Federated Farmers says the Government’s freshwater quality analysis is so deficient and its public statements so selective that it misleads the public to believe our waterways are worse than they actually are.
Its Our Freshwater 2020 report provides examples of the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) and Statistics New Zealand using selective data in press statements on reports on the state of freshwater.
Federated Farmers is calling on the MfE and StatsNZ to publicly correct or clarify assertions they have made and to change their methodology.
Federated Farmers says a press release related to the 2015 Environment Aotearoa report from the MfE and StatsNZ stated water quality was declining, while headlines in the Freshwater 2020 (FW2020) document from the same agencies asserts freshwater species are in decline and freshwater habitats are degraded.
The federation’s analysis says these statements are not backed by evidence in the reports.
“From over 400 freshwater species, FW2020 reports that conservation status worsened for just one species,” the federation’s report said.
“For freshwater habitats, FW2020 reports a new habitat quality indicator showed that more than three-quarters of river sites were good or excellent and that no sites were poor.”
The report says the Government agencies acknowledged privately the comment associated with the 2015 report was not supported by evidence, but the federation says MfE never publicly acknowledged the fact and took two months to amend the press release on its website.
“It is to the discredit of the reporting agencies that the error was never publicly acknowledged, that the perception that water quality is declining persists in the public imagination and that policy initiatives, including Essential Freshwater and Resource Management Act reform, are predicated on this unfounded assumption,” the report said.
The federation’s report notes further discrepancies, such as MfE maintaining the area of wetland fell 1200ha between 2001 and 2016, but the NZ Greenhouse Gas Inventory shows it grew 3000ha between 1990 and 2017.
A further example was publicity based on selective data associated with the Government’s FW2020 document.
The federation says that statement read that most rivers in urban, farming and forestry environments were polluted because they exceeded one or more stated guidelines.
The fact that most rivers in native areas also exceeded one or more of those guidelines was ignored.
Similarly, MfE did not headline the fact that three quarters of rivers in farming areas are below E.coli guidelines.
It also believes government reports downplay the impact of trout on native fish species, and that this should be reported on.
But an MfE spokesperson says it has reviewed Federated Farmers’ claims and while acknowledging data gaps and limitations, consistent with any scientific reporting, it stands by the analysis and the key points included in its press releases.
“Our reporting shows evidence that NZ’s freshwater is impacted by urban development, farming, forestry and other human activities,” they said.
MfE says its reporting is robust, independent and rigorously checked.
“The joint MfE-StatsNZ programme has thorough processes to ensure the data and science we report is high quality and relevant to priority environmental issues facing NZ, including its freshwater,” they said.
The federation believes pressure to meet environmental reporting timetables creates issues, such as those in the FW2020 document, which it claims “falls well short of being a robust and authoritative source of national statistics and apolitical interpretative analysis.”
“Instead FW2020 presents headlines, which are not supported by the evidence relied on, it highlights minority findings but not the majority findings, it fails to engage with the depth of data available and presents only selected and misleading statistics and graphics,” the federation’s report stated.
“It relies on pre-human benchmarks to assess contemporary state and presents a moving feast on trend analysis.
“The effect is to significantly distort public and political understanding or national state and trends.
“The concomitant risk is ill-targeted and ineffective policy interventions and investments.”
Federated Farmers contends that the NZ environment is “broadly maintaining current state,” changes at the margins are relative to previous centuries and the imperative is to identify and prioritise outlying catchments that are poor or the trend is degradation.
It contends that analysis of the macro-invertebrate index, river habitat sites, deposited sediment, native fish, freshwater invertebrates and plants tell a more positive story to what is being headlined.
The federation supports a call from Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton for improved national environmental reporting and funding.
It wants future reports to break farmland down into two classes: hill country, pastoral and forestry class and a lowland rural, urban class, which will include urban, lifestyle, industry, horticulture, arable and pastoral farming.
