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100% PURE “BULLSHIT”

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« on: November 28, 2012, 01:25:12 pm »


Mike Joy: The dying myth of a clean, green Aotearoa

By MIKE JOY - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Monday, April 25, 2011

The rest of the world will need more than pretty pictures to be convinced. — Photo: Christine Cornege.
100% NEW ZEALAND PURE: The rest of the world will need more than
pretty pictures to be convinced. — Photo: Christine Cornege.


HAS ANYONE noticed that "100 per cent pure New Zealand" has quietly been changed to "100 per cent pure you"?

Having been hung out to dry over their impacts on the environment, the exploiters, including Federated Farmers, have successfully lobbied to lower environmental expectations.

The irony is that overseas consumers' perception of New Zealand as clean and green will soon be our only marketing edge. The rest of the world will catch up and easily beat us on commodity prices, because their land and labour costs are so much cheaper.

We are delusional about how clean and green we are. Last year New Zealand honoured the United Nations Year of Biodiversity with the revelation that we are among the world's worst biodiversity losers.

We have 2788 species listed as threatened with extinction. Worse still is the reality that if more funding were available for further investigation, the species now classified as "data limited" would likely be listed as threatened and double the number on that list.

The historical reasons for this biodiversity tragedy are unmistakable. We drained 90 per cent of our wetlands, removed over 70 per cent of our native forests and dammed, straightened, stop-banked and engineered most rivers.

Indeed, we altered everything to suit us with total abandon, and this loss of natural capital continues unabated.

Apart from alpine areas, we have totally transformed the landscape. In the lowland areas the transformation has been so comprehensive that in Canterbury or Manawatu you can drive for an hour in any direction and not see a single naturally occurring native plant or animal.

This immense change didn't stop with the realisation that the damage done was irreversible. In fact, it has picked up speed — especially in the past 20 years. Nearly half of our lakes and around 90 per cent of our lowland rivers are classed as polluted.

Nearly all national and regional river monitoring sites show ongoing declines over most of the parameters measured. Our only freshwater mussel, freshwater crayfish, more than half of our 50 native freshwater fish species and all native aquatic plants are now listed as threatened.

It is crucial that these native freshwater species are seen not just as a loss of a biodiversity component of freshwater, but also as the canary in New Zealand's environmental coalmine.

We have gone too far. Surely it is time to admit, even if just to ourselves, that far from being 100 per cent pure, natural, clean, or even green, the real truth is we are an environmental/biodiversity catastrophe.

Why is it that New Zealanders are not outraged that we have slipped so far environmentally in such a short time? Surely this apathy reflects the power of the business lobby to keep the ecological truth hidden and to convince us that the economy is of prime importance. It appears this odd belief, that the economy is more important than the environment, has pervaded most government economic and social policy.

The reality is that until we all face up to the ecological truth there is no chance we can generate the political will to make the tough decisions required. Only then can we start to turn around these declines and possibly earn our clean, green image once again.

The controversial management of freshwater ecosystems in New Zealand is a good case study to see where it all went wrong.

There is a fundamental flaw in our freshwater protection. The most pervasive impacts are not controlled in any way.

The main impacts are diffuse nutrient pollution from intensive farming and sedimentation - mostly from inappropriate hill country farming. The dire condition of our lowland streams is directly related to the intensity of farming within their catchments and the vegetation clearance in steep country.

Neither of which are regulated at all. As long as there is a complete failure to control the major impacts of farming intensity and inappropriate land use then there is no way there will be a change for the better, let alone a halt in the decline.

Of all the impacts on freshwater only the "out-of-pipe" discharges are controlled in any way. While they do go through a consent process via the Resource Management Act (RMA) there are major weaknesses, failings and discouraging outcomes from this process.

There is a stark difference between the lofty ideals and promise of the act and the sad reality of the outcomes of its application. There is a relentless stampede of applications to take more from and/or discharge into the natural world, but that world is already overtaxed by supplying our basic "ecosystem services" — clean air and water.

Consent applications are handled by under-resourced council staff acting under the pressure of central government to speed up the process. Regional councils now openly admit to not enforcing consent conditions, in order to protect the local economy.

On the rare occasions where legal action is taken by councils and polluters are fined, the fines are generally pathetically small. It is often cheaper for the developer to risk a fine than to do the "right thing" environmentally. And, in most cases, the risk of getting caught is minimal. Prosecution takes time and money that struggling councils simply cannot spare.

The ideals of the RMA are, in fact, compromised by regional councils at nearly every step — from choosing not to publicly notify consent applications to stacking hearings panels with commissioners known to be sympathetic to a desired result. Regional councils are not independent arbitrators of the environment — they have a vested interest in "economic development" and, because of the election cycle, it's the short-term gain that's important to them and not the long-term loss to the environment.

In five decades New Zealand has gone from a world-famous clean, green paradise to an ecologically compromised island nation near the bottom of the heap of so-called developed countries. The core of the problem is a total lack of leadership from central government. Examples are the overdue (by 20 years) National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, and the emaciation of the Department of Conservation, while funding to developers such as the Ministry of Economic Development is increased.

We need to face the fact that the economy is but a tiny subset of the environment — not vice versa. This country could easily be a high-producing clean, green example of sustainability for the rest of the world. But it will take courageous and knowledgeable leadership on ecological sustainability.


Dr Mike Joy is senior lecturer, Environmental Science/Ecology Group, Massey University, Palmerston North.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10721337
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« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2012, 01:25:26 pm »


Key rejects BBC criticism of NZ ‘pure’ claim

By PAUL HARPER - The New Zealand Herald | 11:05AM - Wednesday, May 11, 2011

100% PURE ENZED: Prime Minister John Key — Photo: NZ Herald.
100% PURE ENZED: Prime Minister John Key — Photo: NZ Herald.

PRIME MINISTER John Key has defended the credibility of New Zealand's clean, green image, maintaining the country is "100 per cent pure".

Mr Key was responding to BBC Hardtalk reporter Stephen Sackur, who suggested the country's slogan is no longer true.

"Dr Mike Joy, of Massey University, a leader environmental scientist in your country, just the other day said ‘we are delusional about how clean and green we are’," Mr Sackur said.

He cited Mr Joy's research, which found half of the lakes and 90 per cent of lowland rivers in New Zealand are polluted.

Mr Key, who is also the Minister of Tourism, said he does not share Mr Joy's view.

"He's one academic and, like lawyers, I could provide you others who would give a counter view," he said.

"If anybody goes down to New Zealand and looks at our environmental credentials and looks at New Zealand, then for the most part, I think in comparison with the rest of the world, we are 100 per cent pure."

Mr Sackur responded New Zealand was clearly not "100 per cent pure" as it has problems with water pollution and the decline of native species. He again cited Mr Joy, who has said New Zealand has become complacent about its environmental reality.

"I don't actually totally agree with that proposition," Mr Key said.

"For a start off, yes of course the population is getting larger and that creates some form of pollution and yes we have a large agricultural base as we have been intensifying our dairying operations — that's had some impact on our river quality.

"Now what the Government has been doing is demanding much higher environmental standards. So actually for the most part, you jump in any New Zealand river or stream, you breath the air and you walk up a mountain, I'd argue with you that if you don't believe it is clean and green then you need to show me a country that is cleaner and greener."

However Green Party co-leader Dr Russel Norman said New Zealand needed to "get real" about cleaning up the country's rivers and lakes, as the world is realising the country does not live up to its "clean green image".

"The clean green New Zealand brand is worth $18.4 billion, but this asset is at risk unless we take immediate action to restore our waterways. To be effective in the long-term, our brand must reflect reality," Dr Norman said.

Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly admitted the country faced some real environmental issues, but said Dr Joy's article was full of hyperbole.

He told Newstalk ZB the clean green issue was actually much more complex than simply talking about the environment.

Mr O'Reilly said it was important to have a complex and sensible discussion around that.


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10724868
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« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2012, 01:25:40 pm »


NZ not 100% pure but aspires to be, says Government

By ADAM BENNETT - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Friday, June 17, 2011

The admission follows international criticism of the “100% Pure” slogan as the Rugby World Cup approaches.
The admission follows international criticism of the “100% Pure” slogan
as the Rugby World Cup approaches.


NEW ZEALAND's highly successful 100% Pure tourism campaign is aspirational, the Associate Tourism Minister said yesterday.

