We're kidding ourselves over sustainability

Thursday, 15 August 2019

OPINION: Driving my children to school on Thursday this week a few cars were parked at a small bridge. They were there this time last year as well.

Thursday was the start of whitebait season. The cars belonged people netting their catch from a stream that leads from Opotonui River to the mouth of the Whangapoua Harbour. I don't know the size of their daily take, but if you listened to reports this week the very essence of our Kiwi way of life is under threat. There are petitions and public meetings and utter outrage at the proposed Indigenous Freshwater Fish Amendment Bill, that would amend our Conservation Act.

National says it will ban whitebaiting, the Government says that's rubbish. Exactly where it will land is anyone's guess. But, like many industries in New Zealand, a lot of whitebaiting is no longer about catching enough fry to make a few fritters for the family. It's an industry and many are catching them for commercial gain. It's no longer sustainable. It needs to be managed. There should be a quota system. It is the only fishery in New Zealand that doesn't have one.

The thing is, it's very easy to point the finger at 'greedy whitebaiters'. But those doing the pointing have probably bought the odd fritter or pound or two themselves. And most of those catching them have probably had their days where they know they have caught more than their fill.

As long as it relies on a natural resource that can't be entirely replaced, nothing is completely sustainable.

* Fishery closure along 140km of Kaikōura coastline extended

* New Zealand's most controversial fishery deemed sustainable by global body

* Angling for a blue tick: the fishing sustainability question**

And that's the thing. Nothing we do in life is completely sustainable. The 's' word has become the buzz of now. It's being thrown into every policy document, strategy and business plan around. It is absolutely an important discussion and an imperative goal, but how long will take before sustainability becomes a tokenism? We talk about managing sustainable fisheries, sustainable agriculture, horticulture, tourism, fashion and technology. We aim for things like sustainable economic growth and sustainable cities. Putting the word sustainable in front of these things tells us we can continue to live as we do now, but in a more sustainable way, and I'm just not sure that's possible.

No industry in New Zealand, I can think of, is completely sustainable. It's a discussion that becomes quite depressing if you spend too much time thinking about it.

This week the talk was also all about whether Auckland should continue to spill south, eating up productive horticulture farmland to provide more housing for the masses. Hamilton also continues to sprawl to the north and south west. We can talk about managing sustainable growth in our cities but the land we have available is finite, so how can it be?

No matter how sustainable we try to be, how well we manage our industries, how many green spaces we create, how successful we are at converting people to public transport, ultimately it is our continued and growing collective consumption which is unsustainable.

Houses or horticulture, they both have their environmental impacts. Horticulture. Nope, not completely sustainable. The industry still uses pesticides, phosphates and nitrates. Even organic farmers still have their impact.

Locally there has been much debate around mussel spat farms and fin fish farming. We have marine farmers throughout New Zealand desperate for more space to grow shellfish and fin fish. To expand and grow their industry. We're still waiting to hear the results of consent applications within the Coromandel Marine Farming Zone. It's about 300 hectares in size, and sits in the Firth of Thames, west of Coromandel Town and they want to farm kingfish, a sustainable species. As an industry marine farming seems to be considered one with lower environmental impacts, but it still has them. Some of those opposed to fin fish farming would rather have their fish caught from the open ocean. But wait, commercial fishing, nope, not completely sustainable either.

In New Zealand we do a pretty good job of managing our fisheries. Fisheries New Zealand released a report recently which said of 169 fish stocks assessed only 27 have sustainability concerns. If you're out recreational fishing or buying your fish from the supermarket you might be interest to know snapper and tarakihi are on the list of fisheries with sustainability issues so even catching them on a line is having an impact.

I'm loath to even mention sustainable agriculture. Farmers are currently on a hiding to nothing. Methane emissions, water quality, animal welfare and now Fonterra's dismal financial results. You can't scroll a list of headlines without their unsustainability beating you across the brow. Even our best operators, and despite popular opinion there are many of them, are still using up resources and creating emissions. We can and are certainly trying to make vast improvements, but agriculture will never really be completely sustainable.

What about tourism? A new partnership between Tourism Industry Aotearoa and Enviro-Mark Solutions announced this week says it will support tourism operators to measure, manage and reduce their climate and environmental impacts. To become more sustainable.

Sustainable though. Not really. Think of the carbon and tangible environmental effects from the 3.8 million people who visited our shores last year. And we're hoping to increase this number to more than 5 million by 2025.

And then there's the whole plastic bag ban. I thought it was great. I thought paper or cardboard was more sustainable. I was quite despondent upon discovering producing paper and cardboard apparently produces more carbon than plastic. And all of this is before we even start considering the impact of the fast fashion that is filling our landfills, the manufacture of our phones, our computers, or the batteries that will power our electric vehicles.

Living day to day there is very little left you don't feel guilty about. Whether it's how were spending our recreational time, what we're eating, wearing, driving or using to communicate. Everything has an impact on our environment. We've pushed our planet's resources to its limit. As our populations keep increasing the impact of everything we do will continue to be felt as we simply live and grow our industries to support ourselves. Nothing is completely sustainable.

I don't have an answer, but as we work on creating more sustainable industries and aiming for more sustainable growth, we should probably also be talking about collectively trying to consume a little less and valuing the things we already have a little more.