Science and policy delay leading to loss of natural capital: case study of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses sources of delay in developing environmental interventions to address overallocation of groundwater and water quality degradation for Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere, a coastal lake in the Canterbury Region of New Zealand. The analysis highlighted the length of time required to collect the science to understand an issue and to formulate and implement policy responses. It also identified delays due to scientific uncertainty, scientific controversies, disregarding science, decision processes, and the response time of the natural system. The absence of clear policy approaches and environmental outcomes in order to implement environmental legislation was a significant source of delay. Delays in implementing environmental interventions led to loss of natural capital with groundwater overallocation reducing flows in groundwater-fed streams and freshwater inflows to the lake, and land use intensification degrading groundwater, groundwater-fed streams, and lake water quality. The extent of development beyond sustainable limits during these delays may have permanently compromised the ability to implement comprehensive environmental interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Delay analysis in policy making
• environmental interventions
• science for policy and recovery
• institutions to address environmental problems

Disclosure statement

Bryan Jenkins was chief executive of Environment Canterbury from 2003 to 2011.

Notes

1. While not mentioned by Varjopuro and his colleagues or Karlsson and Gilek, compliance with implementation requirements is mentioned in case studies, e.g. in addressing chemical contamination of the Great Lakes, Gilbertson (2001) identifies “reluctance to undertake costly remedial actions even after causal relationship is proven” as a source of delay in the recovery of the Great Lakes.

2. Ngāi Tahu is the Māori tribe whose rohe (tribal territory) includes the Canterbury Region.

3. Taonga means a treasure, considered to be of value including socially and culturally valuable resources.

4. Mahinga kai means maintaining healthy populations of food species and their habitats.

5. Whakaora means to restore health.

6. This is what Environment Canterbury set out to achieve seven years earlier with its proposed regional plan notified in 2004.

7. This was a significant clarification of sustainable management in relation to the resolution between environmental protection and resource use and changed the court interpretation of an “overall broad judgement” of balancing resource use and environmental protection (Skelton & Memon, 2002).

8. This is the position reached by Environment Canterbury seventeen years earlier with the introduction of the Living Streams Programme in 2003 (Jenkins, 2009).

9. The precautionary principle is that lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.

10. 7-Day Mean Annual Low Flow (7DMALF) is a measure of a stream’s natural low flows. 7DMALF is the lowest mean flow recorded at a given site over seven consecutive days in a single year. Annual values for the entire period of data are averaged to calculate 7DMALF for the site.

11. A successful pilot of targeted stream augmentation has been undertaken for Boggy Creek (Painter, 2018).

12. Note Schedule 8 in the LWRP sets out a TN value of 1560 ug/L (maximum annual average) for coastal lakes whereas Section 11 for the Selwyn Waihora Zone sets a TN value of 3400 ug/L for Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere based on the expected outcome of the ZIPA solutions package.