An International Perspective on Environmental Compensation: Lessons for New Zealand's Resource Management Regime

Abstract

Since the 1990s, there has been growing international interest in environmental compensation as a means to address negative environmental impacts in the wider context of the sustainable development debate. Environmental compensation has been broadly defined as " ... the provision of positive environmental measures to off-set, balance or otherwise atone for the adverse environmental impacts of some action, particularly development projects." (Cowell, 1996: ix). The practice of environmental compensation has been adopted within statutory planning regimes in a number of developed countries, led by the USA and Germany. In New Zealand, while environmental compensation is not provided for, explicitly, under the Resource Management Act 1991 ( the RMA), a number of first generation planning instruments prepared under this Act (the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement, regional coastal plans and city and district plans), make provision for some form of environmental compensation. However, the emerging practice of environmental compensation in New Zealand is ad hoc and variable and needs to be put on a sounder footing. To help achieve this goal, our objective in this study is to review the broad policy context, institutional architecture and emerging practices for environmental compensation as a planning tool in selected countries, from a New Zealand perspective.