Environment booklet 'complacent pap'

A Government snapshot of New Zealand's environment has been slammed as "complacent pap" by the Green Party.

Environment spokesman Nandor Tanczos said the Gentle Footprints, Boots 'n' All booklet, which cost $125,000 to produce and which was launched by Environment Minister David Benson-Pope at Parliament yesterday, was "aimed at concealing the true state of the country's environment".

"To think that who-knows-how-many months of work have gone into this book is disappointing.

Even the name 'Gentle Footprints' reinforces the sense of complacency."

He said some figures in the 80-page book, such as the trumpeting of a tyre recycling scheme where 1.3 million used tyres were "disposed of or reused" in its first 18 months of operation, were misleading.

Mr Tanczos said 932,000 of those tyres went to landfill.

"Tyre track seems to mostly consist of counting tyres as they proceed from car wheels to landfills," he said.

But Environment Minister David Benson-Pope defended the book as a "conversation piece" with readily accessible information for schools and other groups.

"I'm a bit disappointed at the doom and gloom, I don't think that serves anyone's purpose, really," the minister said. "I don't think it pulls any punches around some of the issues we've got, around transport, air quality."

He rejected criticism by the Greens that the ministry had yet to update its 1997 State of the Environment report.

"We are not doing another very expensive publication that's out of date even before it's published," he said.

Instead, the ministry was working on a web-based resource that would contain information on environmental indicators from both the Environment Ministry and outside sources.

The booklet is described as a "parting gift" from the ministry's ex-chief executive, Barry Carbon.

Mr Benson-Pope said he expected demand for the book to be "huge". Some of the 15,000 copies would be distributed to schools, libraries and local councils and may also be made available in doctors' waiting rooms and workplace lunchrooms.