The government has signaled its attention to form an Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The name in itself is a problem. If such an agency were required a name of Environmental Standards or Environmental management would be more appropriate. 

Most environmental thinking is usually well behind scientific knowledge. Most ‘Greenies’ believe in the notion of a balance to nature. There is no such thing and never was. The environment is at war with itself and that’s why the theory of evolution is based on survival of the fittest. The word protection infers that the way to preserve nature is to get people out of it then everything is fine. This is utter nonsense. If you leave a forest alone it will grow, decay, become filled with pests and burn down sterilizing the ground allowing something completely different will grow up in its place. We also know that the landscape Captain Cook saw when he first sailed to New Zealand was something he didn't understand at all. Most early explorers thought they were seeing wilderness, but in fact it was a landscape entirely altered by native peoples who were there at the time. Maori were setting fire to the plains. They were burning down old-growth forest and killing off Moa.

The fact is if we are going to have a picture book environment we must shape it and not leave it alone. Rather than preserve and protect we need to manage and form. We need to achieve this with the assistance of science not some romantic notion or image that politicians or various lobby groups’ hold.

This proposed Agency will be extremely helpful if it is restricted to scientific standards and does not veer into the imposition of national solutions. Historically, we all, including farmers, have suffered from environmental ineptitude. We are continually reminded of this and most green groups believe we are incapable of managing the environment to their satisfaction and the imposition of national rules of their making are essential.

However, coming back to the science the late Dr Michael Crichton suggested that the people who succeed wait a little before they start and gather information. Once begun, they look for unexpected consequences. Then as time goes on decisions are increasingly interactive. Simply, we need to set environmental standards and then allow local communities to determine and manage their own solutions. 

The people who fail come with a philosophical view. They establish procedures based on what they believe and then they leave the environment alone. This is the normal ‘Green’ protectionist philosophy. Their desire is to set not only national standards but impose national solutions based on their philosophical view of the world. It is doomed to fail.

We need to get the romantic philosophical and religious zealotry out of decision-making in the environmental area if we are to really succeed in shaping New Zealand the way most think appropriate. If the EPA is set up the way it is currently envisaged it is more likely to cause a lot of extra cost and red tape and not achieve the environmental improvement its creators think.