Over a 10-year period New Zealand suffered almost $1 billion in drought and flood damage, and was also affected by climate change.
These are just a few of the findings from a major environmental report which outlines how human activities have been affecting the quality of New Zealand’s land, air, and water.
It also reveals how climate change is having a profound affect on mental health, particularly among farmers who have suffered from depression and anxiety.
Peter Meecham/Stuff
Alexander Dy, age 8, from Christchurch, is seen playing on a large tree at Christchurchs Riccarton Bush. (file photo).
The Environment Aotearoa-2022 report, released by Statistics NZ and the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), was released on Thursday. It shows that as the environment becomes less healthy, so does our human health, and our economic prospects.
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The report was previously published every three to six years, but now it will be published every six years. It provides an extensive assessment of New Zealand’s environment.
It was previously focused on human impacts on the environment. However, this report quantifies how declining environmental health can impact the wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Natasha Lewis, deputy Secretary of MfEs evidence and data and insights, stated that overall, the state of environment was still getting worse for many key indicators.
Lewis said that we didn’t get here overnight and that it is impossible to turn things around overnight.
While this report shows a continuation in the decline we have been seeing, it also highlights the potential for change.
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One part of New Zealand experienced 61 days of drought in 2020. It was devastating for many.
Climate and atmosphere
Lewis stated that the impacts of climate change can be felt in different ways across Aotearoa every single day.
According to the report, 2020 Aotearoas greenhouse gases emissions were 21% higher than 1990 levels. However, they had remained relatively stable in the last decade. Half of those greenhouse gas emissions were from agriculture.
The warming effect was caused by greenhouse gases emitted from New Zealand and other parts of the world.
From 1909 to 2019, the average annual temperature rose by 1.13 degrees Celsius in Aotearoa.
New Zealand has had five of the warmest years in recorded history since 1998: 1998, 1999 and 2016, 2018, and 2019.
Climate change has a significant impact upon New Zealand’s weather. Recent droughts have become more frequent, particularly in the northern and eastern parts.
Although the impact of climate on extreme rainfall trends remains unclear, the report revealed that climate change was responsible for 12 extreme rain events between 2007-2017.
In the same time, New Zealand was hit by floods and droughts that cost $5.2 billion. Of this, $940 million was directly attributable to human-caused climate changes.
It was also discovered that climate change had a profound effect on mental health.
New Zealand’s annual average temperature anomaly is from 1909 to 2019. The baseline temperature anomaly is the average annual temperature over the past 30 years, from 1961 to 1990.
The report cites studies that show farmers are particularly vulnerable to mental health risks following droughts, including depression and anxiety.
After the 2017 floods in the Bay of Plenty, many farmers experienced mental health problems and were forced to leave the farms.
The quality of the air can also affect your physical health.
Although air quality was improving, there were still times each year when levels of air pollution were higher than the World Health Organisation guidelines.
Winter months are when wood is used for heating, so the issue was even more apparent. Other sources of pollution include vehicle emissions and manufacturing.
The report stated that poor air quality was a contributing factor to a variety of health issues, including allergies, premature deaths, and poor air quality. New Zealand was also paying $6.7 billion annually for respiratory diseases like asthma.
RNZ
Morning Report’s Environment Minister David Parker said that there are no plans for “immediately reducing the New Zealand standard in nitrates content in drinking water.” (First published February 23, 2021).
Water
The report found that water quality overall was poorer in human modified catchments.
Many rivers and lakes had unnaturally high levels nitrate-nitrogen or phosphorous, probably due to urban and agricultural runoff.
It was found that 46 per cent of the 3813 lakes of Aotearoa are poor or very poor for nutrient enrichment. This is between 2016-2020.
17% of rivers were severely nutrient polluted, according to an MCI score.
Only seven percent of waterways had MCI scores that were perfect, and scores for 56% of monitoring stations had declined between 2001 and 2020.
The report stated that good water quality was particularly important for recreational activities such as swimming and kayaking.
Between 2018-2019, 25% of New Zealanders who had registered drinking water supplies did so without water that met all New Zealand drinking water standards.
These standards establish acceptable levels of disease-causing bacteria.Campylobacter E. coli,Heavy metals and nitrates can be harmful.
Consuming contaminated water to prepare food or drink was linked with a number of adverse health outcomes.
