Lifestyle blocks offer path to biodiversity
The vision for tomorrow of celebrated naturalist Sir David Attenborough sees food-producing areas becoming more efficient and productive while wild areas are allowed to regenerate. Lifestyle blocks in New Zealand could become a microcosm of this utopia by interspersing efficient food production with areas for native birds, insects, animals and plants. Rather than being a Jack of all trades and master of none, the modern lifestyler has Google at their fingertips and can hope to be pretty good at lots of things without having served a long apprenticeship in each. For those who have chosen a lifestyle block over an inner-city
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apartment, they could be tapping into stock husbandry and cropping skills buried in their DNA and easily rekindled to deliver great outcomes. So far, small blocks have escaped attention from land and water reforms. There are clouds on this horizon though. Freshwater reforms are likely to affect every water user right down to domestic consumption. Also, He Waka Eke Noa – Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership, set up between the Government, representatives of the food and fibre industries and a cross-section of businesses represented by the Federation of Māori Authorities, is developing a pricing system for on-farm emissions.
Lifestylers can feed their whānau – and perhaps a few more – without turning their entire block into an intensive market garden or paddy field.”
Farmlands Co-operative Society Limited | © October 2021. All rights reserved.
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