The Guardian article attack on New Zealand's green image totally unfair...

The article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, claiming that New Zealand's clean, green image is not up to its emission and environmental image has been attacked as being unfair and wrong because it failed to mention other important factors.

Writer Fred Pearce claimed NZ and othe countries "greenwashed" their images. When you make such extravagant statements as Mr Pearce, you need to do your homework carefully. While condemning other countries, Fred Pearce saved his vitriol for New Zealand. Quote: "My prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as clean and green".

New Zealand's Environmental Minister, Nick Smith, said he hoped online information would be updated once the full picture of his country's emission targets were made available. He said New Zealand had no desire to be a leader in addressing climate change, but it would get its own house in order and hope critics from abroad did the same.

New Zealand was called a hypocrite because it allegedly preferred triumph of style over substance. Well, thats Fred Pearce's opinion. It is true a lot of forests have been felled in recent years, but sustantial replanting had also occurred. But Pearce's personal attacks of New Zealand society completely undermined whatever case he may thought he had against New Zealand.

65% of New Zealand's electricity is produced from renewable sources, which is the highest in the OCED countries bar Iceland. 600,000 hectares of additional trees were grown in the 1990's, which absorb carbon and offset new Zealand's emissions. If these are taken into account the country is projected to meet its Kyoto pledge not to increase emissions from 1990 levels. Under current estimates it could actually exceed its target by 8 million tonnes.


Half of New Zealand's emissions came from methane (produced by grazing animals) which does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, and is less harmful.

While its emissions have grown by 22%, its population has grown by 24% during the same period. The British population has been relatively static.

As for the reality of claims about New Zealand's damaged environment, 65% of overseas tourists interviewed said New Zealand's environment had exceeded their expectations and the other 35% said their expectations had been met.

&2% of international visitors to NZ in 2008 thought the environment was managed sustainably.

One would have to wonder where Fred Pearce got his information from? From a fiction book perhaps?

Read the facts

Farewell to New Zealand's clean and green image - very likely "green activists" claim

A cash starved National Government considers allowing mining in Department of Conservation Estates in both North and South Island national parks. Will it be farewell to New Zealand's clean and green image? Opponents claim it could; the Green Party has actually produced a list of likely sites for potential exploitation. Mining and conservation are not great bedmates. Read further:

Green campaigners are not buying the Government line that there is nothing to fear in mining Department of Conservation (DOC) land.

The Green Party has produced a list of sites at threat of possible exploitation, while Greenpeace says the countryside is under attack, and it too is preparing for battle.

The Waituna Lagoon in Southland, the Aspiring National Park and Paparoa National Park on the West Coast, Kahurangi National Park at the top of the South Island and the whole of the Coromandel are all under threat.

Geoff Keey from Greenpeace is not buying the claim high value conservation land is not at risk - saying the country is under attack.

Greenpeace is concerned the DOC estate will be stripped.

"The very things we use to promote our clean green image - our national parks, our wildlife refuges, all the really important things, are under attack,” Mr Keey says.

But Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has scotched such suggestions.

“No one would want to see those ripped up in anyway whatsoever,” he says.

Industry experts like Eddie Davis from Minerals West Coast say there is a middle ground for both mining and conservation.

“I think everybody in our industry is for that type of thing but we just need trade-offs. Don't stop one for the sake of the other,” Mr Davis says.

“What I really want to do is get DOC and Crown Minerals talking to each other rather than over top of each other,” says Mr Brownlee.

Pike River mine in Greymouth is being held up as a shining example of sustainability in action.

When the coal is exhausted in a few decades time, the entire operation will be dismantled and the site returned to the forest.

Mr Brownlee says the recently created Oteaki Park in Southland is another indication of what is possible.

"We kept out of that park 200h because there might at some point some mineral value that could be readily accessed on that little bit of it,” he says.

However, Greens co-leader Russel Norman is not convinced.

“National parks are national treasures, and any government that threatens to destroy those national treasures by mining is betraying future generations,” he says.

"Mining is not compatible with conservation...it doesn't work together,” adds Mr Keey.

Greenpeace are demanding answers from the mining industry about the proposed mining in national parks.