Is collaboration good for the environment? Or, what’s wrong with the Land and Water Forum?

Abstract

Abstract:Collaborative environmental governance is a prominent approach to natural resource governance in New Zealand. It is emerging in the Land and Water Forum, Canterbury Water Management Strategy, and the proposed Resource Legislation Amendment Bill. This article reviews political and economic theory to ask if collaboration is good for the environment in the context of the Land and Water Forum. Interest group and public choice theories offer cogent reasons for pessimism. Elinor Ostrom's and Guy Salmon's models offer reasons for optimism. I conclude that the most pertinent parts of Ostrom's model for New Zealand are her caveats. Her model applies to closed systems, not open systems such as rivers with down-stream effects like nitrate E. coli contamination. In open ecological systems, pessimism about local collaborative environmental governance is warranted unless decisions are shackled to strong and unambiguous national regulation. Without strong regulation, collaborative governance creates systems in which those not invited into the collaborative deliberation do not count. In natural resource governance, this dynamic will favour resource development interests over conservation. I conclude that collaborative environmental governance risks being less than democratic, less than fair, and less than good for the environment.Not surprisingly, optimists and pessimists would view the Land and Water Forum differently. Optimists would say that it is an incomplete application of a promising model. Unfortunately, ecological outcomes data to settle the question are rarely collected internationally and do not exist yet in New Zealand. Pessimists would say it was doomed from the start by power imbalances, displaced and subjugated environmental goals, and a fundamental lack of democracy. Such pessimists might say Fish and Game was wise to pull out in November 2015, but would have been wiser to pull out sooner.

Vested Interests in Big Agriculture

“…In a 2016 article for the New Zealand Journal of Ecology looking back on the Land and Water Forum, Anne Brower highlighted these power imbalances and noted 'that the outlook for environmental quality in New Zealand under collaborative environmental governance is bleak, but perhaps not dismal' (Brower, 2016). Brower also said that:…”

Where to for collaboration in land and water policy development in Aotearoa New Zealand? Guidance for authorising agencies

“…Collaboration, involving a broad range of interests and values, has been proposed as a way to manage such conflicts in policy development (Innes and Booher 2010). However, some have questioned if collaboration will result in better environmental outcomes than traditional hierarchical decision-making processes (Koontz and Thomas 2006;Newig and Fritsch 2009;Gerlak et al 2013;Young et al 2013;Brower 2016). It is argued that linking collaboration to environmental improvements is difficult because of the lack of data to demonstrate and quantify these links, the long time horizons between actual implementation and any measured environmental change, and difficulties in untangling multiple interacting variables and factors (Koontz and Thomas 2006;Newig and Fritsch 2009;Foote et al 2020).…”

“…Our research is set in a context where collaboration as the basis for land and water policymaking in New Zealand is currently at a crossroads, with some stressing that collaboration unfairly favours development interests over conservation interests (Brower 2016), while the current Minister for the Environment questions the efficacy of collaboration, and especially whether consensus-based agreements on contentious policy are possible (Hancock 2018). Collaboration has always been a contentious and contested process, but we believe this only captures part of the story.…”

Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari: addressing catchment and marine issues in an integrated marine spatial planning process

“…It evolved into the Land and Water Forum which brought together 68 non‐governmental parties with an interest in freshwater management including iwi. The Forum went on to produce four reports containing some 156 recommendations on national freshwater policy through a consensus process (Brower, ; Taylor, ). Although not without controversy (Brower, ), the Land and Water Forum facilitated progress in a policy area that had previously been stalled.…”

“…The Forum went on to produce four reports containing some 156 recommendations on national freshwater policy through a consensus process (Brower, ; Taylor, ). Although not without controversy (Brower, ), the Land and Water Forum facilitated progress in a policy area that had previously been stalled. The experience of the Land and Water Forum strongly influenced the design of the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari project, where the plan was developed by an iwi and multi‐stakeholder group through a consensus‐building process.…”