A New Model for Regulating Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution: New Zealand’s Final Push to Restore Deteriorating Freshwater

By Kayla Kolbe

Worldwide, thirty-eight percent of land is used for agriculture.[1] Yet, agriculture alone accounts for seventy percent of the world’s total water consumption.[2] While such consumption is required to meet today’s increasing demand for agricultural commodities, inefficient and damaging agricultural practices have also made agriculture the single-largest contributor of non-point source pollution worldwide.[3] Agricultural non-point source pollution that comes from farms pollutes the environment in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, manure, sediment, and any other pollutant coming off of a farm that does not exit through a point source.[4] These pollutants poisons entire waterbodies, damages animals’ ecosystems, interferes with natural biotic cycles, and too often harms human health.[5]

While these issues occur globally, New Zealand specifically has recognized the damage that agricultural non-point source pollution has on its freshwater and, as a result, New Zealand policy makers are reforming the country’s freshwater regulation policies.[6] On September 3, 2020, the Ministry for the Environment published The Action for Heathy Waterways policy.[7] The policy is the latest addition to legislation aimed at restoring the country’s freshwater.[8] A major focus of this new policy is to combat agricultural non-point source pollution through stricter regulation on farming practices.[9] Previously, freshwater regulation and farming policies left too much discretion to regional councils, the local governmental forces.[10] This discretion resulted in inconsistent policy implementation and varying results for freshwater quality countrywide.[11] The Action for Healthy Waterways legislation is different from previous freshwater legislation in that the new policies set national standards and implementation guidelines.[12] These nationwide tactics aim to ensure cohesiveness in freshwater policy application as well as in freshwater quality results throughout the country.[13]

The Action for Healthy Waterways policy is comprised of the fourth revision to the Freshwater National Policy Statement (Freshwater NPS 2020) and a new National Environmental Standards for Freshwater Management policy (Freshwater NES).[14] The first Freshwater National Policy Statement was published in 2011 (Freshwater NPS 2011).[15] The 2011 policy directed that local governments be provided the flexibility wherever possible in their freshwater management and implementation plans in order to achieve the goals stated within the Freshwater NPS.[16] Policy makers believed that by incorporating flexibility, local governments could establish tailored solutions for their specific freshwater problems.[17] However, the flexibility and lack of clear requirements for local governments made the Freshwater NPS 2011 weak and ineffective in many areas.[18] As a result, the Freshwater NPS 2011 was amended and replaced in 2014.[19] In the Freshwater NPS 2014 legislation, a national objective framework was introduced as a way to help regional councils apply the goals of the Freshwater NPS in a consistent way across the country.[20] The national objectives framework specified the process that regional councils must use to set freshwater objectives.[21] Additionally, some national bottom lines were introduced for pollutant attributes like nitrogen, nitrate toxicity, and periphyton.[22] Following these changes, the government amended the Freshwater NPS again in 2017.[23] The 2017 amendment introduced national targets for swimmable lakes and rivers, increased direction for considering the values of New Zealand’s indigenous people, the Māori, provided direction for monitoring macroinvertebrates, nitrogen, and phosphorus, and required regional councils to improve water quality in terms of human health.[24] Generally, the Freshwater NPS 2014 and 2017 amendments attempted to implement a stronger national framework for local governments to follow, but many of the implementation deadlines were variable and mechanisms for enforcement unknown.[25] The Freshwater NPS 2020 aims to fix these issues, alongside the newly created Freshwater NES, which covers animal stock exclusions and rules and amendments to the country’s Regulations for the Management and Reporting of Water Takes policy.[26]

Lastly, in order to set the national baselines and other policies laid out in the Freshwater NPS and NES, as well as effectively monitor any and all activities that can harm freshwater and the environment, the drafters of The Action for Healthy Waterways package established a new taskforce. Titled the Essential Freshwater Taskforce, the group includes the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry for Primary Industries, officials from the Treasury, Te Puni Kōkiri (The Ministry of Māori Development), the Māori Crown Relations Unit, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Business, the Innovation and Employment sector, and expertise from local governments.[27] Based on collaborative government and robust scientific evidence, these groups together will ensure and work towards The Action for Healthy Waterways success.[28]

[1] See Hannah Ritchie & Max Roser, Land Use, Our World in Data (last updated Sept. 2019), https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#:~:text=international%20data%20sources.-,Definitions%20of%20agricultural%20land%20use,%25%20of%20the%20Land%20Area).

[2] See Water pollution from and to agriculture, Water Action Decade 2018-2028 (Feb. 28, 2020), https://wateractiondecade.org/2017/12/09/water-pollution-from-and-to-agriculture/#:~:text=Agriculture%20as%20a%20water%20polluter%3A%20cause&text=Pesticides%20and%20fertilizers%20used%20in,processing%20wastes%20from%20plantation%20crops.

[3] See id.

[4] See Basic Information about Nonpoint Source (NPS) Pollution, United States Environmental Protection Agency (last updated Oct. 7, 2020) https://www.epa.gov/nps/basic-information-about-nonpoint-source-nps-pollution

[5] See Javier Mateo-Sagasta, et. al., Water pollution from agriculture: a global review (2017), available at http://www.fao.org/3/i7754e/i7754e.pdf

[6] See Action for Healthy Waterways: Our Proposals, Your Views, Ministry for the Environment (last visited May 14, 2021).

[7] Id.

[8] See Regulatory Impact Statement: Amendments to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2011, Ministry For the Environment (May 20, 2014), https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Fresh%20water/NPS-freshwater-management-RIS-2014_0.pdf

[9] Id.

[10] See Councils’ Roles and Functions, Te Tari Taiwhenua Internal Affairs (last visited March 14, 2021), http://www.localcouncils.govt.nz/lgip.nsf/wpg_url/About-Local-Government-Local-Government-In-New-Zealand-Councils-roles-and-functions

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

[14] See Essential Freshwater: Healthy Water, Fairly Allocated, Ministry for the Environment (Oct. 2018), https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Fresh%20water/essential-freshwater.pdf

[15] See History of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, Ministry For the Environment (last visited March 14, 2021), https://www.mfe.govt.nz/fresh-water/freshwater-acts-and-regulations/national-policy-statement-freshwater-management/history

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] See Regulatory Impact Statement: Amendments to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2011, Ministry For the Environment (May 20, 2014), https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Fresh%20water/NPS-freshwater-management-RIS-2014_0.pdf

[19] Id.

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Id.

[23] Id.

[24] Id.

[25] See National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management Implementation Review, Ministry for the Environment (2017), https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Fresh%20water/npsfm-implementation-review-national-themes-report.pdf

[26] See Essential Freshwater: Healthy Water, Fairly Allocated, Ministry for the Environment (Oct. 2018), https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Fresh%20water/essential-freshwater.pdf

[27] Id.

[28] Id.