Te Waihora Lake Ellesmere - the 2009 Living Lake Symposium: a summary of the key findings and conclusions

The 2nd Te Waihora Lake Ellesmere Living Lakes Symposium was held at Lincoln University, 4th November 2009. The symposium had three main objectives: 1. to report on ‘research’ undertaken since 2007; 2. report and discuss PLOVER , a model of how lake values change in relation to lake opening scheduling/management; and 3. to consider where to from here for future management of the lake. Scientists reported on these objectives and contributed to evaluation of a range of potential future lake level management scenarios. These scenarios helped focus debate around some key issues and to clarify some potential ways forward, e.g.: higher lake opening trigger levels come with costs but few obvious gains; a higher average lake level can occur without raising the trigger level, but by incorporating other decision criteria; targeted openings around September and/or October have potentially great benefits for fisheries management; and, each of the former needs to be associated with a reconsideration of who pays the cost of management. Future debate around these options is now much better informed by the modelling and by discussions which occurred at the symposium. It is clear also that the lake’s future is tied to much more than the lake level management regime. Riparian (willow control, stream edge planting, and stream side fencing) management is clearly necessary now and has started, albeit in a very limited way

Planning for climate, weather and other natural disasters: Tourism in Northland

The weather is an important ingredient for tourism, but it is also a potential source of hazard, with natural disasters resulting from extreme events not being uncommon in New Zealand. Using the tourism sector in Northland as a case study, this research sought to identify key concerns and issues relating to climate and weather, and to understand the flow of information between weather information providers and users, including tourists. The research also assessed tourism’s preparedness for natural disasters and involvement in local or regional civil defence responses. Interviews with key stakeholders were undertaken in three stages and analysed to generate insights into the relationship between climate, weather and tourism. The key issue identified by tourism stakeholders related to the image of Northland as a tourist destination and the impact of weather forecasts on domestic visitors, mainly from the Auckland market. Seasonality of visitation is also an issue. Climate variability (i.e. changes in every-day conditions such as rainy days) was not perceived to be a big problem; in fact most tourism stakeholders reported relatively little disruption from unfavourable weather conditions. Non-tourism stakeholders expressed concerns about longer term issues, such as climate change and its impacts on extreme events, such as flooding and drought, and sea level rise. The analysis of crisis and disasters resulting from extreme weather events revealed that, while there are regional and local response plans and processes in place, tourism is not explicitly integrated into those. A few gaps, such as communicating road closures or early warnings, were identified and could be rectified by better cooperation between tourism and civil defence organisations. In summary, the Northland climate and weather appears generally very favourable for tourism although there are some seasonality issues arising from the current reliance on coastal and waterbased attractions. Efforts to both attract visitors outside the summer season and to improve summer visitation numbers may be directed at addressing perceived image problems. There is also scope to increase the capability of tourism stakeholders to deal with emergency situations

The costs of single species programes and the budget constraint

Despite the scarcity of funding for species conservation programs, estimation of the cost of threatened species programs occurs in only a few countries. This paper examines the reasons for the lack of species program cost estimates and the likely impacts of this on conservation management. We report methodology used to estimate cost for eleven New Zealand species programs and their estimated costs over a ten year period. Differences between species in the costs of the programs and the breakdown of the costs are highlighted. The estimated costs are compared with expected levels of expenditure on each species to illustrate the existence of a budget constraint for threatened species. The likely effects of cost of species conservation exceeding expenditures on species conservation are examined. Annual cost data is used together with information on rate of conservation progress to estimate time and total cost for each species to reach ‘Not Threatened’ status

Public perception of the urban environment: comparison of Wellington with national data

The first State of the Environment Reporting (SER) exercise based on a survey of New Zealanders' perceptions of the environment was undertaken in 2000. The survey questionnaire is constructed upon a Pressure-State-Response model. Hughey et al. (2001) provide background and justification for the survey approach used. OECD (1996) and MfE (1997) explain this model, which is used internationally as the basis for environmental reporting. The survey by Hughey et al. was designed to be undertaken biennially and subsequent surveys were undertaken in 2002 and 2004. The main aims of the research are to measure, analyse and monitor changes in New Zealanders' perceptions, attitudes and preferences towards a range of environmental issues, ultimately contributing to improved state of the environment reporting. With regard to the present report, the Wellington Regional Council asked us to compare data - that had been gathered through the survey by Hughey et al. - for the Wellington region (as defined through the respective post codes¹ ) with data for the Rest of New Zealand (excluding Wellington)

