The Environmental Protection Agency hearing into seabed mining for phosphate on the Chatham Rise is exposing questions about uncertainty - many big unknowns, including whether the applicant has done its job. If environment groups win this battle, what does it mean for the wider war?
Read MoreEEZ
Ground shifting under resource management
2012 in review: text of my piece for the Resource Management Journal on the changing legal landscape, and writing loudly on the political wall
Read MoreThe New Zealand story: 100% pooer!
In 2012, National Ministers’ environment choices left us 100% poorer - or pooer, in the case of our impure, faecally-contaminated rivers
Read More100% pure Middle Earth: mine not ours
Middle Earth, as my colleague quipped: it’s like that’s what we’re aiming for, one massive hole in the ground. Our legal landscape is changing, with mining in view. It’s not just the EEZ, or the RMA, or the Crown Minerals Act - it’s all of them. The ground is shifting under resource management.
Read MoreExclusively Economic Zone bad for industry, says Forest & Bird
The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill, currently passing through its remaining stages in Parliament, helps Big Oil less than you might think
Read MoreThe Exclusive Economic Zone: for sale
In which the government invites anyone who can pay enough into our offshore marine environment. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill does not "protect and preserve" the environment. It states its price
Read MoreDeepwater protection - too little, too late
Environment Minister Nick Smith has finally confirmed that
Deepwater protection - too little, too late
Environment Minister Nick Smith has finally confirmed that