Soon after the water quality problem was identified by the Waikato Regional Council in the late 1990s, discussions with the community began. The initial contact by the Regional Council was via a pamphlet to the Taupo community describing the water quality issue, the causes, and identifying limits on fertiliser use and changes from intensive agriculture as potential measures to preserve water quality in the lake. In 2000, the Regional Council set up meetings with landowners to discuss the issue further. Farmers recall being told they were responsible for polluting the lake and were outraged, given that the New Zealand farming model encouraged and rewarded high productivity (Yerex, 2009). Taupo farmers also felt they had already countered their environmental impacts with extensive stream fencing, planting and retirement under a Taupo Catchment Control Scheme in the 1970s. The notion that they were polluters was a novel and unwelcome concept.This led the Regional Council to review its approach to the community. Not addressing the water quality issue was not an option; a process that would constructively engage the community was needed. So began regular and frequent meetings between Regional Council staff and landowners, working to understand each other’s needs and develop a policy to save the lake and allow communities to survive and prosper. These meetings would continue up to the time of Environment Court hearings associated with the policy changes in 2007. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Waikato Regional Council and Taupo Lake Care established ground rules for consultation and helped build trust with landowners. It took approximately 11 years from early consultation with the community to the final decision of the courts, including six years of formal legislative process. While this extensive period of time allowed all the issues to be fully examined, it required significant commitment from all involved. The outcome was a target to reduce manageable nitrogen emissions to 20% below current recorded levels, so as to restore water quality and clarity to 2001 levels by 2080.
This was equivalent to 153 tonnes of nitrogen annual discharge reduction by 2018. However, this target was a compromise: there was strong debate and uncertainty over the size of the reduction, with estimates ranging between 20% and 80%. The legislation required that the environmental benefits of a higher nitrogen reduction target be considered against the economic, social and cultural effects of the decision. A higher nitrogen reduction target was likely to have major impacts on the viability of farming, and consequent negative impacts on the wider community. Thus, the more modest figure of 20% was considered a scientifically defensible target, given the scientific uncertainty and the broader interests at stake (Waikato Regional Council, 2011).
This was to be achieved through a policy package with three main components designed to give landowners flexibility, while managing overall nitrogen emissions (Figure 1):
(1) A cap on nitrogen emission levels within the Lake Taupo catchment.
(2) The establishment of the Taupo nitrogen market.
(3) The formation of the Lake Taupo Protection Trust to fund the initiative.
Known as “Variation 5”, the policy package simultaneously aimed to minimise the costs and mitigate the social and cultural effects of achieving the cut in nitrogen emissions. The costs were to be spread across local, regional, and national communities. The creation of a market for managing diffuse emissions was the first of its kind in New Zealand, and rare around the world
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..