Zero waste to landfill: An unacknowledged supermegaproject

Zero Waste is a global movement focused on replacing linear resource-to-waste systems with circular systems found elsewhere in nature, and Zero Waste to Landfill (ZWtL) is a specific interpretation implying the total elimination of residual disposal. Local governments worldwide have declared ZWtL goals with specific deadlines; however, to date none of these initiatives have proven successful. A grounded case study of ZWtL campaigns was conducted to investigate this chronic failure. The results indicate that ZWtL is an unacknowledged supermegaproject: requiring extremely deep and unprecedented change and sacrifice across all sectors, yet destined for failure because proponents fail to recognize the scope of the task and plan accordingly. Strategies for addressing waste upstream are critically absent, with insufficient downstream measures such as recycling the prevailing norm – reinforced by a consistent preference for technical solutions over fundamental behavior change

Issues and indicators of acceptable change : a study of visitors’ and stakeholders’ concerns about three natural attractions in the Paparoa area, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand

This report presents results from visitor surveys and stakeholder interviews at three natural attractions in the Paparoa National Park. The sites were the Pancake Rocks (Dolomite Point), the Fox River caves, and the Westland Black Petrel colony. Questions in the surveys and interviews were based on the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) framework to identify potential indicators of change at the site, and were developed from previous studies using this system. The surveys gathered information on visitors' experience of the Pancake Rocks and Fox River caves, and people's sensitivity to impacts encountered at the sites. This was done using self-administered questionnaires on-site immediately after the visit. Stakeholders were interviewed about their issues and concerns for all three sites, and were asked to provide a list of potential indicators of acceptable change

Environmental budget allocation : public preferences

It is important for central government to have good information about public preferences regarding budget allocations. Consumer sovereignty, government popularity, and efficiency are all dependent on clear articulation of community preferences. The paper draws upon information gathered as part of a large-scale survey to identify community perceptions about the state of the New Zealand environment (Hughey et al., 2002) to identify public preferences for allocation of government monies. Methods entailed survey participant statements of preferences for spending on specified environmental and conservation items, a balanced macro-budget reallocation exercise, and a choice modelling exercise to reveal willingness to trade-off expenditures on particular budget items. The environmental budget allocation exercise provides little guidance on which aspects of environmental spending would provide the greatest benefits at the margin. For most items the modal response was no change in current spending. However, more than 50% of respondents indicated they preferred increased spending on pest & weed control, air quality and fresh waters. The macro-budget reallocation and choice modelling exercises provide similar results. They both indicated that people obtain negative utility from allocating money to income support, and desire cuts to spending on superannuation and income support. Older respondents are not as averse to spending on income support, but are still generally in favour of cuts in spending on this item. Spending on health, education, and the environment all yield positive benefits. Respondents see significantly more benefits from spending on health, than on education or the environment. Willingness to spend on health is not affected by respondent age, but willingness to spend on education and the environment both decline with age

Evaluation of externality management instruments in marine fisheries

New Zealand marine fishing activities create many types of environmental externalities, which by law must be internalised. Selection of best intemalisation instruments can be aided by following a hierarchical decision process, which first screens the universe of instruments against implementation criteria to establish the feasible set. Instruments in the feasible set can be evaluated against a range of environmental, Treaty ofWaitangi, economic, sociocultural and management criteria. This approach to selection can be formalised in decision support software to provide a useful tool for fisheries management agencies

Criteria to evaluate the application of policy instruments designed to internalise externalities from commercial fisheries : report to Ministry of Fisheries

New Zealand has the world's fourth largest Exclusive Economic Zone and a very large commercial fishery. Arguably this fishery is one of the best managed in the world. Nevertheless, many problems remain to be solved, especially environmental problems. Many of these problems can be categorised as externalities from commercial fishing. We (Hughey et al. 2000) have identified a wide range of policy instruments which can be applied to the internalisation of these externalities. In this report we identify criteria against which each of these instruments should be evaluated before it is considered for implementation. The criteria are environmental, Treaty of Waitangi, socio-economic, recreational and management, respectively. We then evaluate the effectiveness of chosen instruments against these criteria. All of these tools can be used to enhance decision making in fisheries management and a framework for this decision making is proposed

The role of sociocultural beliefs in sustainable resource management: A case study of traditional water harvesting systems in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

This case study helps to develop a better overall understanding of the roles and need for managing traditional water management technologies and to focus greater attention towards preserving them. The unique traditional stone spouts of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, demonstrate human ingenuity in harnessing subsurface flows and are, as well, an example of outstanding social accomplishment in the form of communal collaboration. In addition, in places, some of these spouts are recognised as having significant heritage conservation value and thus contribute, via tourism, to the local and national economy. This study shows the current values of traditional spouts and their connection with social and cultural norms by comparing two spouts in peri-urban heritage areas of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. Ultimately, it shows that in the presence of an alternative modern piped water supply system, which is inherently unreliable at times, the absence of an appropriate property right system is leading to the ongoing decline in the state of these traditional spout systems