Water quality and use are at the heart of most parties' environment policies this election.
National
- From October 2018, international visitors to pay double the fee on the five most popular Great Walks
- International visitors would pay 50 percent more for the other Great Walks and back-country hut passes
- More than double the amount of funding available through the Department of Conservation Community Fund, from $4.6 million to $10 million a year
- Introduce national targets to increase proportions of swimmable waters to 80 percent by 2030 and to 90 percent by 2040
- Staggered approach to excluding stock from most lakes, rivers and streams through to 2030
- Boost Predator Free 2050 with $69.2 million of new funding over the next four years to ramp up the ambitious, world-leading pest eradication programme.
Labour
- Ensure rivers and lakes are genuinely swimmable, without trickery around standards
- Restore the health of waterways so that fish and invertebrates can thrive in them
- Ban farmers from intensifying their operations unless they have a resource consent
- Introduce a royalty on commercial water use
- Carbon neutral by 2050: - Agriculture would gradually be included in the emissions trading scheme (ETS) by the end of the party's first term, starting with giving the sector 90 percent of emissions free /- Emissions targets would be set in law and an independent body would look at how its zero carbon policy could be achieved.
Greens
- Create a new marine mammal sanctuary off the Taranaki coast
- Immediate 10 cent/litre levy on water bottling and exports and develop a fair way to charge commercial water users
- Local councils expected to use that levy to clean up waterways, and protect drinking water sources and infrastructure
- Interim ban on new resource consents for water exporting and bottling
- Require 100 percent of the country's electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2030
- Introduce a $20 Tourism Levy for international visitors, with three-quarters of that levy going towards the Predator Free 2050 Limited project
- Set a target to get half of New Zealand's freight moving by rail and sea within 10 years
- Introduce a plan to reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and create a climate commission
- Would require environmental measures to be reported on alongside gross domestic product
- Would introduce legislation to underground water sources a matter of national importance
New Zealand First
- Make sure developers are responsible to their communities to avoid, remedy and mitigate adverse environmental effects
- Oppose the Emissions Trading Scheme
- Advocate the government and industry work together to address pollution
- Ensure the Resource Management Act is stringently applied to all fracking operations
- Support 'threatened species' recovery programmes
- Encourage the development of 'eco-tourism' centres such as Kaikōura
- Urgently advance work on the development of rubbish disposal alternatives
- Continue the phasing out of organo-chlorides and facilitate the development of safe alternatives
- Approach GM/GE with extreme caution, and only under secure confined laboratory conditions
- Establish a formal planning process to develop strategies to achieve fossil carbon reduction relevant to New Zealand
- Water is a common good and cannot be owned by any person or by the Crown
- Priorities for granting water rights must place public benefit before private benefit
- Requirements for domestic supply of water must prevail over all other takes and uses
ACT
- Free markets, far from being incompatible with good environmental custodianship, are essential to it
- Introduce better water management so that water rights can be traded
- Sell Landcorp and put the proceeds into a Sanctuary Trust
- Introduce pricing of road use to reduce congestion and emissions
Māori Party
- Legislate to protect freshwater and give it the status of tāonga
- Establish a Minister for Freshwater to give priority to addressing freshwater protection, rights and interests
- Set up an annual Te Mana O Te Wai funding to support community projects such as planting riparian buffers and establish wetlands.
- Make the freshwater standard ‘drinkable’
- Support a levy on all tourists entering Aotearoa to improve infrastructure and impacts on the environment
- Support research and development of a natural alternative to 1080
- Enhance biodiversity within the marine area and prevent the extinction of the Māui dolphin and other marine life
- Establish whānau friendly cities encouraging young people to have a voice in the design and planning of their cities starting with green spaces in urban centres
- Develop grants to fund mentors to support whānau to develop alternative energy sources
- Champion solar panels for government agencies, hospitals, schools and marae
- Close all coal fired power plants by 2025
- Ensure mana whenua are consulted on all oil and mineral exploration permits
United Future
- Introduce a royalties regime that attaches a price to water when it is taken
- Create a $10 million per year contestable fund for the purpose of funding innovative research into New Zealand's environment
- Provide targeted funding for research into didymo with the intention of exterminating it from rivers
- Extend the powers of the Walking Access Commission so they can advocate for secure appropriate public access to resources such as rivers
- Establish a Public Commission into long term pest control strategies and the use of 1080
- Fund community initiatives that seek to aid the Predator Free by 2050 strategy