New Zealand likes to present a clean green
image to the world, and often succeeds. It may come as a surprise therefore to
learn that 50% of councillors in 12 urban authorities feel that the debate
currently taking place in New Zealand regarding pesticide use in the urban
environment is an important issue. Among women councillors the proportion who
thought the issue was important or urgent was as high as 75%.
David McGarrigle, an independent researcher, presented these
findings in a recent survey. He uses his own data as well as those of other,
similar research from New Zealand and the UK to show that 80% of the population
are concerned about pesticide use. But what to do about it?
A reorganisation of New Zealand's environmental legislation
in the early 1990s gave birth to the Resource Management Act 1991. Section 32 of
this Act places a duty on local authorities to introduce some rigour into their
cost benefit analysis of alternative environmental management strategies
including the use of pesticides.
McGarrigle's research suggests that in New Zealand as in
the UK, rigorous analysis of the alternatives "has not been the universal
hallmark of analyses conducted to date."
A key element of any comparative assessment, particularly
where public money is involved, must be the cost of available alternatives. In
New Zealand, again as elsewhere, costings are based on the money which leaves a
council's coffers to pay for labour, materials and equipment. In such
circumstances, on the basis of cost alone, pesticides tend to win every
comparison. However, such cost analyses invariably neglect to take account of
the unpriced health and environmental effects of using pesticides. As long as
these 'externalities' of pesticide production and application are not
identified and internalised, says McGarrigle, there is little incentive for the
market within which the pesticide industry operates, to respond and conserve
resources.
Examples of externalities which local authorities encounter
in their use of pesticides include responding to complaints, obtaining legal
opinions, insurance costs, training, disposal of containers, rectification of
environmental damage, and more. Full accounting for these costs will undoubtedly
shift the balance and may actually tip it in favour of non-chemical control
options.
McGarrigle's report makes a bold effort to open up the
debate surrounding pesticide use in non-agricultural situations. The issues
raised are as relevant to New Zealand as they are elsewhere. Convincing local
government politicians and managers that alternatives to pesticides should be
considered is the first important step in bringing about change. (MD)
David McGarrigle, Pesticides: The costs,
issues and trends in New Zealand Territorial Local Authorities, Publications co-ordinator,
27 Cooneys Drive, Matua, Tauranga, New Zealand, December 1996, NZ$29.95, 60pp.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 36,
June 1997, page 19]