INSIGHT
UPFRONT BUDGET
Do environmental improvements have marketing value? Are higher environmental standards critical to our exporting future? Phil Edmonds outlines the arguments for and against government investment in the environment.
O
ver the past eight weeks more public money than ever has been earmarked for cleaning up our waterways, improving biodiversity, and dealing with pests. Much of it has been implicitly, if not explicitly, talked up as a gift to the primary sector. While it has been widely welcomed there are some who have started to question how we can start to quantify the benefits of that investment. They see now as the time to start demanding more tools to verify the effort being made and, as importantly, 14
a nationally coordinated campaign to sell those verified environmental improvements. A quick recap of the cash poured into environmental projects with at least some connection to farming operations reveals an unprecedented torrent of investment – albeit in unprecedented times. First, the budget delivered $433m for new jobs in regional environmental projects, $315m for biosecurity including weed and pest control, and $154m for new jobs enhancing biodiversity on public and private land. Subsequent announcements in May
saw the Government create more flexible funding criteria for applications to the One Billion Trees Fund, with $10m dedicated to help up to 10 catchment groups plant landscapes at a whole-ofcatchment scale. This extra funding was in addition to the $100m from the Provincial Growth Fund for waterway fencing, riparian planting, and stock water reticulation also announced in May. And at the end of May the Government finally unveiled its post-consultation plan to clean up waterways with a $700m fund to support riparian and wetland planting, removing sediments, and other
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2020