Jonathan Coleman faced questions from Green MP David Clendon and Labour MP David Parker over declining water quality in lowland rivers and the resulting recent knocks to New Zealand's reputation as a pristine tourist destination.

When asked how pure New Zealand was right now, Dr Coleman said: "I don't think it's a matter of that."

"The 100% Pure campaign was an aspirational advertising campaign. The aim was to bring tourists to New Zealand and it has been extremely successful," the minister said.

The admission follows international criticism of the "100% Pure" slogan as the Rugby World Cup approaches.

Last month, Prime Minister John Key received a grilling from BBC journalist Stephen Sackur on the television programme HardTalk.

Mr Key, who is also Tourism Minister, defended the 100% Pure slogan as Sackur confronted him with criticism from leading environmental scientist Mike Joy of Massey University that New Zealand was "delusional about how green and clean we are".

"That might be Mike Joy's view but I don't share that view," said Mr Key.

"He's one academic and, like lawyers, I can give you another one that will give a counterview."

Compared with the rest of the world New Zealand was 100% Pure, Mr Key said, but Sackur disagreed, saying: "100% is 100% and clearly you're not 100%. You've clearly got problems with river pollution."

Yesterday, Mr Clendon said that once tourists arrived here, they were often disappointed "by finding beaches with signs up saying, ‘Polluted area, do not swim’."

"What's the strategy for managing that expectation that we have created and are now failing to fulfil?"

Dr Coleman said the Government had been taking a number of initiatives such as establishing the Environmental Protection Authority "and it's going to be an ongoing point of discussion with the industry and the public".

Mr Parker, however, dismissed the notion that 100% Pure was just a slogan with little basis in fact.

The HardTalk interview "proves that the rest of the world are alert to the issue that we say one thing and do another".

He lashed out at Mr Key's Government for "neutering" the national policy statement on fresh water quality so that it no longer effectively controlled discharges into waterways involving the likes of nitrogen and phosphate fertiliser leachate and animals' excrement and urine.


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10732698
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« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2012, 01:25:55 pm »


from The New York Times....

New Zealand’s Green Tourism Push Clashes With Realities

By CHARLES ANDERSON | Friday, November 16, 2012

A Hobbit Hole on the set where scenes from “The Hobbit” were filmed outside the town of Matamata on New Zealand's North Island. — Photo: Andrew Quilty for The New York Times.
A Hobbit Hole on the set where scenes from “The Hobbit” were filmed outside the town of Matamata
on New Zealand's North Island. — Photo: Andrew Quilty for The New York Times.


THE SCENE is set: a giant countdown clock, a 1,500-foot red carpet and assurances from the New Zealand government’s tourism arm that the South Pacific nation will once again become the real Middle Earth.

As the Wellington premiere of “The Hobbit” approaches, New Zealand’s picturesque landscapes are set to take center stage once again. Ten years ago, the breathtaking vistas featured in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy were at the heart of a tourism campaign that helped jump-start a multibillion-dollar international travel industry and a worldwide image of the country’s clean, green living. It was what Tourism New Zealand, the country’s tourism agency, called “100% pure” New Zealand.

But while the spectacular and seemingly untarnished natural backdrops, stunning waterscapes and snow-tipped mountains might look world-class on film, critics say the realm New Zealand’s marketers have presented is as fantastical as dragons and wizards.

“There are almost two worlds in New Zealand,” said Mike Joy, a senior lecturer in environmental science at Massey University in Palmerston North. “There is the picture-postcard world, and then there is the reality.”

The clean and green image has long been promoted by the isolated country in its striving to compete in world markets. But an international study in the journal PLoS One measuring countries’ loss of native vegetation, native habitat, number of endangered species and water quality showed that per capita, New Zealand was 18th worst out of 189 nations when it came to preserving its natural surroundings.

Dr. Joy said that for a country purporting to be so pure, New Zealand seemed to be failing by many international environmental benchmarks.

Last month, the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment released a survey showing that more than half of the country’s freshwater recreational sites were unsafe to swim in. Fecal contamination of waterways, caused largely by dairy farming — the source of 13.9 billion New Zealand dollars, or $10 billion, in annual exports, nearly a quarter of New Zealand’s total — was widespread.

The survey showed that people who swam in those rivers were at a high risk of illness, including serious diseases like giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis and campylobacteriosis. The waterways were the cause of 18,000 to 34,000 cases of waterborne disease each year.

Eugenie Sage, a member of the New Zealand Parliament who is environment spokeswoman for the Green Party, said the results belied the “100% pure” marketing image.

“We promote our country as 100 percent pure and 100 percent Middle Earth,” she told Parliament in October. “But to swim in our rivers, which is the birthright of Kiwi kids — you cannot do it in the majority of the rivers that the Ministry for the Environment monitored.”

Before the November 28th release of the first of three “Hobbit” films by Mr. Jackson — the movies are based on a book by J.R.R. Tolkien, also the author of “The Lord of the Rings” — Prime Minister John Key has been courting more international tourism.

This year in Japan, Mr. Key introduced a “100% Middle Earth” campaign to attract tourists from that country. In September, he made an official trip to Los Angeles to woo the film and tourism industries.

The “Lord of the Rings” films were a boon for New Zealand, attracting more than 20,000 people a year to the country and pouring an estimated 700 million dollars into the economy in 2004 alone.

International tourist spending almost doubled, from 3.1 billion dollars in 1999, when filming of the “Lord of the Rings” began in the country, to 6 billion dollars at the end of 2004, a year after the final installment of the trilogy made its debut. By 2011, however, the number had tapered off to 5.6 billion dollars, according to statistics from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Although the government has not projected any numbers for the “Hobbit” trilogy, it was desperate to keep the filming in New Zealand and repeat the success of “Lord of the Rings.” After a dispute with the New Zealand actors’ union, the government even changed labor legislation to clarify how actors were seen under the law. It also offered the Hollywood studio Warner Brothers an extra $25 million in tax breaks on top of its basic 15 percent subsidy as a sweetener.

The investment seems to have paid off. Research conducted by Tourism New Zealand from May to July found that 57 percent of people already considering trips to New Zealand were aware of the “Hobbit” trilogy. Almost all in that group knew the films had been made there.

Martin Snedden, the head the Tourism Industry Association, a lobbying group, said in a news release that the Tolkien films showcased New Zealand’s “stunning landscapes” and raised awareness of the country around the world. “Unless travelers know we exist, we are never likely to get on their shopping list of potential destinations,” Mr. Snedden said.

But New Zealand’s reputation as a pristine place might not be exactly warranted. Since European colonization 150 years ago, as much as 90 percent of the country’s original wetlands have been drained to make way for towns, farms and roads. The wetlands are considered to be of international importance for supporting numerous species of birds, fish and plants.

For creatures like the black stilt, which lives in such places, it may be too late. There are only about 100 left, making it possibly the rarest wading bird in the world. It is just one species out of the 2,800 that the country’s Department of Conservation considers endangered.

In 2008, New Zealand ranked first among 146 countries in Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index, which ranks countries on the quality of their environmental policies. The report compares international data on criteria like habitat loss, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and protected marine areas.

In 2012, however, the country slipped to 14th. New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, half of which are caused by the agriculture industry, are the fifth-highest per capita among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of free-market democracies. Most other countries in the O.E.C.D. have managed to reduce per capita emissions, but New Zealand’s have increased 23 percent since 1990 — from about 66 million tons of carbon dioxide in 1990 to about 83 million tons in 2009, according the country’s Environment Ministry.

Pure Advantage, a nonprofit group promoting green business, estimates that the country will overtake the United States in per capita emissions in less than eight years, putting it almost into the world’s top 10. But total emissions in New Zealand, which has a population of 4.4 million, are far lower than those of the United States, with 312 million people.

This month, New Zealand refused to commit to a second round of emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international agreement on reduction of greenhouse gases. Instead, it will align with several of the world’s largest emitters, including the United States, China and India, in negotiating an alternative agreement. That could be approved by 2015 and in effect by 2020.

“This is a day of shame for New Zealand. Our reputation as a good international citizen has taken a massive hit,” Moana Mackey, a member of Parliament who is the climate change spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party, said in a statement.

Bruce Willis, a farmer in the Hawke’s Bay region and president of the lobbying group Federated Farmers, said New Zealanders often saw themselves as “the very best at something or very worst.”

