. However, they are also priceless and therefore, often not fully taken into account in planning or decision-making.
There are numerous examples where public-private partnerships have been created as a sound investment strategy embracing green over grey infrastructure.
The most famous is New York City, where the nearby Catskills catchment was set aside (that is, protected from market-driven development) as the city's natural water purification system to defer a multi-billion public investment in a grey infrastructure. The latter would have cost US$6 billion, whereas the "green Infrastructure" option was implemented for US$2 billion.
A similar investment strategy in New York was undertaken for stormwater focusing on stream buffer restoration, green roofs and bio-swales, instead of - or significantly delaying - the installation of tunnels and storm drains. There are examples of projects in New Zealand as well.
Auckland Council uses natural features to slow down and absorb rainwater. Rate-paying urbanites in Palmerston North, through Horizons Regional Council, offer incentives to farmers to reduce erosion in hill country. Bay of Plenty Regional Council recently commissioned a report to better understand how an Ecosystem Services approach can help in thinking about the way rivers are managed in the future.
For New Zealand, restoration of ecosystems often means eradication of pests - such as stoats, rats and goats - so that forests can better deliver all-important services for free, such as erosion control, flood protection, climate regulation and also cultural, spiritual and recreational services.
Scaling this up to a national level, New Zealand has much to gain from a comprehensive Infrastructure Plan that integrates the grey, green and blue in long-term investments. Just as the "grey" aspects provide a positive signal to businesses, the "blue-green" elements create a strong signal for companies to find common ground for factoring in and valuing our natural assets, which underpin all economic development.
There is too much to lose if we can't count on, or take into account, all critical infrastructure in our 30-year plans.
-Associate Professor Marjan van den Belt is director of Massey University's Ecological Economics Research New Zealand, and is a consultant on a range of national and international projects for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
-Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz
-Viewpoints on the amalgamation debate can be submitted for consideration and will be used as long as no council resources, money, time or expertise are used in their preparation. This is a requirement of the Local Government Act 2002.
