We live in turbulent times
In recent months we have witnessed record commodity prices, some of the largest ever recorded weather storms, natural disasters and ‘people power’ in the streets of the middle east as its citizens struggle with, among other things, rising food and fuel prices.
Commentary about these events has streamed into our homes and workplaces 24/7. The changing circumstances provide insight to the future we will all have to adapt to – a world with reduced access to cheap natural resources, operating closer to environmental limits and exposed to more frequent, extreme weather events. Combined they will increase price volatility, sovereign risk and, in parts of the world as noted recently this week by the World Bank, political unrest.
These circumstances, however, also provide the ideal seedbed for transformational innovation and, from a 20+ year perspective, confirm the strength of New Zealand’s position. Investment in renewable, low-carbon and resource-sparing technologies is now enormous, notably in Korea, China and Germany. By virtue of its size, isolation and infrastructure New Zealand will largely be a follower in these developments. Therefore to keep up, we must extend our international engagement with the world’s research and technology leaders to access and quickly adapt their discoveries into our business and environmental context. The close engagement of the CRIs, universities and business is a critical element to being successful at this – we must collaborate domestically to compete globally. After years of intense contestability this requires a big shift in thinking and organisational culture; I am pleased we started this change at Landcare Research several years ago and are now seeing the benefits in terms of stronger research terms, better stakeholder engagement and faster innovation than in the past.
However, while investment and innovation is increasing, there is also reason for concern. There is a general lack of urgency to address the collision between conventional economic growth fuelled by consumption and the environment’s capacity to support this. Market signals are opaque, public policy mostly sets minimum bar for compliance, and the natural resilience of ecosystems generate time lags between impact and effect. Not surprisingly, investment criteria support less environmentally viable options and consumers favour the cheapest rather than the most environmentally benign goods.
In New Zealand, land use comes to mind. Although this natural asset is clearly a fundamental driver of our primary industries, it is not managed from a strategic perspective or, as the Land & Water Forum identified, well with respect to water availability or quality. Irreversible decisions, such as urban development on some of our highest quality soils, is still occurring despite an anticipated 70% growth in global food demand over the next 40 years and reduced availability of critical inputs such as phosphate and potash. And, catchment impacts of land- use change are inadequately accounted for in spatial and temporal terms even though we have models to assess this. This is not smart economic development!
Collectively this points to the need for all parts of the economy, government and community to participate in developing robust, enduring solutions. There are no silver bullets. Rather prosperity will arise from a shared commitment and vision that all are inspired by and able to engage in.
I came to Landcare Research over 5 years ago because I saw environmental sustainability as the greatest challenge of the 21st century and I wanted to contribute to developing solutions to this. When I left in mid-February to take up the CEO role at ‘sister CRI’ Scion, the big and increasingly important role of Landcare Research at the nexus of the economy and environment is clear. During my time at Landcare Research our role in maintaining market access, lowering biosecurity costs and reducing environmental impacts has grown. We have incubated new environmental services such as the carboNZeroCertTM® programme for reducing and verifying GHG emissions, EcoGene for rapid genomic diagnosis of environmental threats, Enviro-Mark® to raise the bar for environmental management and launched technologies for the biocontrol of weeds, eradication of animal pests and shown both water and nutrient management can be improved through precision irrigation. We have developed a framework for biodiversity measurement and prioritisation that will enable expenditure on biodiversity protection to be better targeted and, in the mid-term, support options such as biodiversity offsets. At the same time our relationships with long-term clients – DOC, MAF, MfE, AHB and local government – have strengthened to a new level of shared understanding and quality of science delivery to meet the challenge of sustainable use of land resources. Our work to build genuine partnerships with iwi – Tūhoe, Ngāi Tahu, Tainui, Ngāti Whatua and others – has been patient and deliberate. And we have emerging research relationships with the business sector such as through BusinessNZ and the dairy sector. All in all, Landcare Research – Manaaki Whenua is well poised for the new post-CRI Taskforce operating environment, to play an influential role in growing New Zealand’s prosperity in a dynamic world with serious environmental challenges.
Warren Parker
Former Chief Executive
Dr Richard Gordon is acting CEO of Landcare Research