“When visitors look at our countryside and our waterways, they are struck by how free they are of plastic bottles and the detritus of modern life,” he said, adding that it was unfair to place most of the blame for environmental problems on the agriculture industry.

Mr. Willis said that the country could do better but that New Zealand farms were “way up there” in terms of environmental performance.

David Broome, the Federated Farmers’ spokesman, cited Yale’s index as showing that New Zealand ranked first in 2012 for the effect of water quality on human health. For effect on the ecosystem, however, the country ranked 43rd.

In the end, he said, the environmental picture is not black and white.

A recent report by Pure Advantage said New Zealand’s environmental record was worrying for the country’s economic future. One of New Zealand’s main priorities, it said, should be giving legitimacy to the “100% pure” branding.

“These rankings will come as a shock to those in New Zealand who believe our country prides itself on its clean, green image,” the report said.

Gregg Anderson, Tourism New Zealand’s general manager for Western long-haul markets, said from his Los Angeles office that he did not believe the campaign was misleading international tourists. “100% pure” was never just about the environment, he said. It was about a New Zealand experience.

“We put our hands on our hearts and say New Zealand does not have a completely untouched environment,” he said, “but we are better than most.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/business/global/new-zealands-green-tourism-push-clashes-with-realities.html
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« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2012, 01:26:11 pm »


Clean, green image of NZ ‘fantastical’

By NIKKI PRESTON - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Monday, November 19, 2012



NEW ZEALAND's clean green image, represented by snow-capped mountains, clean rivers and pristine countryside, is being slammed internationally as false and misleading.

Tourism New Zealand's long-running "100% Pure New Zealand" marketing campaign launched in 1999 has been questioned in a New York Times article.

"While the spectacular and seemingly untarnished natural backdrops, stunning waterscapes and snow-tipped mountains might look world-class on film, critics say the realm New Zealand's marketers have presented is as fantastical as dragons and wizards," the article says.

The tourism organisation's latest $10 million campaign "100% Middle-earth, 100% Pure New Zealand" was launched overseas in August to leverage off Peter Jackson's movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which premieres on Wednesday week.

The campaign portrays New Zealand as the real Middle-earth by using scenic imagery of green fields and people catching fish and accompanied with a voiceover talking about "a place that will forever keep you under its spell".

But the green message promoted in the 100% Pure campaigns doesn't match some environmental statistics, which show more than half of monitored recreational sites on our rivers are unsafe for swimming, and that New Zealand is among the worst countries per capita for preserving natural surroundings. Greenhouse gas emissions per capita have also risen, while most other Organisation for Economic Development members have fallen.

Massey University senior lecturer in environmental science Mike Joy, who was quoted in the article, said the reality was New Zealand was nowhere near 100% Pure.

"We don't deserve 100% Pure, we are nowhere near the best in the world, we are not even in the top half of countries in the world when it comes to clean and green."

He said awareness of New Zealand's environmental failings overseas should act as a wake-up call to the Government to protect the "crucial clean and green image" it relied on for tourism and export.

"There's two worlds. There's the picture postcard, which is Queenstown and up in Mount Cook and all that kind of stuff which is perfect and where they make the Hobbit movies, and all that is amazing. But most of New Zealand, 70 per cent of it isn't like that. It's actually really badly polluted and we are just getting worse and we crucially need to have that clean green image to sell all of our products overseas."

Ad agency DraftFCB's managing director of media Derek Lyndsay said a lot of tourists, particularly the big spenders, came from the US so having writers for the New York Times contradict the campaign's claims could be potentially damaging for tourism.

Tourism New Zealand communications manager Deborah Gray said 100% Pure New Zealand was one of the most successful destination marketing campaigns in the world and was not just about the environment, but the whole package.

"It's the activities, the landscape and the people that combine to make for a uniquely New Zealand or 100% Pure New Zealand — experience."


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10848410
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« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2012, 01:26:25 pm »


Lobbyist slams scientists over NZ's environmental record

By JOSH MARTIN - The New Zealand Herald | 8:30PM - Thursday, November 22, 2012

File photo: NZ Herald.

A PROMINENT government lobbyist is standing by his leaked comments which slam leading scientists for speaking out about New Zealand's poor environmental record.

Mark Unsworth, of government relations consultancy Saunders Unsworth, e-mailed Massey University environmental scientist Dr Mike Joy on Wednesday in reaction to Joy's comments to the New York Times on New Zealand's ‘fantastical’ 100% Pure image.

Mr Unsworth's email — which was sent at 12:15am under the subject line ‘Ego trip’ — was posted by Green Party co-leader Russel Norman on his Facebook page today.

In the emails, Mr Unsworth said although he was an academic, Dr Joy had "let his ego run riot worldwide" while risking jobs and incomes from decreased tourism.

"You guys are the Foot and Mouth Disease of the tourism industry. Most ordinary people in NZ would happily have you lot locked up," he wrote.

"You may not care given your tenure in a nice comfy University lounge, but to others this affects income and jobs."

"Give that some thought next time you feel the need to see your name in print in New York. And possibly think of changing your name from Joy to Misery — its more accurate [sic]."

The emails were posted on Dr Norman's Facebook page this afternoon, and he said Unsworth's behavior implied he wanted scientists to gag them from their academic duty to report the facts of environmental degradation.

"It's disappointing. Dr Joy is simply reporting the evidence. The clean, green brand only exists because of people like Dr Joy."

Dr Norman said corporate lobbyists exploited New Zealand's ‘100% Pure’ image but then attempt to stop any protection of the environment which it stands on.

Mr Unsworth did not wish to comment further beyond stating he stood by the emails and they were his own personal views.

Saunders Unsworth clients include Caltex, British Gas and Air New Zealand.


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10849308



Lobbyist stands by ‘ego trip’ email

By JOSH MARTIN - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Friday, November 23, 2012

The 100% Pure New Zealand 2011 rugby ball was taken around the world to promote the country. — Photo: Natalie Slade.
The 100% Pure New Zealand 2011 rugby ball was taken around the world
to promote the country. — Photo: Natalie Slade.


A GOVERNMENT LOBBYIST is standing by his leaked comments which criticised leading scientists for speaking out about New Zealand's poor environmental record.

Mark Unsworth, of government relations consultancy Saunders Unsworth, emailed Massey University environmental scientist Dr Mike Joy on Wednesday in reaction to Joy's comments to the New York Times on New Zealand's "fantastical" 100% Pure image.

Mr Unsworth's email - which was sent at 12.15am under the subject line "Ego trip" — was posted by Green Party co-leader Russel Norman on his Facebook page yesterday.

In the emails, Mr Unsworth said although he was an academic, Dr Joy had "let his ego run riot worldwide" while risking jobs and incomes from decreased tourism.

"You guys are the foot and mouth disease of the tourism industry. Most ordinary people in NZ would happily have you lot locked up," he wrote.

"You may not care given your tenure in a nice comfy university lounge, but to others this affects income and jobs."

"Give that some thought next time you feel the need to see your name in print in New York. And possibly think of changing your name from Joy to Misery — its more accurate [sic]."

The emails were posted on Dr Norman's Facebook page yesterday, and he said Mr Unsworth's behaviour implied he wanted to stop scientists performing their academic duty to report environmental degradation.

Dr Norman said corporate lobbyists exploited New Zealand's "100% Pure" image but then tried to stop any protection of the environment on which it stood.

Mr Unsworth said he did not wish to comment further. He stood by the emails and they were his own personal views. Saunders Unsworth clients include Caltex, British Gas and Air New Zealand.


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« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2012, 01:26:40 pm »


Editorial: 100% Pure critic needs to be fair and accurate

The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Monday, November 26, 2012

Mike Joy remarks are included in a recent New York Times article that suggested this country's clean green image, represented by snow-capped mountains, clean rivers and pristine countryside, was false and misleading.
Mike Joy remarks are included in a recent New York Times article that suggested
this country's clean green image, represented by snow-capped mountains,
clean rivers and pristine countryside, was false and misleading.


RUSSEL NORMAN is absolutely right to say that scientists must be free to perform their academic duty to report environmental degradation. But in talking about concerns raised by Massey University scientist Mike Joy, the Green Party co-leader should also have noted that any comments from academia should be fair and accurate. If not, they can expect to be the subject of well-warranted criticism. Such is the case with Dr Joy's comments about New Zealand's environmental record.

