The

environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement) is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. In its recognition of humanity a ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

started in the 1950s, a period of rapid social change. Since then multiple high-profile national campaigns have contested various

environmental issue Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans (human impact on the environment) or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recov ...

s including forest protection, transport decarbonisation, and

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

. The environmental movement eventually spawned the

Values Party The Values Party was a New Zealand political party. It is considered the world's first national-level environmentalist party, pre-dating the use of "Green" as a political label. It was established in May 1972 at Victoria University of Wellingto ...

, which was the first political party with a strong focus on environmental issues to contest national elections. The Values Party eventually morphed into the

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand (), commonly known as Green or the Greens, is a Green politics, green List of political parties in New Zealand, political party in New Zealand. Like many green parties around the world, it has four pillar ...

Beginnings

A number of commentators consider that the earliest major

was the national campaign to prevent the raising of the levels of Lakes Manapouri and

Te Anau Te Anau is a town in the Southland, New Zealand, Southland List of regions in New Zealand, region of the South Island of New Zealand. In Māori language, Māori, Te-Anau means the Place of the Swirling Waters. It is on the eastern shore of Lake ...

as part of stage two of the development of the Manapouri Power Project. A "Save Manapouri Campaign" ran from 1959 through to 1962, involving organisations such as the Forest and Bird Protection Society and the Scenery Preservation Society, resulting in two petitions to parliament and the formation of the Nature Conservation Council, a government advisory body. The "

Save Manapouri Campaign The Save Manapouri campaign was an environmental campaign waged between 1969 and 1972 in New Zealand to prevent the raising of the levels of lakes Manapouri and Te Anau as part of the construction of the Manapouri Power Project. Origins The ...

", which commenced in Invercargill in October 1969, became a national campaign in 1970 with a third petition to parliament, a Cabinet Committee report and a Commission of Inquiry. The Save Manapouri debate lasted until the 1972 general election, when the incoming Kirk administration promised not to raise the levels of either Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau, establishing instead the Guardians of Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau to ensure that both lakes would be operated within their natural levels. Certainly the Save Manapouri Campaign occurred during a time of heightened international concern for the popular concept of the 'environment', but it was neither the first - nor the last - of a succession of campaigns to preserve aspects of New Zealand's natural heritage dating back to the creation of the first scenic reserves and national parks. Earlier 'scenery preservation' campaigns, such as the Waipoua Forest debate, when the Waipoua Preservation Society, campaigned against the government's plans in 1946 to log the Waipoua Forest, included multiple recognisable elements of later 'environmental' campaigns - appeals to

public opposition Public opposition describes a form of social activity that deliberately opposes establishment opinion in the public sphere in order to raise public awareness of topics, problems or social groups that appear to be neglected or oppressed. As with the ...

to the loss of natural landscapes, petitions and on-site consideration of the potential impacts of logging. What was different by 1969, therefore, was the sophistication of the conservation/environmental debate, which was able to use the new international lexicon of 'environmentalism' to describe those tangible and intangible features of the Manapouri landscape, which were threatened by the power project.Peat, N. Manapouri Saved, New Zealand's First Great Conservation Success Story, Dunedin, 1994; Wheen, N. (2002) A history of New Zealand environmental law. pp 261-274, In ''Environmental histories of New Zealand'', edited by Pawson, E. and Brooking,T. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pages 266-269.

Campaigns

Other major issues have included

nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity *Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy, the pot ...

, preventing native forest logging and halting the growing of GE food crops. Logging protests occurred in Whirinaki, Pureora, and on the West Coast of the South Island. As of 2010 the environmental movement is active in multiple areas, including opposition to new large-scale hydro dams, protecting conservation land from mining and preventing overuse of water resources.

Organisations

The largest

conservation organisation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and manage ...

, formed in 1923, is

Forest and Bird Forest & Bird (), also known by its formal name as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, is an environmental organisation specialising in the protection and conservation biology, conservation of New Zealand's indigenous F ...

. Greenpeace New Zealand carries out advocacy and

direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...

in and around New Zealand. Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand (ECO) is an umbrella organisation of about 50

environmental organisations An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environme ...

References

External links

.
Greenpages
- a database of New Zealand environmental organisations {{DEFAULTSORT:Environmental Movement In New Zealand Environmentalism in New Zealand

Beginnings

Campaigns

Organisations

See also

References

Further reading

External links