In honour of the 2008 campaign season:

The Green Party today revealed the existence of a damning unpublished thirteenth chapter to the state of the environment report released by the government ten days ago.

The thirteenth chapter was originally intended to be published as part of the report but was pulled some time towards the end of last year. The Greens are calling for future state of the environment reports to be under the direction of the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to ensure that they are, and are seen to be, independent from the government of the day.

“Chapter 13 states some inconvenient truths about the causes of environmental decline in New Zealand – causes such as dairy intensification, increased car use, and consumption. And it makes some inconvenient recommendations for action such as national environmental regulation and more public transport. Moreover it warns our economy is threatened by our poor environmental performance,” says Dr. Russel Norman, Green Party Co-leader.

“Chapter 13 points to industrial dairy as the largest cause of environmental decline in New Zealand. The Chapter says that land-use intensification, particularly pastoral land-use intensification, is ‘arguably the largest pressure today on New Zealand’s land, freshwaters, coastal oceans and atmosphere.’ (p.4)

Russel gives an extensive interview on the report:

 and there's more...