Confessions of An Environmental Babe In Sustainable Woods
A personal view from Terry Dunleavy MBE


I am a 72 year-old New Zealander, of Irish descent down both parental lines, with a fiercely patriotic love of my homeland, and concern for its future which springs partly from that love and partly from having fathered 11 children, with (currently) 15 grandchildren. Life and work in Samoa for seven years between 1951-58 has overlaid a Polynesian cultural view, which has translated into almost 20 years of involvement with a Maori secondary school. The last 30 years of my still active working life have been involved with the wine industry, which has its own practical production and commercial imperatives for sustainable development.

In environmental matters, I am probably representative of most of my generation:-full awareness of the implications has come to me late in life, and I find it difficult to comprehend with anything remotely resembling the global grasp demonstrated by Simon Upton in his brilliant upton-on-line dated 16 May 2001. (To get on his
email list, send a message to Simon at uptononline@noos.fr).

That paper led me to look up, for the first time, the origin of the Brundtland Commission, with its crystal-clear definition of sustainable development as progress that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In intent, this is not all that different from the definition used by Dr Graham Whyte in his long years of lecturing on forestry at Canterbury University:

"maintaining the supply of as many benefits, goods and services at as high a joint level of each as can be reasonably supplied in perpetuity, without permanent loss of current resource management options". Upton-on-line led me also, for the first time, to the text of UNCED, Rio de Janeiro June 1992, the declaration now popularly known as Agenda 21.

My attempt to become actively involved in the political action needed to advance the cause of sustainable development (which I prefer to label "sustainable prosperity" on the grounds that development must have, and be seen to have, a purpose) began at the 1999 Northern Regional National Party conference, when I came into contact with the aims and objects of Bluegreens. I agreed to serve as chair of Bluegreens Northern, and last year was pressed by Nick Smith into service as National Convenor of Bluegreens.

I was having some difficulty coming to terms with what Bluegreens should be aiming to achieve in detail. That was, until I read for the first time the text of Agenda 21.*

It then became clear to me, and this clarity springs a lot from upton-on-line, that the struggle for sustainable prosperity is necessarily global in scope. Just as "no man is an island", no nation state is alone on this planet in an environmental sense. Some, like reasonably developed and remote New Zealand may be relatively insulated from environmental degradation initially, but in the end it will catch up with us.

It seems to me that the issues relating to environment (and to a degree heritage) within New Zealand in recent years have an unhealthy selfish aspect. Little attempt has been made, except possibly in the matter of the Kyoto protocols on global warming and emissions, to relate to the well identified global concerns clearly enunciated in Simon Upton’s brilliant paper.

For Bluegreens, the National Party, and indeed New Zealand and the world, it is essential that we make some impact in finding solutions, some of which are apparent in
Agenda 21.

For instance, Principle 1 of Agenda 21 states: "Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature." Why, oh why, didn’t we use that as a basis for our arguments in the Timberlands West Coast Ltd (TWC) indigenous forest fiasco? Graham Whyte and others have drawn my attention to the fact that the present Government’s decisions relating to West Coast indigenous forests are in breach of a range of international protocols to which New Zealand is/was a signatory I confess that the technicality and detail involved made my head spin. As one whose approach to political advocacy has been the "KISS" principle ("keep it simple, stupid"), I would have been more comfortable with reliance on Principle 1 of Agenda 21 in my few outbursts on the subject of the Labour/Alliance Government’s shameful treatment of TWC and West Coast people.

This "confession", therefore, suggests that Bluegreens give more attention to the principles laid out in Agenda 21. We should seek to identify issues within New Zealand which we can link back to Agenda 21. We would use that agenda as the basis of justification, and moral authority, for what we advocate. We can take and hold the moral high ground by always relating our advocacy to the principles of Agenda 21: being seen to advocate not only what’s good for New Zealand and New Zealanders, but what’s good for the rest of the world and its peoples.

*Website: www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21.htm