Post here to discuss NZFSS response to NPS Objective 4
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NPS Objective 4: Recognising and protecting life supporting capacity and ecological values
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 Marc Schallenberg |
NPS Objective 4: Recognising and protecting life supporting capacity and ecological values |
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Posts: 45 24 Nov, 2008 21:58 |
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nzcaddis |
#1 | |||
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Posts: 6 5 Dec, 2008 08:49 |
Hi all,
I've been volunteered to collate NZFSS's submission on Objective 4 - Recognising and protecting life supporting capacity and ecological values. First, here is the text of Objective 4: "To ensure the life supporting capacity and ecological values of Freshwater Resources are recognized and protected from inappropriate- (a) taking, use, damming or diverting of freshwater; and (b) Land-use Development; and (c) discharges of contaminants. Suggestions for NZFSS submission on Objective 4: Support/opposition for provision: • Note that "life-supporting capacity" and "ecological values" need to be clearly defined. • Oppose the inclusion of "development" in "(b) Land-use development". Development suggests changes in land-use, however this should be broadened to include existing land-use activities as life-supporting capacity and ecological values may be compromised by existing land-uses, not just land-use change or intensification. • Clarify what "contaminants" are referred to in (c). Changes requested: • Definition of "life-supporting capacity" to include, but not be limited to, habitat quality and quantity, and provision of sufficient food for aquatic and terrestrial predator (e.g. bird) populations. • Definition of "ecological values" to include but not be limited to habitat quality, ecosystem function, connectivity (e.g., fish passage), ecological integrity, biodiversity, and the spread and impacts of freshwater invasive species. • Removal of "development" from "(b) land-use development". • Definition of "discharges" in "(c) discharges of contaminants" to include diffuse or non-point source discharges. • Definition of "contaminants" in "(c) discharges of contaminants" to include, but not be limited to: industrial or agrichemicals known to be toxic to aquatic life, faecal matter, microbes, inorganic nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), fine sediment. Feedback welcomed - especially on the definitions above! Dean |
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Mike Joy |
Ecosystem services | #2 | ||
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Posts: 8 5 Dec, 2008 14:11 |
I'm not sure where ecosystem services fits in but maybe here? Objective 4 Recognising and protecting life supporting capacity and ecological values
The NPS must recognise that freshwater provides many goods and services to society and that they have immense value. Resource managers have to balance economy and environment but this is not possible because no one has given a value to intact freshwater ecosystems.
Thus is it imperative that we develop a methodology to value ecosystems
Ecosystem services can be classed as market and non market.
Market e.g. drinking water, electricity generation, pollution assimilation and irrigation.
Non-market e.g. biodiversity, habitat, aesthetic …
Because they are not bought and sold we have to estimate their value, these methods are still evolving and are imprecise and controversial.
Some work has been done in New Zealand as part of the Genuine Progress Indicators project at the New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics (NZCEE; http://www.nzcee.org.nz), but this has not been released yet.
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Amber McEwann |
#3 | |||
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Posts: 4 5 Dec, 2008 17:03 |
How about replacing
"recognising and protecting life supporting capacity and ecological values" with "recognising and protecting "ecological integrity and ecosystem services" I know Russel is going to come up with an awesome defintion of freshwater ecological integrity which will incorporate life supporting capacity, and just getting the concept of ecosystem services in would be fantastic, thinking about possible applications of such a tool once we have more research available is pretty exciting........ also, a suggested small change to the following: "discharges of contaminants" to include, but not be limited to: industrial or agrichemicals known to be toxic to aquatic life, faecal matter, microbes, inorganic nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), fine sediment. suggest "be toxic to" be replaced with "have detrimental effects on" I totally agree (and admire your insight) regarding the removal of the word "development" from "land use development". Cheers Amber |
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nzcaddis |
#4 | |||
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Posts: 6 8 Dec, 2008 08:47 |
Some good comments so far...
Mike, I agree with you - my gut feeling is that ecosystem services fit into "life-supporting capacity" somehow, but I struggled to think of how to include it. Instead I found it easier to include these under ecological values. However, I'm open to suggestions of how we can incorporate them into LSC. Amber - in response to your comments: Life-supporting capacity is enshrined in the RMA (Section 5(2)b "Safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems"), so I don't think we could or should change the wording of this objective. What this submission can achieve is to encourage workable definitions of "Life supporting capacity" and "ecological values" in the NPS. I'm not sure if I'd feel any better if it was changed to "ecological integrity and ecosystem services". I think this would end up being just as woolly a concept as "life-supporting capacity" even if Russell comes up with definition of "ecological integrity" that keeps us scientists happy. Don't forget that lawyers, policy analysts and planners also work in this space and most of them don't think like we do and I'm not sure what we'd end up with. I will reword the requested change to "discharge of contaminants" as you suggest. And thanks - the inclusion of the word "development" in "land-use development" changes things quite a lot doesn't it?! |
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Amber McEwann |
#5 | |||
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Posts: 4 9 Dec, 2008 05:48 |
Thats a shame (although thanks for the heads up), I was liking the way the two terms fitted together: ie the "more" integrity a system has, the
"more" ecosystem services it provides - even if only market services, as non-market seem to fit quite well in either ecosystem integrity or
ecological values
to my policy-inexperienced eyes, it seems pretty strange (although predictable) that life supporting capacity doesn't include human life supporting capacity (non-market services) (ie, it's not really anything to do with us - we're just trying to protect "the environment"... I guess this is where "cultural" and "western" ecological assessments differ for the most part... I wish I was better versed in policy right now, it seems so important that we find a way to incorporate ecosystem services somehow... link to brief overview of the landcare services project in the Motueka catchment: http://icm.landcareresear...e_id=4&research_id=42 |
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Deleatidium |
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Posts: 17 10 Dec, 2008 08:56 |
As mentioned, "life supporting capacity" and "ecological values" need to be clearly defined. These are wiffle waffle policy writer/MfE terms that are open to interpretation. Ecological integrity is a similarly nebulous term. Good luck to anyone who can come up with a satisfactory definition that we can measure, recognise and protect from inappropriate activities. As Mike says, it would be good to include a reference to the protection of ecological services. This would link in well with some kind of "swimmable standard" as mentioned in Objective 3. I fully agree that the term "Development" should be omitted and reference made to existing land-uses also. Alternately maybe it could read:
"(b) Land-use (existing and future development)". This change could be made to the term "Land-use Development" throughout the NPS to give
recognition that existing as well as future land-use can be detrimental to Freshwater Resources.
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Marc Schallenberg |
#7 | |||
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Posts: 45 11 Dec, 2008 18:23 |
Having recently thought and read a lot about "ecological integrity", can I suggest that we steer clear of that particular quagmire.
I'll suggest: "To ensure that the life supporting capacity and the diverse range of ecosystem values and services provided by freshwaters are recognised and protected from:..." Other definitions and clarifications provided by Dean et al. are certainly improvements to the original text that I support. Mike's stuff can be condensed into a nice definition of ecosystem services (market) and values (non-market). |
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