Cannot Eat Money

I was chatting  to someone recently who was speaking of the importance of maximising the role of indigenous species in New Zealand. It made a lot of sense, and articulated the concept very simply with the word maximise. To me that meant using every opportunity to plant or allow to regenerate the indigenous ecosystems we have lost on such a grand scale. New Zealand stands stripped badly of the incredible and largely endemic biodiversity that gave us such treasured relics as the kakapo. And (pontifying Australian ecologist’s opinions aside)…I would like to bring back the magic.

Again, it’s not a new idea…but it holds much merit. It would mean that degraded ecosystems are restored instead of completely destroyed because they ‘lack significance’. It would mean that production landscapes become a hub of opportunities to reinject indigeneity into the landscape. Native shelter belts, more covenants, more fencing, larger riparian strips and a slew of other efforts could do wonders to battle the environmental woes our agriculture based economy generates.

Urban vegetation has a whole stack of well-noted benefits, and vegetation reserves, corridors, green belts and the like through and around our growing cities could be just the ticket. Just as the loss of these ecosystems has had unintended negative consequences, the rebuilding of these elements on the landscape would likely have significant unexpected positive consequences.

To counter the cost argument at the outset…if rebuilding indigenous ecosystems is seen as an opportunity not a cost, the attitudinal shift will make this question somewhat less pivotal. But, assuming it remains the chief concern, then there’s any number of ways to pay for it….clever use of biodiversity offset mechanisms is one, more use of natural solutions to environmental issues previously addressed by concrete and steel (bioretention vs stormwater), money re-routed from expensive (and imminently defunct) large scale transport projects into ecosystem recreation….’nature highways’…and of course the input of every citizen. Expansion of plant giveaway projects and free advice from regional councils doesn’t cost much, for the outcomes they generate. National campaigns along the lines of ‘rebuilding paradise’ could engage the public, and go someway in repenting for our decades of misleading tourism advertising. There’s so many options spilling out of my head….

There are ways and means of doing anything…with political will, community uprising, policy support and the weight of four million minds and sets of hands….can we fix it? Hell yeh we can….