Blue baby syndrome has been linked to nitrate levels higher than 11.3 milligrams per Liter in drinking water. There was also growing evidence that it could lead to other health problems.
New Zealand wetland area in hectares, 1996-2018 (excluding Chatham Islands).
New Zealand’s precious wetland ecosystems are also in decline, with 1498 hectares of land disappearing between 2012-2018.
The country has lost 90% its historical wetlands which were important as wildlife habitats, mahinga Kai sites, water filters, carbon sinks and carbon sinks.
The report however stated that significant progress had been made in wetland rehabilitation.
A nationally-significant wetland set to be constructed from dairy farming land next to Lake Horowhenua was just one example.
Lewis stated that the picture is varied.
John Kirk-Anderson/Stuff
It is believed that 90 percent of wetlands were lost before the advent of humans (file photo).
This shows that if we put our collective efforts into it, we can make an impact.
The cumulative effects on sediment, nutrient and plastic runoff, as well as climate change, are also affecting coastal and marine environments.
However, fish populations appeared to be in good health with 82% of stocks under the quota system in good condition by 2020.
The report acknowledged that there were knowledge gaps and that there was a lack of data about some species.
Anne-Gaelle Ausseil is the MfE principal scientist. She said that using statistics from the Quota management system meant that the data didn’t look at the entire ecosystem.
She stated that they didn’t have any information about how fish species interact with each other or the impacts of fishing at the seafloor on their collective impacts like climate change.
Dominico Zapata/Stuff
The soil had become more compacted on dairy farm sites, which could have an adverse effect on soil productivity (file photo).
Land
There has been no improvement in New Zealand’s soil qualité between 1994 and 2018.
Between 2014-2018, 80 percent of the monitoring sites in the country failed to meet at minimum one soil quality indicator. These indicators included acidity, total Nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus as well as macroporosity or soil compaction.
Intensive agriculture could lead to soil health and productivity declines. Synthetic nitrogen fertilisers have been shown to reduce soil biodiversity, which could impact future land restoration.
Nearly half of all sites tested had too much soil, which could lead to lower productivity. Particularly noticeable were the problems at dairy sites where 65 percent of soil did not meet the ideal level that allows water and air through to plant roots.
Sites within the target ranges of soil quality indicator by land use, 2014-2018
New Zealand’s major economic player is agriculture. It accounted for 4.3 percent of the gross domestic products (GDP) in the year ended March 2020. In addition, $40.7 billion was earned by agriculture and horticulture in export revenue.
The report revealed that highly productive land was becoming scarcer, which could limit future options.
The report concluded that New Zealand was in danger of its current food production systems becoming unsustainable.
The amount, quality, and variety of food that we can grow could be limited. This could affect our ability to access the food that we need and reduce the economic benefit from our primary sector.
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF
Nearly half of New Zealand’s bird species are now extinct and 80 percent of those that remain are in danger. Can we reverse this decline? (Video first published October 2021).
Wildlife
A lot of New Zealand’s wildlife is still in trouble due to habitat loss, introduced predators, and other factors.
74% of land-dwelling bird species were at risk or threatened with extinction in 2016, with many taonga species such as Kerer becoming dependent on conservation to survive.
This was a much higher percentage for native reptiles with 94% at risk or threatened as of 2021.
Introduced land mammals like rats, possums and stoats were killing approximately 26.6 million native bird eggs every year.
Kevin Hague, chief executive of Forest & Bird, stated that the report showed that all environments are critical for Kiwis’ wellbeing but were facing the challenges of dealing with the effects of human activity in a warmer world.
Iain McGregor/Stuff
Kevin Hague is interested in conservation outside of fenced sanctuary.
It is evident that more must be done to protect the environment so that it can continue to support us and protect our children.
We depend on nature. However, it can only help us deal with the effects of climate change and improve our wellbeing if we take action to restore and sustain its health.
Hague stated it was time business. Industries, including agriculture, recognized how vulnerable they were due to climate change and realized they had to care for the climate in order to ensure their future wellbeing.
Te Mana o te TaiaoThe Government’s biodiversity strategy to restore and protect nature was due to be released in the very near future.
It is vital that the Government has a plan of implementation. Te Mana o te TaiaoThese statistics can be turned around if someone has the ambition and breadth to do so.
