Greenpeace response to OECD and Vivid reports

Reports point to solution for a double environmental fix.

International reports out today point to reducing cow numbers as a possible answer to two environmental dilemmas facing New Zealanders.

The OECD report says increasing dairy herds have driven up nitrogen pollution levels in waterways.
While a Vivid Economics paper is suggesting cutting the dairy herd by a third to meet our climate change obligations.

“Both greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of rivers can be curtailed by reducing our expanding dairy herd, says Greenpeace’s Gen Toop.

“It gives the Government a unique opportunity to fix two environmental problems in one fell swoop.”

Greenpeace is challenging all parties to say what they are going to do about the expanding dairy industry.

“Industrial dairying and the environment are on a head on collision course. Choices have to be made, we can have more cows or a clean environment, not both” says Toop.

The first step would be to scrap the $480 million irrigation fund which is driving the expansion of dirty dairying.

The OECD report says New Zealand’s state funding of irrigation projects needs to be reviewed given that irrigation risks further degrading of water quality due to intensification of agriculture.

That money should be used to research new sustainable ways of farming that need less water - otherwise our already degraded clean green image will become nothing more than a mirage.

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