His remarks are included in a recent New York Times article that suggested this country's clean green image, represented by snow-capped mountains, clean rivers and pristine countryside, was false and misleading. Dr Joy told the newspaper that although this country promoted itself as "100% Pure New Zealand", the reality came nowhere close to matching this. "We don't deserve 100% Pure, we are nowhere near the best in the world, we are not even in the top half of countries in the world when it comes to clean and green," he said.

Dr Joy has half a point. Some overseas tourists are doubtless nonplussed to be greeted by signs stating a river is unsafe for swimming.

This is a much different experience to that suggested by the latest Tourism New Zealand campaign, which portrays this country as the real Middle-earth by using scenic imagery of green fields and people catching fish accompanied with a voice-over talking about "a place that will forever keep you under its spell". But the reality of New Zealand is also a long way from the bottom half of the countries of the world in terms of pristine environments. Whatever its deficiencies, it is nonsensical to place this country in the company of the world's more polluted nations.

Dr Joy may suggest he is exaggerating for effect, so as to galvanise action to safeguard what he believes will soon be this country's only marketing edge. But such overstatement is the stuff of advertising, not academic observation. Unfortunately, Dr Joy is also making something of a habit of this practice. In an Opinion article in the Herald in April last year, he exclaimed that "far from being 100% pure, natural, clean, or even green, the real truth is we are an environmental/biodiversity catastrophe". This implies a situation where there is great damage or suffering. On no account could that be considered close to reality.

This practice might not matter much if it was not for the fact that it can be picked up by the international media. The "catastrophe" article was used a couple of months after its publication by BBC journalist Stephen Sackur when he interviewed John Key on the television programme Hardtalk.

Its over-the-top nature clearly encouraged Sackur to see this country as something of an environmental disaster, even after the Prime Minister made the very reasonable comment that compared with the rest of the world, New Zealand was 100% Pure.

Dr Joy's comments to the New York Times about this country's environmental record also come at an unfortunate time. Sir Peter Jackson's movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey premieres around the world this week. The latest Tourism NZ campaign has been timed to take advantage of the publicity associated with it. Dr Joy's contradictory remarks could deter some big-spending American tourists from coming here.

Academics have a right and responsibility to comment publicly on issues of importance to the community without fear or favour. Their expert knowledge makes them an important part of any public discussion. But their comments must be appropriate. Dr Joy's exaggerations fail that test. If he wants his criticism to be treated seriously, it will have to be expressed in a more judicious manner.


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« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2012, 01:26:51 pm »


PM dismisses ‘100% Pure’ criticism

By ISSAC DAVISON - The New Zealand Herald | 7:06PM - Monday, November 26, 2012

Prime Minister John Key says the “100% Pure” marketing campaign has “got to be taken with a pinch of salt”. — Photo: Mark Mitchell.
Prime Minister John Key says the “100% Pure” marketing campaign
has “got to be taken with a pinch of salt”. — Photo: Mark Mitchell.


PRIME MINISTER John Key has dismissed criticism of New Zealand's "100% Pure" brand, saying people did not expect waterways to be 100% percent pollution-free any more than they expected to be lovin' McDonalds every time they ate it.

Tourism New Zealand's 100% Pure campaign came under fire again last week as international media reported that it misrepresented the country's environmental record.

Mr Key insisted today that he did not believe the marketing slogan was inaccurate, but also emphasized that it was not to be taken literally.

"Overall, 100% Pure is a marketing campaign. It's like ... McDonalds' ‘I'm Lovin It!’ — I'm not sure every time someone's eating McDonalds they're lovin' it."

"Maybe they are, but they're probably not every single occasion. It's the same thing with 100% Pure, it's got to be taken with a pinch of salt."

He said New Zealanders had to be careful not to run the country down with research which "might not be factually correct".

"I think you've had one or two academics in New Zealand who have presented a view and I think as the Herald editorial pointed out some of them might have been factually incorrect."

The Herald editorial today argued that Massey University senior lecturer Mike Joy's criticism of New Zealand environmental health — which was reported by the International Herald Tribune — was overstated.

In an interview with the Tribune, which was owned by the New York Times, Dr Joy cited an international study which showed New Zealand ranked 18th-worst out of 189 countries for its preservation of natural surroundings.

The peer-reviewed study in the PLoS One journal ranked New Zealand 47th-worst overall for all environmental indicators.

The Tribune article also referred to Ministry for the Environment figures which showed that more than half of the New Zealand's waterways were unsafe to swim in due to faecal contamination.

Mr Key said critics' attention had focussed narrowly on the most polluted waterways.

"The vast bulk of New Zealand waterways are safe to swim in, so when they look at those statistics they look at the worst ones, they don't measure all of them, and they measure them at the worst possible time."

The BBC also quoted Dr Joy in May 2011 when Mr Key was challenged on New Zealand's environmental record.

Dr Joy, a freshwater ecology expert, came under pressure last week from high-profile lobbyist Mark Unsworth, who slammed him in an email for undermining New Zealand's tourism industry.

The New Zealand Association of Scientists backed the Massey University expert yesterday.

Spokesman Shaun Hendy said: "The clear statement is that the potential damage to New Zealand's reputation, and economic benefit of "big-spending American tourists" outweighs the need for truth in public debate. This is an issue that the association takes very seriously."

The heightened attention on New Zealand's environment was the result of a tourism campaign which described the country as the "the real Middle-earth" ahead of The Hobbit premiere in Wellington.


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« Reply #8 on: November 28, 2012, 01:27:02 pm »


Brian Rudman

Embarrassed leaders need to focus on solution

Brian Rudman on National Issues

The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Prime Minister John Key at the “failed” 2009 jobs summit. — Photo: Chris Skelton.
Prime Minister John Key at the “failed” 2009 jobs summit. — Photo: Chris Skelton.

DRAGGING international fast food vendors McDonald's into the row over whether New Zealand is "100% Pure" seems an odd way of trying to damp down the controversy.

Prime Minister John Key says none of the overseas markets targeted by Tourism New Zealand's long-running campaign believe our waterways are 100% pollution-free, any more than they expect to be lovin' McDonald's every time they eat it.

Lovin' every mouthful of McDonald's is marketing hype, says Mr Key, and "it's the same thing with 100% Pure. It's got to be taken with a pinch of salt."

Just as well he didn't add, a pinch of salt, washed down with a glass of 100% fresh New Zealand stream water. At least with a burger, even if you're not lovin' every mouthful, you're not going to end up hugging the toilet bowl for the next 24 hours. But the chances are — I won't say 100% — that if you'd added a glass of water from the stream nearest to your fast food outlet, a bout of vomiting and diarrhoea would be a distinct possibility.

Instead of conceding the campaign is based on a lie and should be quickly retired, the Prime Minister has borrowed the old Muldoonist tactic of attacking the messenger, claiming "one or two academics ...

might have been factually incorrect". He claims "the vast bulk of New Zealand waterways are safe to swim in" and that the academic critics "look at the worst ones".

With the world's entertainment media gathered in Wellington for the launch of the first Hobbit movie, he should put his water glass where his mouth is and invite the newshounds to a photo opportunity alongside the pristine Hutt River or some other local stream. It's the stunt former Auckland mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson pulled many years ago, at the launch of the Mangere sewage treatment plant to show how pure was the end result being pumped into the Manukau Harbour.

The truth is, Robbie faked it, though he had much less reason to do so than should Mr Key. The Wellington Regional Council's survey of 55 local river sites records 15 as poor and 14 as fair, and that includes the relatively pristine upstream catchments still dominated by unmodified indigenous forest cover.

Or he could take the overseas journalists to the Waikato, home of Hobbiton. The local regional council takes regular samples of rivers, lakes and inland beaches there too. The findings are dire as a graph on the council's website highlights. In lowland Waikato, around 90% of samples were unsatisfactory for contact recreation. The west coast rivers are above 80% off limits, those draining the Hauraki Plains, just under. Around 60% of tests from Coromandel rivers are unsatisfactory.

The website explains the problem: "If water quality is poor then recreational activities such as swimming, kayaking and water-skiing can be unsafe. Sometimes ‘bad bugs’ from human and animal faeces, micro-organisms such as protozoans, bacteria and viruses can get into waterways. These ‘bad bugs’ can cause illness when people are exposed to them. Other contaminants such as fine silts and clays reduce the clarity of the water, making it difficult to see and avoid submerged hazards like snags."

