My BIG green plan

Congratulations Te Radar! You’ve been chosen as New Zealand’s eco king for a day. Tell us your Big Green Plan for the country...

It’s a bit of a backyard plan – because I want our focus as a nation to be cleaning up and transforming our literal backyards. I reckon if we all pull together we can revitalise our water, our waste, our food and forests – and have better amenities available to all. The grand goal is to position our country as a truly environmentally sound place, and as NZ Inc, at the forefront of sustainable production. There’s no reason we can’t become a powerhouse of innovation.

So where do we start?

Picking the low-hanging fruit is always a good place to begin, so here are two starters:

Massive nurseries. I’d like to see state nurseries churning out hundreds of thousands of seedlings for riparian and other planting in areas prone to erosion, or that could do with it. Planting trees along waterways has a huge positive effect on water quality around farms and towns. Teams of people could volunteer their time to replant huge areas. The army could be mobilised to house and cater for them in the regions they would be required. A sort of national service would be encouraged. The unemployed could be offered the (paid) chance to take up the slack. There’s ongoing work there too until the trees are established.

Next, in order to drive change I want a 'Drive to change' campaign where I’d encourage people to learn to drive more sustainably. That’s not just taking fewer trips (although it is a part of it). It’s learning how to drive efficiently, and to harness fuel savings doing so. Some large companies have shaved up to 20 per cent off their fuel use just by changing driving habits. Imagine that replicated on a national level – even if we only reached 10 per cent as a country. That’s an enormous saving.

Okay, what’s next? We have a big problem with contaminated rivers and lakes. How are we going to fix it…?

With money. Your rates, and your taxes. Sorry. It’s not just livestock whose effluent is entering waterways. There are a lot of towns, large and small, whose sewage facilities need attending to, and that infrastructure is not cheap.

As for the livestock and erosion problems, look to my big nursery scheme.

What’s your attitude to packaging? Will the Te Radar administration have a packaging policy?

Excess packaging is a travesty. It annoys me greatly to see food packed in non-biodegradable Styrofoam trays, so it’s reassuring to see the government has just allocated financial resources (to the tune of $4 million) to waste minimisation. This includes initiatives to use potato starch for meat and vege trays.

I have previously filmed at Potato Pak in Blenheim, who are looking at using potato for disposable plates and packaging, and it’s a great solution to the problem. Others abroad are looking at mushrooms and other compostable materials in similar trials. However, and there’s generally always one of those, they have to be composted correctly rather than simply being sealed in landfills. They should be able to be disposed of along with organic waste, or there’s little point.

So how can we encourage our eco-innovators?

I’m a grass roots kind of guy so I have a fondness for community innovators, such as groups like “Fruit Trees for Auckland”, who raise money to plant fruit trees in parks and schools. Likewise, Principal Shane Ngatai and his staff and students at Rhode St School in Hamilton, a primary school which has the children planting gardens and fruit trees, raising chickens, and preparing their own food from the produce they grow. If children can learn about this at school, it stays with them for life.

Councils allowing community groups land for planting, and schools being given the autonomy to broaden their curriculums are a good start too.

Where is the best place the average consumer can start to make a difference?

With their wallets and their ballots. Want free-range/cage-free eggs, chicken and pork? You’ll have to pay for it. It’s often not as cheap as the alternative. Not in your supermarkets? Ask for it. Don’t like politicians’ attitudes to certain things? Then lobby them or vote them out. Start connecting with people in your community so that you know what is happening. Be politically aware.

Shop with some of the smaller retailers, like butchers, greengrocers, and bakers. Supermarkets are cheaper, but that’s because of the stranglehold they have on food distribution in this country, and low prices aren’t necessarily good for the community, (just ask any of their suppliers, such as the horticulturalists, or pig farmers).

Farms are crucial to this country. What does farming’s future look like in your Big Green Plan?

I’ve long thought that what we really should concentrate on growing is soil. Everything else is a welcome and profitable by-product of good, healthy, living soil. If we concentrate on ways to develop soil’s fertility, water retention, and biodiversity naturally, then our reliance on chemicals and fertilisers can be reduced, and we may become a little more drought and flood hardy.

