Environmental reporting is often costly and unnecessary because New Zealand already has "a pretty good environment," claims one West Coast regional councillor.
By Vihan Dalal of Local Democracy Reporting
The Government has introduced legislation to amend the Environmental Reporting Act to address what it describes as New Zealand's "outdated environmental reporting regime".
This has received a mixed response on the West Coast given its regional council functions are to be stripped away in the next 18 months.
Councillor Allan Birchfield backs the new legislation but suggested much of the current environmental reporting is "unnecessary" as New Zealand "has got a pretty good environment" while foreseeing a reduction in costly reports.
"I don't think we need so much heavy-duty reporting," Birchfield said.
"The ratepayer is probably bearing a lot of the cost of this reporting."
West Coast ratepayers were already paying for environmental work undertaken by the regional council on the conservation estate, he said.
Amendments proposed to the law include reducing the frequency regional councils must produce a comprehensive State of the Environment report, from every three to six years. Routine environmental reporting functions will be scaled back from six monthly to annually.
Minister for the Environment Nicola Grigg said in a statement a "fit for purpose" Environmental Reporting Act will serve as an important statutory and stewardship foundation for the new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport.
The new timeframes would be better suited to tracking environmental change and providing more meaningful insights in contrast to the current reporting regime which was "inflexible and has become inefficient".
West Coast Regional Council Environmental Management Committee chairman Chris Coll said as regional councils will not exist in two years it will be up to the new "unitary-type" councils to make any decisions on the new legislation.
Environmental science manager Shanti Morgan said the new amendments will be useful.
"In the context of any future amalgamation of regional councils, the proposed amendments could support greater consistency in environmental monitoring, data management, and reporting practices across regions."
Morgan said standardised datasets, reporting methodologies, and nationally agreed priorities would assist larger organisations to manage environmental information more efficiently.
That would help provide "a stronger evidence base" for strategic planning and decision-making, she said.
Forest and Bird spokeswoman Nicky Snoyink said good environmental reporting will be even more necessary if more activities are going to be permitted under the replacement for the Resource Management Act.
The environmental reporting system needed to be fixed before the frequency of reporting was reduced, she said.
However, Minerals New Zealand chief executive Josie Vidal said the frequency of reporting as it stands did not make it useful and reducing the frequency should not be seen as a negative.
"Environmental reporting is important and we support greater efficiency in delivering robust and credible data. That can only be good for decision makers in both central and local government," Vidal said.
"Decision-making must be guided by facts, evidence, and credible data."
– Local Democracy Reporting is local-body reporting co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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