29 August 2008 Overcoming a 'squeaky wheel' approach to dealing with environmental problems

A framework of five objectively assessable criteria to help prioritise environmental problems was presented by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, in Lincoln University’s 10th annual State of the Nation’s Environment address last night. (28 Aug.)

Speaking to a large audience of staff, students and members of the public, the Commissioner said that in a world of increasingly numerous environmental problems and issues it was essential to prioritise them for attention and the allocation of human and financial resources.

Confessing that she had “done her time” regarding economists as enemies of the environment, she said it was “crucial that environmental decision-makers understand … two powerful concepts of economic thinking  -  trade-offs and opportunity cost”.

“Environmental decision-makers need to understand that the dedication of resources to solving one environmental problem often takes away the opportunity to work on another and delays its solution.

“If we don’t prioritise consciously we will do it by default  - and that is ‘squeaky wheel’ allocation,” she warned.

The Commissioner said that it was tempting to think that simply reporting on the state of the environment would do the prioritisation job; that measuring the state of the environment with a set of indicators would “rank our environmental problems and tells us where to focus our efforts”.

While such reporting and data collecting exercises were “helpful” they did not make it possible to compare one environmental problem with another … to make conclusions about what matters a lot and what matters a little.

The five criteria presented by Dr Wright to help prioritise attention to environmental problems were  -

• Is the problem cumulative?
• Is the problem reversible?
• Is the size of the problem significant?
• Is the size of the problem accelerating?
• Is the problem approaching a physical limit or tipping point?

Using this framework Dr Wright examined two high profile Canterbury environmental problems  -  water quality (specifically excess nutrients) and air quality (specifically particulate levels).

After the analysis, she concluded that “If you ask me to rank these problems, I would  -  and do  -  rank the water problem far above the air problem.

“Although this doesn’t mean that I am saying nothing should have been done about air. And I am ranking the two problems from an environmental perspective not a health perspective.”

Dr Wright said she would not dare to claim that the criteria she proposed were the best to use.

“Far from it. I just want to get people thinking analytically and systematically.

“Ranking environmental problems reactively can leave us prey to perceptions rather than science. 

“When it comes to solutions to environmental problems we … need perceptions to be supplemented  -  and dare I say corrected  -  by reasoned analysis and evidence.”

Dr Wright said that one of the key things she hoped to achieve during her term as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was to help people understand the importance of getting beyond perceptions about the environment and “carefully and systematically prioritise our environmental challenges”.

Lincoln University’s series of annual State of the Nation’s Environment addresses was founded in 1999 by Professor of Nature Conservation Ian Spellerberg and associates. Presenters have included Cabinet Ministers, Ministry Chief Executives, and Dr Wright’s predecessor as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Dr Wright has a direct past connection with Lincoln University as a staff member in the late 1980s of the old Centre for Resource Management which was based on the campus.

Ian Collins, Communications Group, Lincoln University, Canterbury, Lincoln University