Sustainable management and the pastoral ideal

Abstract

Environmental legislation and administration in New Zealand was radically reformed during the late 1980s. The international debate upon sustainability was an important influence on the process, with the result that sustainable management of natural and physical resources became the overriding goal of new resource management legislation introduced in 1991. However, the detailed text of the legislation is open to a number of possible interpretations. One possible interpretation is to read the statute as an expression of the continuation of the cultural myth known as ‘pastoral’. A number of strong parallels between pastoral sentiment and the New Zealand concept of sustainable management can be identified in the text. These highlight elements of sustainability that are transparent within the legislation, but also alert us to those that are largely invisible. One significant omission from the New Zealand legislation is acknowledgement of the socio‐economic dimensions of sustainability. This contrasts with the findings of both the Brundtland Report [WCED, 1987] and the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) [Grubb et al., 1993], and may prove to be a significant weakness in the New Zealand legislation.