La competencia emocional: educación emocional

This case study highlighted the difficulty ECan experienced in managing the cumulative effects of resource use without a completed regional plan. ECan’s Chief Executive Bryan Jenkins noted these difficulties in 2007:

[a]s sustainability limits are approached, there is the potential for

cumulative effects. Management of cumulative effects requires a catchment wide approach. However, with [the] RMA designed for managing the adverse effects of individual applications there are shortcomings in the legislative framework for the management of cumulative effects… (as quoted in Milne, 2008, p.2).

Philip Milne disagreed with Jenkins. Milne argued that cumulative effects of individual consents can be managed through the RMA without a regional plan (Milne, 2008). Milne cited Peter Salmon, who argued that calculating cumulative effects required “identifying the resource, determining its capacity and then limiting its use” (as quoted in Milne, 2008, p.9). If ECan had been able to identify the groundwater resource and determine its capacity for use then hypothetically its limits for groundwater abstraction should have had the strength to withstand Environment Court appeals. Milne used his experience as an ECan commissioner to highlight how difficult it was to identify the resource and determine its capacity for use. Milne argued that Canterbury’s groundwater zones are complicated:

…[because they] comprise multiple layered aquifers (up to 6 deep in places). The effect of a particular proposal will depend upon its location in two dimensions (lateral and vertical). Then one must add a third dimension; time. The deeper aquifers respond more slowly to recharge and abstraction than the shallower aquifers, and surface effects (on lowland streams) take longer to emerge. Even the “over allocated” shallower aquifer has sufficient capacity in some locations most years (because of river recharge) and in most locations in some years (when there has been sufficient winter recharge and moderated irrigation demand) (Milne, 2008, p.9).

Thus, determining the abstraction capacity of an aquifer is very difficult. It requires knowledge of the cumulative effect of existing abstractions and the point at which these cumulative effects become

unacceptable. It requires reliable evidence on the effect of current and potential abstractions, and whether there will be times, locations, or depths in which additional abstractions can be

accommodated. For these reasons, Milne argued that “only in clear cases will there be a case for a total prohibition on further activity” (Milne, 2008, p.12 italics added).

Restricting groundwater use on the basis of cumulative effects without a notified regional plan is very difficult but not impossible. Milne argued that the failure to manage cumulative effects is not

because of regional council incompetence, but due to “insufficient information upon which to base limits; uncertainty about the cause of particular effects; reluctance by some politics to severely constrain resource use and thereby curtail economic development” and “the lesser weight which can be given to ‘untested’ limits in proposed plans” (Milne, 2008, p.19). In conclusion, Aqualinc’s

Canterbury groundwater model highlighted deficiencies in ECan’s identification of the resource. This provided enough uncertainty for consent applicants to successfully challenge ECan’s interim

groundwater limits. Commissioners rejected ECan’s limits because there was uncertainty regarding the resource (in terms of aquifer identification and the flow of water between aquifers) and its capacity for further use (in terms of to what extent river runoff, soil type, and irrigation leakage affect aquifer flow), as well as uncertainty over how much groundwater was being abstracted through existing consents.

6.7.

Conclusion

ECan pursued interim limits to groundwater abstraction in an attempt to establish authority over groundwater use in this case study. Consent applicants challenged these limits in resource consent hearings and through appeals to the Environment Court. Consent applicants, when using Aqualinc’s Canterbury groundwater model, were able to highlight uncertainties with ECan’s identification of the resource while illustrating the capacity of aquifers for more abstraction.

The MC-NPM hybrid theory predicted: 1), that ECan would establish patronage with interest groups but would maintain decision making autonomy, 2) that ECan would focus on outputs over outcomes and 3), that ECan would adopt a hands-off approach to freshwater management unless the

cumulative environmental effects of resource use became clear. In this case study, ECan established a close relationship of patronage with environmental interest groups, such as the Water Rights Trust, who supported ECan’s (self-proclaimed) “conservative” approach to groundwater limits (Aitchison Earl et al., 2004, p.12). ECan also chose to pursue authority through an interim plan output, as in the first case study. ECan also adopted a hands-off approach to groundwater planning until the

environmental effects of groundwater abstraction (for example, lowland stream flow in the Rakaia- Selwyn groundwater zone) became clear.

Thus, this case study provides evidence that concurs with the predictions of the MC-NPM hybrid theory. However, ECan was not able to maintain autonomy over decision making as the MC-NPM hybrid theory suggested. Consent applicants, through use of the Aqualinc Canterbury groundwater model, successfully challenged ECan’s groundwater limits through Environment Court appeals and resource consent hearings. The Aqualinc Canterbury groundwater model highlighted scientific uncertainties with ECan’s identification of the groundwater resource, and as a result, the

Environment Court and resource consent commissioners chose to allow abstraction with adaptive management techniques, rather than restricting all abstractions as ECan desired.

ECan’s inability to establish authority or autonomy over freshwater use led to policy stagnation. ECan’s policy stagnation concerned New Zealand’s central Government. The Minister for the

Environment, Trevor Mallard, met with ECan chairman Kerry Burke and Chief Executive Bryan Jenkins after 69 applicants were given resource consent in the Rakaia-Selwyn red zone. The Ministry for the Environment believed ECan was experiencing difficulties in managing freshwater (Gorman, 2010c, p.5). Mr Mallard was concerned with ECan’s shortage of appropriately skilled staff as well as backlogs of resource consents.

ECan’s failure to produce a notified regional plan, as well as the policy stagnation seen in the first two case studies, led the organisation to examine alternative methods of establishing authority and autonomy over freshwater management. In response, ECan helped create the non-statutory collaborative Canterbury Water Management Strategy. The next chapter examines the creation of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. The CWMS established new principles, priorities, and targets for Canterbury’s freshwater management. The chapter examines ECan’s role in the creation of the CWMS, the CSWS’ early research into Canterbury’s freshwater resources, as well as the later expansion of the strategy to include environmental interest groups.