New Zealand Government Plans to Require Regular Reports on State of Environment

摘要

The New Zealand government plans to set up a national system for state of the environment (SOE) reporting that would be independent of the political party in power. Environment Minister Amy Adams said Aug. 8 she plans to introduce an Environmental Reporting Bill before the end of the year. Some changes Parliament is already considering to the country's main environmental law, the Resource Management Act (RMA), are also part of the package. Most other developed countries have already adopted some form of mandatory SOE reporting. The Environment Ministry released a discussion document for an SOE system two years ago, but until now the government had remained silent on when an SOE system would be set up and what shape it would take (34 INER 837,8/31/11).