Kevin Parris On OECD Water Study And Political Response

Concerning the article posted on Thursday 22 September “Will Key bucket OECD scientists on water quality?” quoting the response from the Labour’s water spokesperson Brendon Burns, I would be grateful if you could please publish my response to this article outlined below.

As noted in the NIWA press release while I did highlight that NZ’s nitrogen surplus has been rising to around 45 kilograms nitrogen/hectare of agricultural land (kg/N/ha) by 2006-08, it remains considerably below the OECD average of about 65 kgs/N/ha. However, the rising nutrient surplus does present a potential increasing environmental pressure on rivers and lakes in NZ.

Moreover, in my presentation to the International Water Association Conference in Rotorua this week, based on a forthcoming OECD report on water quality management in agriculture, I highlighted that a number of recent policy initiatives in NZ hold the possibility to address agricultural water pollution, including, for example, the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management and Lake Taupo Agricultural Water Nutrient Trading scheme.

Yours faithfully,
Kevin Parris,
Policies and Environment Division,
Trade and Agriculture Directorate, OECD,

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