A new forum launched in April is inviting New
Zealanders to become part of developing a vision for a
better future. Better Futures Forum’s mission is to
“create broad momentum for a transition towards a more
resilient Aotearoa New Zealand”.
It is daring
New Zealanders to imagine a bold new vision for Aotearoa New
Zealand. A New Zealand that has faced up to the challenge of
climate change, biodiversity decline and freshwater
degradation, while effectively tackling social inequity –
a country held up as a model for the rest of the world to
follow.
Here, Mike Joy lays out his vision of
how New Zealand could look in one year’s
time.
Now that we have reached May 2021, it is
easy to see that Covid-19 was our wake-up call. People of
all nations took note that it was only the countries who
trusted independent science whose lives and economies were
saved. So what else had independent science been telling us
lately?
We emerged from lockdown newly able to
appreciate the multiple
warnings given by tens of thousands of scientists: “If
we don’t act soon, there will be catastrophic biodiversity
loss and untold amounts of human misery”. Most of the
global population now understood that Covid was just a
gentle warning. Climate change would be far worse:
biodiversity crash, antibiotic resistance, soil loss, and
new viruses released into human populations as animals were
forced to mingle with us due to habitat loss.
New
Zealand 2021 is a completely different place. Kids have
taken back their streets from cars. Pedestrians and cyclists
have priority cars in urban areas, cycleways are bigger and
better maintained than roads. You rarely see single-occupant
cars since the tax tripling their price unless they were
purchased by community groups as share cars. All public
transport is free and electric-powered. In cities cars are
banned except on arterial routes, and deliveries happen at
night only. Large trucks are extremely rare on the road as
road freight is now limited to one hundred kilometres
maximum and all long-distance freight is by electric
rail.
All new housing developments are now natural
looking and sustainable. Property developers are no longer
permitted do their ground-zero scraping-off of vegetation,
soil, and life. Only the building footprint and very small
access roads can be cleared and nothing else can be
impervious to rainfall. All new houses are required to be
built from natural locally sourced materials and the export
of unprocessed logs is banned. The new dwellings are by law
oriented to the sun so passively heated and have insulation
ratings three times higher than the current standard. They
all catch rainwater in tanks, and greywater is treated on
site, and most have composting toilets, encouraged by high
costs for connection to wastewater infrastructure. All
existing houses are undergoing or will be a retrofit to the
same level of insulation, and water capture and
treatment.
Streams and rivers are already noticeably
cleaner now we’ve solved the run-off problem in urban
areas. Carparks and footpaths have had millions of holes
drilled in them so water can soak into the ground, where the
pathogens, sediment and metals it carries can be assimilated
and neutralised by bacterial action in the soil. No
wastewater treatment plants now discharge to rivers or sea,
all now go to constructed wetlands after bio-digestion, the
biogas produced powers the plants and compost is produced
from plants taking up the nutrients.
In rural areas
streams are running clearer now clear-fell forestry on hills
is banned. Almost all steep land is being planted with
natives, with permanent forest carbon sinks driven by the
rising carbon price, currently at $200/tonne. Streams are
healthier because stocking intensity is falling, due to the
ban on artificial fertiliser and imported feed like palm
kernel. Soil health and water-holding capacity is rapidly
improving, negating the need for irrigation. Soil carbon
sequestration is rising as agriculture moves into
regenerative mode and horticulture transitions to
permaculture. Antibiotic, pesticide, and herbicide use is
dropping drastically. We just no longer need
them.
With the power-hungry drainage pumps shut off,
wetlands are recovering all over the country. This has
already increased biodiversity, the uptake of nutrients and
it will help reduce the flood flows from the intense new
climate change storms.
Home and business power bills
have dropped drastically now all power companies have been
renationalised into the NZ Electricity Department. People
soon got used to having the washing machine not available
immediately but turning itself on for off-peak pricing
hours. Most houses now heat their water with subsidised
solar panels and provide much of their own electricity with
photovoltaic panels.
Water bottling by international
companies ended when government followed the Waitangi
Tribunal advice and gave the ownership of water back to
Māori who immediately placed a big charge on commercial
water takes and made water free to all New Zealanders. All
waterways have been taken out the RMA as they are living
entities not resources and are managed by a waterways
commission dominated by tangata whenua.
The change
from GDP growth as the government’s main goal to a Genuine
Progress Indicator has left all business with negative
environmental and social externalities uneconomic and this
has revitalised small local business.
These massive
changes are just the beginning of a transition of everything
we do from ecocide to true sustainability. Now that New
Zealanders feel positive about their futures, and are less
dependent on other countries they feel safer and more
resilient and young people wonder why we took so long to
wake-up.