The recent State of the Gulf report, recording the continuing decline in the health of the Hauraki Gulf, in part due to the silt and nitrates and other pollutants flowing into the sea from the Waikato, highlights another aspect of environmental decline. A similar picture emerges on any regional council website. Likewise the Ministry for the Environment, which reports more than 50% of freshwater beaches as poor or very poor for recreational use.

Writing on the Crown-owned water and atmospheric research consultancy NIWA's website, Dr Fiona Profitt says: "Despite a comprehensive clean-up of dirty ‘point-source’ discharges in the 1990s, water quality in many of our lakes and rivers is still declining. The cause this time is ‘diffuse-source’ pollution associated with intensive land use, particularly pastoral farming."

Monitoring between 1989 and 2009 shows "water quality is appreciably worse at several hundred sites in lowland rivers monitored by regional councils".

Of 134 lakes monitored, 56% are "eutrophic" or worse. This means they suffer from nutrient enrichment that promotes frequent algal blooms, including blooms of toxic cyanobacteria, a type of algae that has plagued central North Island and some South Island lakes over the past decade.

None of this is new, as is nothing in the recent New York Times article, which quotes Massey University environmental scientist Mike Joy saying "there are almost two worlds in New Zealand ... the picture-postcard world, and then there is the reality".

What's embarrassed Mr Key and the tourism industry, is that after romancing the world since 1999 with this fantastical "100% Pure" hype, someone has called their bluff on the eve of The Hobbit launch. Instead of beating on the messenger, the Government should be turning the ad-man's slogan into a policy goal.

Forcing farmers and industry to stop using waterways as private sewers would be a good first step.


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« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2012, 01:30:52 pm »


It's interesting to see a few rabid righties such as David Farrar (KiwiBlog) and Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) pushing their own FERAL buttons and frothing at the mouth, showing that they prefer SPIN & BULLSHIT to telling the truth. Mind you, that isn't really all that surprising.

I reckon Brian Rudman hits the nail right on the head!
 

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« Reply #10 on: November 28, 2012, 02:26:21 pm »


It's interesting to see a few rabid righties such as David Farrar (KiwiBlog) and Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) pushing their own FERAL buttons and frothing at the mouth, showing that they prefer SPIN & BULLSHIT to telling the truth. Mind you, that isn't really all that surprising.

I reckon Brian Rudman hits the nail right on the head!
 



your in good company then KTJ ......

you Farrar and Slater have one thing in common an ability to froth at the mouth over the smallest of things .....
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« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2012, 03:14:52 pm »

NZ is a beautiful country ... dirty rivers aside .. tourists love coming here.

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« Reply #12 on: November 29, 2012, 09:02:20 pm »

your a fine one to criticise ...

werent you party to a TV throwing event on a train once ?

people in glass houses is it ?
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« Reply #13 on: November 30, 2012, 03:30:14 am »



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« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2012, 12:23:06 pm »


Risks in putting head above 100% Pure parapet

By TOBY MANHIRE - The New Zealand Herald | 9:30AM - Friday, November 30, 2012

THE FOBBIT

BLAM BLAM BLAM have been on the brain this week. Specifically, There is no depression in New Zealand, their satirical anthem from 1981, intoning a Muldoonish party line in the face of a socially corroding, divided country. "We're as safe as safe can be. There's no unrest in this country."

An echo of that mantra can be heard in the serried efforts to slap down those who speak out against New Zealand's environmental record vis-a-vis the "100% Pure New Zealand" tourism slogan. There is no pollution in New Zealand, they seem to be saying. We can all keep perfectly calm.

To reprise: in response to questions on the subject from an International Herald Tribune reporter, Massey scientist Dr Mike Joy noted our failure to meet a number of international benchmarks.

"There are almost two worlds in New Zealand," he said, "the picture-postcard world, and ... the reality."

Just 21 of Joy's words were quoted in the report, but after its publications on the IHT/New York Times website, hundreds of furious words followed.

First, a vitriolic email to Joy from lobbyist Mark Unsworth emerged. "Sabotage," he lurched, like a gate swinging off its hinges. Joy was on an "ego trip" that "can only lead to lower levels of inbound tourism".

An editorial in this newspaper on Monday deemed Joy to be repeatedly guilty of "overstatement", made worse because "it can be picked up by the international media". The timing was especially unfortunate given the Hobbit spotlight. "Mr Joy's contradictory remarks could deter some big-spending American tourists from coming here".

It is not the first time criticisms of New Zealand's environmental performance have been cast as treachery.

Tim Groser, Minister for Trade and Climate Change Negotiations, has warned of "internal enemies" who will "find one cow in one stream and feed it back to environmental activists".

Just this week, Environment Minister Amy Adams blasted her opponents for "scaremongering and destroying our international reputation".

As for Dr Joy, he has received unequivocal backing from the NZ Association of Scientists, as well as the head of the Science Media Centre, who said that while his views were "mirrored by his colleagues", they had become a lightning rod for condemnation because of the global attention they attracted.

That attention can be traced back to a commentary last year for the Herald, in which Joy wrote, "We are delusional about how clean and green we are." Stephen Sackur put that charge to John Key in a BBC Hardtalk interview. The response: "In comparison with the rest of the world, we are 100% Pure."

Since then, the Prime Minister has crafted a more plausible riposte: it's a marketing slogan, no one expects pure perfection. He's right. The 100% thing is clearly not to be taken literally. And yet neither has the slogan been plucked from the sky — the reason it works, and it does, is because it reflects the broad perception of New Zealand, here and abroad, as environmental custodian.

In tourism as in business more broadly, New Zealand's "brand value" is largely "based around world class environmental standards" — we can "leverage off our strong clean, green reputation". Those words are Groser's. But rather than besmirching scientists who question the veracity of that image, surely better we heed the advice of tourism boss Martin Snedden: "The [100% Pure] campaign itself is right but what we have to do is live up to that campaign."

Dr Joy has cited the peer-reviewed PLOS ONE journal which ranks New Zealand as 18th-worst of 189 countries in its preservation of natural surroundings and in the bottom 25% across all environmental indicators.

But the file bulges with other discomforts. To name a few: the WWF report that this year condemned New Zealand's "20 years of inaction" in environmental sustainability. The Fossil of the Day titles awarded New Zealand at Doha this week by the Climate Action Network in recognition of our "running away" from the Kyoto agreement. The extension of agricultural exemptions in the Emissions Trading Scheme. Department of Conservation budget cuts.

New Zealand's environmental record is far from being all bad. Where it is chiefly disappointing is in the trend. We are a young country, and have done too much harm in a short time.

In the calculus employed by the Prime Minister, we are 100% dreadful compared to where we should be. Or, to throw another of Mr Key's favoured lines back his way: show us the science.


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« Reply #15 on: December 02, 2012, 01:01:31 pm »


100% Pure Fantasy? Living up to our brand!

There's no debate that 100% Pure has been a
lucrative tourism campaign. But is it even true?


By MATT STEWART - The Dominion Post | 10:22AM - Saturday, 01 December 2012

ENVIRONMENTAL FAST FOOD: For how long will the world just keep loving us.
ENVIRONMENTAL FAST FOOD: For how long will the world just keep loving us.

THIS WEEK, Prime Minister John Key compared New Zealand's global "100% Pure" tourism marketing campaign to a fast food ad. "It's like saying ‘McDonald's, I'm lovin' it’ — I'm not sure every moment that someone's eating McDonald's, they're loving it ... it's the same thing with 100% Pure," he said.

"It's got to be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt."

Mr Key, who is also the tourism minister, made the claim amid the fallout from criticism by Massey University freshwater ecologist Mike Joy, who told The New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune that New Zealand's clean, green global image was fast becoming divorced from ecological fact.

A committed environmentalist, Dr Joy has been sounding the alarm over the nation's environmental woes for years, but when his two-month-old quotes went to print in the Tribune and online in The New York Times on November 16, the runoff really hit the river.

"There are almost two worlds in New Zealand," Dr Joy told Charles Anderson, a Kiwi journalist writing as an intern for the Tribune. "There is the picture-postcard world, and then there is the reality."

The comments came ahead of a major push by Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) around The Hobbit trilogy, which begins ramping up after this week's Wellington premiere.

It's not the first time the prime minister and the scientist have locked horns with the world watching. In May last year, Mr Key was grilled on BBC World's Hardtalk by interviewer Stephen Sackur.

