News Item

Environmental Defence Society (EDS) began research in May on their latest project “Strengthening Regulatory Outcomes: practice, innovation and enhancement of environmental enforcement in New Zealand”. This is their third project relating to the protection of biodiversity in NZ. All three have been funded by the Law Foundation and led by Dr Marie Brown.

Findings from the first project were published in the EDS book “Vanishing Nature” (2015). This reported an alarming decline in many of our native species, and challenged policy-makers to take much stronger action to arrest the decline. It highlighted the need to look more closely for a solution.

The second project looked at how to safeguard biodiversity and examined new policy tools to address the challenges identified in “Vanishing Nature”. Findings and recommendations were published in the EDS book “Pathways to Prosperity” (Feb 2016). Recommendations include: introducing a National Policy Statement on indigenous biodiversity, improved use of bonds under the Resource Management Act, improved biodiversity information and regional biodiversity plans.

EDS’s current research will investigate the modern face of enforcement of our key environmental laws including the Resource Management Act, the Wildlife Act, the Conservation Act and the Marine Mammals Protection Act.

The authors, Marie Brown and Raewyn Peart, will examine the effectiveness of monitoring, compliance and enforcement of New Zealand’s environmental institutions, structures and processes. They aim to publish their findings in early 2017.

EDS web page about “Vanishing Nature” and “Pathways to Prosperity”

The Law Foundation has awarded up to $62,500 towards supporting this project.