Dades personals
BATERIA DE PREGUNTAS PARA LOS GRUPOS DE DISCUSIÓN
The tension that this thesis addresses is the policy outcome of trying to achieve the water quality goals set out in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management that also allows farmers to operate a viable business. Is cap and trade the means to resolving the challenge set forth by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment when she commented that New Zealand now faces
a “…classic economy versus environment dilemma” (PCE, 2013:7)?
The cap and trade scheme that was implemented in the Lake Taupo Catchment in New Zealand presented an ideal opportunity to explore the kinds of questions that the Parliamentary
Commissioner for the Environment raised. The Taupo implementation is the only cap and trade implementation where discharges of nitrogen from agricultural land have been controlled and thus the achievement of environmental goals are able to be quantified and attained (assuming that the underlying science is correct). An examination of the Catchment showed there to be several other advantages to using this as a case for study. First, the Catchment was found to be culturally diverse, second there were a range of ownership structures from one-person farm units to multiple
ownership of land and last, there were a range of land covers, land-uses and farm systems. While the predominant land-use was sheep and beef farming, dairy farming was also undertaken there with more land suitable for conversion. Thus the potential for land-use change to a theoretically more profitable use existed in the Catchment and the trading arm of Variation 5 potentially can facilitate this type of land-use change. Thus, Variation 5 could be the ideal policy implemented in an ideal setting, making Lake Taupo Catchment the place where environmental and farming goals are both
met, thus resolving the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s dilemma alluded to
above.
As shown in Chapter Two, other cap and trade programmes have had problems with an inability to determine whether environmental goals are met, high transaction costs, low trading volumes, and lack of trust between farmers on the one hand, and point source polluters and administrators on the other hand. The examination of the cap and trade regulations that have been put in place in the Taupo Catchment showed that some of these have been resolved in Variation 5. First, a nitrogen discharge limit has been placed on the Catchment and then apportioned to each farm, and the WRC
has plans in place to monitor compliance. Achieving the environmental goal is thus assured,
providing the underlying science is correct. Transaction costs in this case have been found to be low in comparison with other cap and trade implementations. In part this is because search costs are much lower and Council administrative costs are low. Trading volumes, however, are acknowledged to be low (Duhon, Young, & Kerr, 2011). Up to October 2013, 31 sales of nitrogen and three
purchases had been undertaken, most with the (local and central government funded) Lake Taupo Protection Trust. Of the farmer to farmer trades, almost all involved a single purchaser. Last, public acceptance of the regulations during their development period was mixed. There is a long history of care for the Lake in this Catchment which has resulted in a high proportion of the Catchment being in forest and on-farm reserves. Many farmers, however, were opposed to the introduction of a cap, although they saw benefits in the management flexibility that trading enables. Support amongst other stakeholder groups has been demonstrated through the implementation of the 2020 Taupo- nui-a-tui Plan, and the backing of citizen groups such as the Lakes and Waterways Action Group. There are two other factors, concerning the regulations, which are important. First, discharge allowances were grand-parented, and second, local and central government established an $81m fund (vested in The Lake Taupo Protection Trust) to assist with the reduction of the nitrogen load
entering the Lake. Both of these factors resulted in ‘business as usual’ for the 83 landowners that (by
October 2013) had obtained consent to farm, since they were able to choose which year out of five specified years they wished their farm to be benchmarked on. Further, reductions in Catchment nitrogen loads were voluntary, funded by government and enacted through the trading arm of the regulations.
The location, too, has unusual characteristics. The investigation of the biophysical influences on farming showed that the Catchment is subject to dry summers and cold winters. In addition, the soils were shown to be very free draining, of low fertility and easily erodible. Both of these factors have presented challenges for grass growth and for farming in the Catchment and have a bearing on the choices that are open to farmers in a regulated environment.
This examination of the Lake Taupo Catchment and the Variation 5 regulations forms a background to the landscape biographies that have been developed, one for each sector, that are presented in the following chapters. Thus the thesis now turns to the investigation, in situ, of the consequences of the Lake Taupo Nitrogen Trading Programme.