Sackur questioned the 100% Pure tag and interrogated Mr Key about Dr Joy's assertion that New Zealand was "delusional about how clean and green we are".

Sackur confronted the prime minister with Dr Joy's research-based rigour. Mr Key kicked for touch, dismissing academics as being like lawyers with an opinion for hire.

"He's one academic, and like lawyers, I can provide you with another one that will give you a counterview."

In 2009, British environment writer Fred Pearce, writing in The Guardian, gave his "prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community" to New Zealand, accusing this country of a "greenwash" for trading on an increasingly shaky notion of eco-credibility.

In the latest stoush over the accuracy of 100% Pure, Dr Joy was pounced on by Climate Change Minister Tim Groser, who called his comments "deeply unhelpful".

In an email to Dr Joy titled "Ego Trip" (later leaked by Green Party co-leader Russel Norman), backroom government lobbyist Mark Unsworth labelled the environmental science lecturer a "traitor", accusing him of sabotaging the tourism industry and national economy by airing the country's dirty laundry in the international media.

But the science behind Dr Joy's statements seems to stack up — we are slipping.

In the Tribune piece, Dr Joy cited Yale University's Environmental Performance Index for 2012, which ranks countries on a range of performance indicators, from air quality to land use to the quantity and quality of fresh water.

Wedged between Iceland and Albania, New Zealand ranks 14th out of 132 countries — in 2006, we were "Number One".

But the index also tracks environmental performance trends, measuring a country's progress over the past decade. Under this formula, New Zealand ranked 50th, between Armenia and Slovenia.

This week, the scientific community was quick to rally round Dr Joy — he was endorsed by, among others, the New Zealand Association of Scientists and New Zealand Ecological Society president Mel Galbraith, who said: "It is sad that the Government is choosing to attack individuals, such as Dr Mike Joy, rather than listening to what is being said about the ecological problems facing New Zealand and providing sufficient resources to remedy the situation."

The statement went on to list sobering examples of the environmental slump — the critical state of native biodiversity, steady environmental decline due to human modification, the impact of invasive species and climate change, the deterioration of the majority of our waterways, the continued rise in numbers of threatened native species and swathes of forest, dunes and wetlands degenerating.

In this context, questioning the authenticity or wisdom of Tourism New Zealand's international marketing strategy is as old as the campaign itself, which was launched on July 31, 1999 to the sound of Crowded House's Don't Dream It's Over.

The national tourism agency can't put a dollar figure on the total cost of 100% Pure over its 13-year run, citing commercial sensitivity and the campaign's integration with TNZ's overall marketing budget.

Although TNZ corporate affairs general manager Chris Roberts has grown used to taking flak over the campaign, he says 100% Pure remains "the envy of every national tourism organisation in the world".

"A couple of times every year for the past 13 years, someone has questioned through the media whether the ‘gloss’ may be coming off 100% Pure."

Insisting that 100% Pure is simply a tourism campaign and not a "brand for New Zealand", Mr Roberts says the campaign continues to "resonate with the people who matter to us — those who are thinking about travel to New Zealand".

"International visitors understand that 100% Pure is about a tourism experience, and that it is not an environmental promise. But they do hold our environment in high regard."

"The occasional negative article does nothing to blunt the overwhelmingly positive impact of 100% Pure."

With offices in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Mumbai, Los Angeles and London, the agency's total government funding in 2011-12 and again for 2012-13 was about $84 million.

Over the past five years, TNZ was given baseline funding of $69m, boosted by one- off funding each year — $30m in 2010-11 and $20m in 2009-10.

On top of the government's stake, the agency gets extra cash from tourism partners such as travel companies, airlines and regional tourism organisations for joint marketing ventures. Last year that reserve stream was around $25m.

"On the back of 100% Pure, New Zealand has built a powerful and valuable tourism image since 1999," Mr Roberts says. "100% Pure has proved extremely adaptable and has relevance across all markets, all travel sectors and all types of media."

Dr Joy says he does not have a problem with promoting New Zealand internationally — he just thinks the country has to at least aspire to the 100% Pure tagline.

He is also perplexed that international press coverage seems to be one of the few catalysts for a national debate here about the environment.

"It's crazy that the politicians will only listen when someone outside, like The New York Times, points it out. It's sort of like you have to embarrass them into doing something," Dr Joy says.

"It seems like if we could just keep it our little secret and do our own thing, then we could just carry on and destroy the place."


______________________________________

DR MIKE JOY: Massey University freshwater ecologist

DR MIKE JOY: Massey University freshwater ecologist.

AS AN independent environmental scientist and freshwater ecologist, my job is to gather facts on the state of the environment and present them without fear or favour. As a university academic I have a further important role to be the conscience of society.

The International Herald Tribune article citing me that questioned the 100% Pure tourism campaign sparked some nasty attacks on my research and character from Government, ministers, a government lobbyist and journalists. None of the attacks addressed any of this factual referenced information; rather, the responses seem to reflect incredulity, revealing an alarming level of unawareness of reality.

The facts on New Zealand's environmental status speak for themselves. We now have the highest proportion of threatened species in the world. An indication of our freshwater plight is that the list of threatened species includes 68 per cent of our freshwater fish and our only freshwater crayfish and mussel. We have destroyed more than 90 per cent of our wetlands, 68 per cent of our ecosystems are threatened, and 96 per cent of our lowland waterways are unswimmable.

Our lakes are also impacted with 43 per cent of all lakes classed as polluted and most of those lakes are lowland. In dairy farming areas, groundwater nitrate levels are rising quickly and human health is also directly impacted with an estimated 18,000 to 34,000 people annually contracting waterborne diseases. Soils in dairy areas are reaching heavy metal contamination levels from over-fertilisation, threatening our future food security and exports.

A recent international peer-reviewed comparison of our environmental performance revealed we ranked about 161st on our per capita performance and around 130th for overall impacts compared to 180 countries. This stark reality shows that we are totally failing to live up to our image. Economist Gareth Morgan accurately summed us up recently as "environmental pariahs clinging to resource-depleting practices".

The 100% Pure logo is an attempt to differentiate New Zealand from the rest of the world and I applaud this. It is crucial for tourism and selling our primary produce to the world that we are seen as clean and green. But we can't lie; we have to be seen to at least be aspiring to the claim and it is patently obvious we are not as we are getting worse, not better.

Agricultural intensification is the main cause of our environmental demise and has moved way beyond sustainable levels, especially during the past two decades. Unfortunately, this Government's response is to promote more intensification. This will inevitably drag us even closer to the bottom of world rankings.

We don't need to rebrand - what we must do is live up to our brand before we lose it.


______________________________________

ROB MORRISON: Chairman of green business lobby group Pure Advantage

ROB MORRISON: Chairman of green business lobby group Pure Advantage.

100% PURE is a highly successful marketing campaign — there's no question of that. But of critical importance is the clean, green reputation that underpins this campaign. New Zealand's clean, green image has real, measurable value. In December 2005 it was valued at $20.17 billion a year. In 2008 a PwC survey found that more than 80 per cent of New Zealand exporters believe that New Zealand's clean green image is vital to their export profile.

So, if the clean, green image has real and measurable value, surely it makes sense not to undermine its credibility?

The reality is that New Zealand is in an unenviable position. For many years now we have slipped down the ranks of the OECD's performance indicators and, despite the hype to the contrary, we continue to slip down the environmental rankings. In 2006, New Zealand was ranked first on the Yale Environmental Performance Index. By 2012 we had slipped to 14th. We have the fifth highest emissions per capita in the world and 77 per cent of our threatened species look set to decline.

As Sir Paul Callaghan, a trustee of Pure Advantage put it: "We believe that we have a clean economy and a clean green image, and do not see the lack of honesty which surrounds this branding. We are merely a small population spread over a large area which provides an impression of clean and green."

Why is protecting and enhancing New Zealand's clean and green image so important? Predominantly because New Zealand remains a low value-added commodity producer, with the need to rely on foreign borrowings to sustain its way in the world; using New Zealand's clean, green advantage is one way of rectifying that.

The global shift towards green growth represents an enormous opportunity for New Zealand to shift what it currently produces and could produce, higher up the value chain. However, for New Zealand to be successful internationally, we need to be successful domestically. This won't happen by chance. Our clean, green image gives us a competitive head start — but it will only get us so far. We need to walk the talk. The better we are at walking in New Zealand, by improving the sustainability of what we do here, the more likely we will be successful at running internationally — by accessing green growth markets globally.

