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- Title
Why the Proposed Natural and Built Environments Act Might Fail.
- Authors
Knight-Lenihan, Stephen
- Abstract
New Zealand’s primary planning legislation, the Resource Management Act 1991, is due to be repealed and replaced. This article reviews from an ecological perspective the proposed replacement, a Natural and Built Environments Act. The review concludes the replacement is insufficiently clear to deliver the high-level goal of protecting and enhancing the natural environment, and the wording reveals a poor understanding of ecosystem processes. A particular term needing to be removed is “environmental limit”, along with the concept of minimum biophysical states and maximum amounts of environmental harm or stress. Instead, a concept such as “biophysical capacity” should be introduced, drawing on dynamic ecological processes and the need to enhance and restore ecosystems as a primary outcome of environmental legislation. “Capacity” allows for continuing improvements in ecological values, whereas “limits” relate to accounting concepts such as bottom lines and overall benefits across ecological, economic and social domains. New wording is proposed that would at least expose the contradictions inherent in creating legislation aimed at improving ecological outcomes without sufficient use of robust ecological terminology. This could form the basis for further refinement to create more useful legislation.
- Subjects
ENVIRONMENTAL law; NATURE; BUILT environment; RESOURCE management; ECOSYSTEMS
- Publication
New Zealand Journal of Environmental Law, 2021, Vol 25, p259
- ISSN
1174-1538
- Publication type
Article