I’m not a fan of factory farming at all, but I’m not against cattle being housed for short periods to protect them from the harsher elements, and to maintain soil integrity. I certainly wouldn’t want it to get to the stage it is in some countries where barns are all cows know. And if you know cows you know they do like shade, and they aren’t all that keen on standing in the rain. It also means effluent can be collected and disposed of via treatment systems rather than having it on pastures.

I’d also like to see more integrated technology for energy savings such as solar water heating, the possibilities of methane harvesting from farms for energy production and to cut greenhouse emissions, and for small-scale biofuel production.

I’m deeply concerned about the price of land driving the ownership of it out of reach of ordinary folk and into a smaller number of agribusiness owners and companies. This is changing the very nature of our rural communities, and means more decisions will be based on returns to shareholders, not what might be best for the land and its inhabitants.

I’d tighten up on ownership of New Zealand land by foreign companies in particular.

Food miles – should we care?

Absolutely. The concept of food miles can be used to make it seem that food we produce here is more environmentally costly than food grown closer to the source. But that’s not always the case. While I firmly believe in local food movements, New Zealand shouldn’t suffer if we can genuinely grow things more sustainably or ethically than other places. The food miles issue just goes to show that as an agricultural nation subjected to the tyranny of distance we need to make sure the way we produce food is so much more financially and environmentally efficient than other countries.

CO₂ emissions and global warming can seem pretty abstract. Whose job is it to care?

I’m not going to say it’s everyone’s job to care, but everyone should at least be aware of the issues. It’s something that can really only be sorted out at the higher levels of industry and government, and they will only do it if there’s a demand from ordinary people to change.

You’ve seen a lot of the world – how do we compare with other countries on environmental issues at the moment?

We compare pretty well, but a lot of that has to do with our limited population. We do seem to have a stronger connection to the land, to water, beaches and bush than some other more industrialised places, so the concept of the welfare of the environment is not as distanced as it is elsewhere. Having said that, we must be aware of complacency. The recent hoohah surrounding the 100% Pure campaign certainly highlighted that.

What green ideas make you proud to be a Kiwi?

In the course of filming the sustainability shows I’ve seen work in fields such as biological pest control, plant science, neuroscience, biofuels, solar powered cars and flight, architecture, and algae. All of the people involved have taught me something I didn’t know and impressed me with their skills and commitment.

But it’s often the small community things that I remember, probably because the effects they have are clearly tangible for people. So, the likes of Xtreme Waste in Raglan and their community waste minimisation and employment scheme, or the work of the Guytons down in Riverton with the enviro-centre and their saving of heritage fruit trees tickle my pride-bone.

We asked Te Radar if he’d always been so passionate about green issues, or if something set him on the path…

“I was raised on a dairy farm in the Waikato. We knew where our meat and veges came from, and the issues associated with producing them. Because of this I have always had a deep interest in animal welfare and food issues, and the relationship of farming to the environment.

“Several years ago I was offered the chance to film Off the Radar, which I leapt at. At the time I had no idea it would allow me to spend all of this time investigating the nature of sustainability, the environment, and communities here and abroad, and to share the fruits of that labour on TV and at meetings, expos, forums, A&P shows, and on the streets.

“People in NZ do care, and that’s the most rewarding part.”

Te Radar goes global

Te Radar can currently be seen on screen in Global Radar: The New World. The fourth in a series of sustainability shows (Off the Radar, Radar’s Patch, and Global Radar 1), it takes a wry look at sustainability issues around New Zealand, and in the USA, Peru and Cuba. His journey uncovers green ideas as diverse as Earthships, biofuel from alligator fat and rotten fruit, waste timber as an energy source, algae used for cleaning up geothermal power, and harnessing the power of phosphates in effluent ponds.

Global Radar plays on TV One on Wednesdays at 8pm – or catch it on TVNZ Ondemand.