There is universal recognition that New Zealand's clean, green brand is valuable; however, the last detailed attempt to estimate the value of the brand is more than a decade old. Given the importance of this brand, it would seem worth updating this research and investigating how brand value has changed over time. At the very least, recognition of what our clean, green image is worth to New Zealand might just give us the incentive to start doing more to look after what actually gives us that image.

At Pure Advantage we are working with business in the widest sense to take the next steps, and then ultimately for the government to recognise that, for New Zealand, the way of the past is not the way of the future. That growth and being green are compatible, that green growth is value-adding, not value-destroying, and the sooner we recognise this, the better for everyone.


______________________________________

PETER BIGGS: Chief executive, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne; former Wellington ad-man

PETER BIGGS: Chief executive, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne; former Wellington ad-man.

"I TURN AGAIN to simplicity. I turn to purity."

With these words, Genghis — the greatest of the khans — captured the essence of successful marketing — and why the 100% Pure campaign has worked so powerfully: Develop a compelling positioning which you can own and substantiate; express and magnify it with utter precision and simplicity; execute it with accuracy; remain ruthlessly consistent; keep it constantly fresh and relevant. It's amazing how so many brands get this wrong. 100% Pure is not one of them.

Remarkably, the 100% Pure campaign has been running since 1999 and, for that, I take my hat off to the marketing team at Tourism New Zealand. It is a temptation for many marketers with a long-running campaign to change it. You see it happen time and again.

Organisations get bored with campaigns long before consumers do. As well, it's always very tempting for a new chief marketing officer to make their mark early the easy way — either change the existing marketing campaign and/or change their advertising agency. It takes guts and humility to stay with a campaign which works.

The only time you should change something is when it's broken or outlived its usefulness. 100% Pure is neither.

When it began, the campaign captured a human truth — that is, the majority of people around the world do see New Zealand as far away and — because of that — untouched. The campaign has also cleverly evolved with time — 100% Pure has expanded beyond an environmental positioning to offer Pure Adventure, Pure Experiences, Pure Food, Pure Sport which, again, capture contemporary New Zealand: A country of extraordinary intensity, an intimate place geographically which also offers visitors an unmatched range of experiences.

All the great brands exploit a tension because tensions capture consumer interest. 100% Pure creates a clever tension between intimacy and expansiveness and this set of opposites sparks curiosity and creates talkability — something very few brands, playing in a worldwide space, manage to do.

As Kiwis, we have to be provocative and intelligent when it comes to promoting ourselves and our country because, let's face it, New Zealand doesn't have the massive advertising budgets which other nations and economies possess. In the 21st century, the New Zealand approach is the way to go — we live in an "attention economy" where consumers are the media channel, co-creating and passing on brand content. So, when it comes to cutting-edge marketing campaigns, which all seek to drive "earned" media — as opposed to "bought" or "owned" media, scale and weight are being replaced with speed and agility. And the 100% Pure campaign is perfectly designed for velocity and manoeuvrability.

And it works. There is no doubt it has created a point of difference for New Zealand; it brings in the visitors; and it gets them to spend their money.

100% Pure New Zealand — live long and prosper.


______________________________________

MARTIN SNEDDEN: Tourism Industry Association chief executive

MARTIN SNEDDEN: Tourism Industry Association chief executive.

PEOPLE CAN slag Tourism NZ off as much as they like but, for more than a decade, the 100% Pure marketing brand has served New Zealand really well. It is a brand which still has international cut-through and resonance.

Among all the clutter surrounding international destination marketing, it is a brand that has stood the test of time.

Furthermore, thus far our international visitors confirm that, in their eyes at least, New Zealand delivers on its promise. Each year Tourism NZ conducts a "visitor experience monitor" survey. In the 2011/12 survey, visitors gave New Zealand a "highly satisfied" 9 out of 10 rating for its natural environment.

So, instead of this "marketing brand" sideshow debate, why not spend time grappling with the real issues, such as how much do we really value our environment? Are we happy with the current state of our environment? Are we satisfied that we are doing enough to protect our environment? Have we got the balance right between essential, but challenging to manage, economic activities and sustainable environmental protection?

If we're being honest with ourselves, we'd probably admit that most of us have put environmental concerns on the backburner since the beginning of the global financial crisis. We've persuaded ourselves that, where we have to make a short-term choice between the two (with mining being a possible exception), a stable economy in difficult times has generally taken priority over environmental concerns. Also, it could be that the whole public debate got so complicated most of us ended up shutting our ears to the confusing noise.

But maybe the worm is starting to turn. Maybe this debate is signalling that the environment is seriously back on the agenda. Maybe there is a growing consensus that we should not be prepared to accept that the current balance is right.

Embracing the recommendations from the Land and Water Forum would be a good place to start. We "get" the importance of water. We have credible evidence that our water problem is bad and getting worse. We know it is a problem that we can fix. And we have a whole bunch of agreed solutions that we can get stuck into right now.

Let's be prepared to listen to and think carefully about the real essence of what Mike Joy is saying. We know we have an environmental problem. We know in our hearts that we need to fix it. Let's get on with it.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/8023733/100-Pure-Fantasy-Living-up-to-our-brand
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« Reply #16 on: December 02, 2012, 01:19:41 pm »


Pure fail for PM's maths

By PAUL LITTLE - HERALD on SUNDAY | 5:30AM - Sunday, December 02, 2012

Details from John Key on what his Government is doing to clean polluted waterways would be welcome. — Photo: NZ Herald.
Details from John Key on what his Government is doing to clean polluted
waterways would be welcome. — Photo: NZ Herald.


WHAT HAS happened to John Key? Even those of us who disagreed with many of his policies admired his slick salesman's charm and ability to wriggle out of the most embarrassing situations with a quip or a bit of Bollywood dancing. I miss that guy.

Wearing his best I-am-so-over-this.-Don't-they-realise-it's-Hobbit-Week? face he responded snippily to scientist Mike Joy's criticism of Tourism New Zealand's "100% Pure" slogan. Joy maintains that with many of our waterways so polluted they are not safe to swim in, our purity level is way below 100%.

This is debatable, but most of the PM's response was so absurd he would have made more sense if he had stood in front of a microphone and gargled.

Slogans aren't meant to be believed, apparently. He is sure no one is lovin' McDonald's food every time they eat it, as that company's slogan alleges. The Prime Minister may know a lot about all sorts of things but he would fail Marketing 101.

No one believes the McDonald's slogan because it doesn't ask to be believed. Most advertising slogans are couched in subjective language so that they cannot be queried. But 100% Pure is presented as data, not opinion.

Even if he were right, most of us would like to think that New Zealand, being a country, has higher standards of integrity than McDonald's, which is a corporation.

When Key tried to shift the argument and point the finger at cavemen — whose fires, he claimed, also had an environmental impact — he left many bewildered.

But let's do him the favour of considering this point seriously. No one knows exactly how many cavemen there were, although best estimates are fewer than one million before we invented agriculture and moved to town. Accordingly, we can't be sure how much pollution their fires caused, but best estimates are that it was less than the amount generated by 4.5 million New Zealanders and our six million flatulent cows.

"The vast bulk of New Zealand waterways are safe to swim in," said Key.

For someone who made his fortune in the mathematically complex world of currency trading, the PM shows a poor grasp of how numbers work. In numerical terms "vast bulk" and "100%" can be quite some distance apart.

Key seems to regard the argument as nothing more than a hair-splitting piece of sophistry. It's not. New Zealanders are proud of our image and of our tourism industry, so we would like them to be aligned in the way they represent us. Rather than hear him saying our slogan is meaningless, we'd like to hear him saying it's true our rivers and lakes are polluted and this is what we are doing about it.

As a nation we crave attention from the great world; the merest glance is as opium to an addict for us. This week, however, you may have been disappointed by a slightly wry tone to some of that attention. Sainted lexicographer Robert Burchfield, regularly named in lists of greatest ever New Zealanders, has been outed as an idiosyncratic censor who secretly deleted words from the Oxford English Dictionary when he was revising it. This revelation provoked satirical comment about crimes against Scrabble.

Hobbit publicity has also drawn its share of satirical comment. Very well. We must roll with the punches. But I draw the line at being described as "like Britain in the 50s", by a Daily Telegraph journalist, when his country's capital still stops traffic once a day so some soldiers on horses can swap shifts in front of a palace.


