Denis Marshall — National's green conscience

Forest and Bird, Volume 22, Issue 1, 1 February 1991, Page 35

Denis Marshall — National's green conscience

D Interview Bird and Forest

Wu SWAINSON (1789-1855) — one of New Zealand's early naturalists — would have approved. His great grandson Denis Marshall was recently appointed Minister of Conservation in the new Bolger administration. By the time Swainson arrived in New Zealand in 1841, he was well known for his illustrations of birds and shells, although it was as a Scientist that he would have preferred to have been remembered. However, Swainson’s skills lay with illustration — as a scientist he was a failure — and somewhat discouraged he emigrated to the young colony where he turned to landscapes rather than bird portraits. Unlike those of his celebrated ancestor, Denis Marshall's strengths lie less in the artistic field than in the administrative. Nevertheless, he has some impeccable credentials for his new position. "| joined Forest and Bird at an early age, | think I was probably about ten. I used to treasure the magazine, but because I was sent away to boarding school I was not particularly involved in local Forest and Bird activities. Later 1 became more actively involved in community projects because I've spent more time at home in the last 20 years than in the first 25," Marshall says. Home these days when he is not in Wellington is a sheep farm near Marton. The 47-year-old father of three is also a director of Rangitikei Marine, a company specialising in jet boats. His wife Annette is developing a family kiwifruit orchard. Marshall's first active involvement with conservation was his election to the Rangitikei-Wanganui Catchment Board in the 1970s. Later to become the Central Districts Catchment Board, it is the board which in 1988 decided Electricorp should return water to the Wanganui River. He rose to become deputy chairman during a period of what he describes as "evolution-

ary, probably revolutionary" change on the board. "I spent nine years on the board and | felt during that time we made a significant contribution to conservation values. We picked up on some issues that were not issues of the day but they are now. For example we initiated the Wanganui minimum flows regime and encouraged farmers to develop farm plans for soil conservation. Lower hill country has been stabilised and any particular part that is likely to suffer from erosion like the Mangaweka deviation was all planted beforehand," Marshall says. The much criticised — by conservationists — land development policies of the National Government between 1978 and 1982 were not all bad, according to Marshall. If you had a responsible agency such as a catchment board that was prepared to take an overview, then forest destruction could, and was, kept to a minimum. But that was the exception and more than 30,000 ha of native forest and 360,000 ha of shrublands was destroyed to make way for pastureland and pine forest in that period. Now that National is government again, and considering that one of the cornerstones of their election policy was a commitment to economic growth, does he see a possibility that such controversial land clearances could be repeated? "Well I think that environmental considerations are a key part of any decision. Once we were ignorant of how developments would affect the environment, but today we know that some of the things we are doing have an adverse effect on our future life on this planet." Asked if he would like to see the Ministry for the Environment become a control ministry in the same way as Treasury, with an input into all decisions, Marshall is non-com-mittal. However he does believe in the concept of environmental auditing, whereby

a downstream cost is taken into account as well as an immediate benefit. "Treasury itself ought to be taking recognition of these factors — I think the people in Treasury have a lot to learn about what true costs and true benefits are. We need to broaden their horizons as to what the true financial cost is because the environmental cost could also be a major financial cost at the end of the day for somebody," he says. The Treasury cost accounting approach has seen a steady decline in the Department of Conservation budget since it was set up in 1987. The new minister would like to usher in an era of stability. "T think they (staff) have been through so many changes and so many reviews that we will be concentrating on making sure there is some stability and certainty in their operations. "But I think that what we have to do better is sell ourselves to the general public. It’s important that we don’t compromise our standards in that but there is still a lot of ground to be made up in terms of selling good conservation values. "I would acknowledge the tremendous advances that have taken place already in terms of an understanding by many involved in the commercial world, that they need to take into account conservation values. I hope that through the Wanganui example there is an awareness of the need to reach a compromise. An example is the agreement reached with Electricorp in the Waitaki basin where conservation values are being enhanced to the tune of $3.2 million. That's the sort of thing that we've got to achieve right around the whole country.’ On the question of DoC funding, Marshall does not suggest the department will avoid the "razor gang's" attentions, but equally he argues that DoC spending at $100 million is "small change’ compared to big spending votes such as Social Welfare and Education.

The top priority for Marshall is to ensure endangered species receive adequate protection. "It’s absolutely vital that we have got the resources to undertake successful recovery programmes and I’m very pleased we have got some assistance (from sponsors) to enable us to do that,’"’ Marshall says. In the woodchip debate of 1989/90, Marshall stood out among National MPs in supporting a ban on the export of native woodchips but failed to convince his Cabinet colleagues who have recently unleashed a further 12 years of woodchipping in Southland's beech forests. He will not be drawn on whether rimu, totara, kauri or matai logs should be exported, but says National is starting out with "a clean slate" on native forests. Decisions on whether native forests will be protected through special forest legislation or under the Resource Management Act will be resolved by a committee headed by Environment Minister Simon Upton. He feels the Treasury argument — that if you want to save something then you have to pay for it — is untenable, because "the cost will be impossible to meet. It would also elevate the value of land which people have no intention of milling at the present time. I think that it’s a very short sighted policy.’ Marine conservation is an area of Marshall’s responsibility where he is certain to become involved in contentious decisions, with an increasing number of marine reserve proposals coming through in the next few years. However, he appears to be looking for-

ward to the challenge, and prior to the election promoted a marine park for the inner Hauraki Gulf. He is looking forward to two proposals — Kapiti and Cathedral Cove — "coming across his desk’’ shortly. As for controversy, he points out that, in the ‘legal sense, land conservation has a 100-year start on marine conservation. "We are lucky in New Zealand because our population is not large and a lot of reserves were established when there was no population pressure. We are only just getting to grips with establishing conservation principles in areas where there are lots of other values and lots of other uses." As one example, Marshall cites the plan to dump 10 million cubic metres of dredgings from Waitemata Harbour into the Hauraki Gulf. "Frankly I’m not impressed" is his reaction to the move by the Auckland Port Authority which is being forcefully opposed by Forest and Bird. Marshall's responsibilities extend beyond conservation to science and agriculture, for which he is associate minister. He sees the combination of these portfolios as logical because of the important linkages between them, weed and pest management, for example. As a farmer he has faith in the sus- tainability of New Zealand agriculture, stating that New Zealand farmers use "less fertiliser and fewer pesticides than anywhere else in the world." Prior to the election doubt was expressed about the potential for the National Party to

green itself: Evidence for this view could be found in National's response to the Vote Environment questionnaire: many of the 100 questions were "passed" and a minority were answered in the affirmative. However Marshall puts the party's poor performance in the survey down to a lack of adequate information. "Take CO, emissions. We have in fact put in place a more rigorous programme of CO, emissions than the previous administration had. That is because on becoming government we had access to more information and we were able to make a decision in a rational way without being pressured into it,"’ he points out. While at present the jury may be out on National's commitment to the environment — three months is hardly long enough to judge — the verdict is more positive for the new minister. Personable and sincere, Marshall’s gained a reputation in Opposition for his genuine concern about environmental issues and open consultation with environment groups. A former minister in the Labour administration agrees with the widely held description of Marshall but warns "just wait until he gets clobbered by National's caucus", a number of whom have reputations for their strong prodevelopment views. However, environment groups will be hoping that Marshall does not become merely sidelined as National’s green conscience but wins the support of his colleagues for the crucial conservation challenges of the 1990s. A7