The Environmental Effects of New Zealand’s Free-Market Reforms

Jon Barnett () and Jonathan Pauling

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2005, vol. 7, issue 2, 289 pages

Abstract: This paper explains one way in which New Zealand’s free-market reforms have adversely affected its environment. Liberalisation of New Zealand’s economy has radically changed the determinants of agricultural export success, largely due to the elimination of subsidies to domestic producers, and of tariffs on imports. In this exposed agricultural milieu, the dairy industry has thrived; cow numbers have increased by over 50%, with commensurate increases in herd and farm sizes. With this rapid expansion has come increasing pollution of New Zealand’s waterways. New Zealand’s Resource Management Act 1991 is potentially capable of controlling these adverse effects; however, its implementation was slow and piecemeal throughout the 1990s. So, at the same time as production and pollution from dairy farming expanded, the efficacy of environmental policy was limited. The resulting implementation gap has put at risk the ‘clean and green’ image that is an important component of New Zealand’s agricultural export success. Copyright Springer 2005

Keywords: dairy industry; free-market reforms; New Zealand; water pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1007/s10668-005-7316-0

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