A Legal and Policy Framework for IEM of Soil and Water-the New Zealand Model
Over the last three decades sustainability and the precautionary principle have become internationally accepted guiding principles of human interaction with the natural environment. While these principles predominantly find expression in international treaties and agreements, it is far more difficult to incorporate them into domestic regulation in a meaningful, and enforceable, way. Since the mid-1980s New Zealand has pursued a very active program of environmental and resource management reform. It has involved change at every level, from central and local government administrative restructuring, through legislative reform, to operational management at the local authority and municipal level. In the context of integrated environmental management (IEM), New Zealand has progressively introduced a number of policies and legal measures which attempt to apply an integrated approach to land and water management. In 1991 New Zealand incorporated the principle of sustainable management as the statutory purpose of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). The RMa repealed all pre-existing planning, water and soil, clean air and noise control legislation and was intended to provide an integrated approach to the use and management of land, air and water. Within the sustainable management purpose, the Act addresses the issues of inter-generational equity, environmental protection, and ecological integrity. It also provides a comprehensive policy-making and planning regime, and an integrated consenting and enforcement regime incorporating a specialist Environment Court. All policy-making, planning and decision-making functions are required to be undertaken in a manner that promotes the central purpose of sustainability. The precautionary approach is arguably implicit in this regime. In respect of water and soil conservation, these principles are taken into account in the preparation of formal policy documents and planning instruments governing land and water use, and to decision-making on specific water and soil use applications. After 16 years of practice under this regulatory regime, a number of system failures have become apparent. On the other hand the regime has made consideration of sustainability issues a fundamental part of any soil and water use activities. This paper will outline the IEM framework under the RMA in New Zealand. It is hoped this regime may provide a model or blueprint for the use of law and policy to achieve integrated and sustainable soil management in other jurisdictions.
David P Grinlinton Kenneth A Palmer
Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, New Zealand
国际会议
北京
英文
215-226
2008-11-06（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）