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10851320
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« Reply #17 on: December 03, 2012, 02:50:14 pm »


Clean up waterways, say scientists

By JAMIE MORTON - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Monday, December 03, 2012

Clear, clean waters are a priority for scientists. — Photo / Alan Gibson.
Clear, clean waters are a priority for scientists. — Photo / Alan Gibson.

TWO SCIENTISTS speaking at a major freshwater conference have described reversing the fouling of New Zealand's waterways as our largest environmental problem.

The New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society's annual conference opens in Dunedin today, after a year that has thrust the state of lakes and rivers into the spotlight.

Most recently, New Zealand's "100% Pure" image was challenged when a Ministry for the Environment report found that more than half of our monitored river sites were unsafe to swim in, information later used in a New York Times article on the eve of last week's premiere of The Hobbit.

Professor David Hamilton, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council's lake restoration chairman and biological sciences professor at Waikato University, said the status of New Zealand's freshwater was now "crucial".

"The current rate of intensification and the ability to maintain or enhance our aquatic systems don't match up at the moment," he told the Herald.

"What we've got to do is apply the same level of technology and thinking to the back end, the effluent end, as we have done at the production end."

"It's as simple as that."

"We've got a very expensive system and we've become leaders in the production side of things in aspects of milking and production, but we are a long way off in regard to the effluent side of things."

Dr Hamilton also believed a bigger focus could be made on preventing nutrient loading into waterways upstream.

Dr Mike Joy, a senior lecturer at Massey University's Environmental Science and Ecology Group, said waterways would continue to deteriorate if the Government did not get tougher on land intensification.

Dr Joy said most of the nutrient-loading stemmed from dairy waste.

"One cow produces 14 times the human equivalent — that means we've got a population of 70 or 80 million, so no wonder we've got a problem."


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10851552
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« Reply #18 on: December 03, 2012, 06:37:49 pm »


‘100% Pure’ dissenter pays heavy price

By DAVE ARMSTRONG - The Dominion Post | 7:07AM - Monday, 03 December 2012

MIKE JOY: Spoke out about New Zealand's “100% Pure” slogan and faced a significant backlash. — Photo: Fairfax NZ.
MIKE JOY: Spoke out about New Zealand's “100% Pure” slogan
and faced a significant backlash. — Photo: Fairfax NZ.


THOUGH WE live in a largely democratic society, it can still be difficult to be a dissenter. It used to be worse.

In the 1970s, trade unionists, intellectuals, student radicals were demonised by prime minister Robert Muldoon. Some of Sir Robert's "traitors" were pretty subversive. One was so Left-wing he went on to edit Cuisine magazine ("workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your pomegranate molasses!").

The latest dissenting head to be raised above the parapet belongs to freshwater ecologist Mike Joy. He had the audacity to say that New Zealand's "picture perfect" image as a clean and green nation was pure fiction. The Greens have been saying this for years, but Dr Joy's war crime was that his comments were published in the New York Times. In our insecure nation, criticising New Zealand in an overseas newspaper is akin to a married couple having an argument in front of other people — it's simply not done.

Dr Joy has been dubbed a "traitor" on radio. So infuriated was lobbyist Mark Unsworth that he sent a late-night email that made up for its lack of commas with extra vitriol, branding Dr Joy and his ilk "the foot and mouth of the tourism industry".

I have sympathy for the larrikin lobbyist. Scientists can be highly irritating creatures. I have worked with a few of the species, trying to convert their tortuous turns of phrase and highly technical Latin terms into plain English. Getting scientists to say something definitive can be like getting dihydrogen oxide out of calcium carbonate. Ask some scientists to put something in black and white and they say "it appears that way". Ask some to say an event is definitely going to happen and they'll say it is "highly likely"; run a tourism campaign saying our country is "100% Pure" and they may reply that it "does not appear to be so".

But that is exactly what is wonderful about a good scientist, which I believe Dr Joy is. A scientist's agenda is not to destroy or support one side of an argument, but to find out the truth by hypothesis, observation and experiment. Do some scientists have political agendas? Definitely — visit a tobacco or oil company. But though lobbyists, talkback hosts, newspaper editorials and politicians have attacked Dr Joy, I'm yet to hear of a scientist who has disproved anything he has said. So far, Dr Joy's argument appears to be 100% accurate.

I'm no expert on ecology but even I know how polluted the Manawatu River is. I know that thanks to run-off from farms, Lake Rotoiti is an environmental basket case. I know there are more lobbyists at Parliament than Maui's dolphins in our waters. I know that whitebait now costs 25 bucks a punnet because of bad riparian management. I know that I'd never heard of a disease called giardia until the 1990s.

The late scientist Sir Paul Callaghan is rightly revered by this Government. But did it listen to any of his lectures before naming an institution after him? Sir Paul described tourism as a low-wage industry with finite capacity. Dairy farming is profitable but more farms would put further stress on an already overloaded environment.

But our genial tourism minister isn't worried. Mr Key reckons "100% Pure" is just a slogan and doesn't have to be 100% true. It's more like McDonald's "I'm lovin' it". I wonder if Mr Key thinks "towards a brighter future" falls into the same category.

I'm all for more pesky scientists to continue to irritate us. If only, two years ago, a "traitorous" chemist had done some methane testing and told us that Pike River Coal's claim that its mine was safe was pure fiction. We could have sent him abusive, late-night emails saying he was ruining the coal industry.

Though Dr Joy is an expert on water ecology, I assume he knows enough botany to realise that in our little ecosystem, the most vulnerable plant is an educated and accurate tall poppy.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/dave-armstrong/8026779/100-Pure-dissenter-pays-heavy-price
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« Reply #19 on: December 03, 2012, 07:45:41 pm »

....maybe we could just ban farming......and put up tax a little bit Tongue
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« Reply #20 on: December 04, 2012, 03:21:00 am »

....maybe we could just ban farming......and put up tax a little bit Tongue


Maybe farmers could clean up their act and STOP polluting waterways.

Maybe John Key could stop telling 100% PURE BULLSHIT.
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« Reply #21 on: December 11, 2012, 05:17:47 pm »



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« Reply #22 on: December 11, 2012, 10:34:05 pm »

Speaking of bullshit Wink


11,000 Canterbury teachers sign against Govt plans
By Kate Shuttleworth K8Shuttleworth
7:02 PM Tuesday Dec 11, 2012 

Labour Party MP for Wigram, Megan Woods. Photo / File / Martin Hunter
The New Zealand Education Institution has delivered a petition signed by more than 11,000 Canterbury teachers calling for the Government's plans for the future of education in Christchurch to be stopped.

Labour Party MP for Wigram, Megan Woods, tabled the petition in Parliament today calling on Prime Minister John Key to stop the plan to close, merge and relocate Christchurch schools.

Ms Woods said Education Minister Hekia Parata's plan for the future of Canterbury schools had been bungled from the beginning, and the anger teachers were directing at the Government was justified.

The petition urges the Government to listen to students and educators in the region about what is best for learning.

"The message from teachers is loud and clear; the Government has stuffed-up and if it wants to fix things, it needs to start by listening," said Ms Woods.

She said the plan had been imposed on teachers in Christchurch, and proper input had not been sought.


"The Government is forcing Christchurch schools down a path that not only harms the fantastic education system we have in the city, but ignores a raft of positive ideas put forward as worthy alternatives.

"This petition should be a wake-up call for John Key and his Ministers. They need to swallow their pride and start working with teachers, principals and parents to find a positive way forward," Ms Woods said.

- APNZ
 
THE LEFT....whining about what the Govt is doing........but offer no reasoning or logic or alternatives .....sickening to think that the left believe the rest of us to be so gullible that all they must do is whinge and we will be sympathetic to their cause...greeedy arseholes Shocked...we would have to be "brain-dead morons" to suck that shit  Shocked
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« Reply #23 on: December 12, 2012, 05:35:28 am »

If ktj had half a brain he would realize that 1 farmers are not the only polutors in this country but he seems to really hate farmers. Guess he doesn't buy any NZ farm produce.
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« Reply #24 on: December 12, 2012, 06:29:24 am »

You certainly cant link all farmers into that anyway ... some .. less than there used to be.

Tourists coming here dont even notice the crappy areas, they are looking up - they miss the best spots and with their high numbers destroy and ruin those called 'tourist spots' .. long may it continue
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