(Bloomberg) -- In the rugged heart of New Zealand's South Island, a high-altitude desert where the men of Middle-Earth made their last stand in the “Lord of the Rings” movies has become a battlefield once again.
Environmentalists and farmers are clashing over the Mackenzie Basin, an area known for its scorched-brown grasslands and crystal-blue lakes — and now, massive irrigation systems that are spreading circles of emerald-green pasture across the Mars-like terrain.
Southern Mackenzie Basin.
“It's similar to greening the desert of Nevada or California,” said Annabeth Cohen, a freshwater scientist at the Forest and Bird environmental group. “This area is unique and world-renowned for its incredible landscapes and glacial lakes, and is home to over 60 native species found nowhere else on earth. It's reckless to irrigate a place like the Mackenzie Basin.”
New Zealanders are starting to take note. The changing face of the Mackenzie environment is yet another display of the consequences of intensive dairying that are rankling with voters four months before a general election. Across the nation, once-pristine waterways have become contaminated by farm effluent.
Tourist operators say that image clashes with the “100% Pure” brand the New Zealand government uses internationally for marketing along with pictures of “clean, green” scenery. The campaign helped lure 3.5 million visitors in 2016, when tourism overtook dairy products as the nation's biggest foreign-exchange earner.
“Five years ago, I would have said it was only a bunch of ‘greenies' who were concerned about water quality, but now it is really rising as one of the big issues,” said Shamubeel Eaqub, an independent economist and author. “We're messing things up.”
Environmental Limits
The country's economic growth drivers have been based largely on exploiting natural resources, and these are reaching their environmental limits, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report in March. The Paris-based group noted that nitrogen levels increased more in New Zealand than in any other developed country from 2000 to 2010, and said dairy intensification was a major factor.
That's because a dairy cow typically excretes 25 liters of nitrogen-rich urine per day, according to industry body Dairy New Zealand. That leaches into the water table and ends up in rivers and lakes, feeding toxic algal blooms. Livestock effluent has also been entering waterways and raising bacteria counts to unsafe levels. Animal rights group SAFE says the nation's 6.6 million cows produce the same amount of manure as 100 million people. New Zealand's population is 4.7 million.
Local authorities are monitoring water quality, including the status of freshwater species, and enforcing limits on nitrates and phosphates as part of a government effort to ensure 90 percent of New Zealand rivers and lakes can be safely swum in by 2040, compared with its estimate of 72 percent now.
‘Too Many Cows'
Still, environmental lobby Greenpeace began a campaign last year claiming more than 60 percent of monitored rivers are no longer safe to swim in due to industrial dairying.
“There are too many cows,” said James Shaw, co-leader of the Green Party, which advocates a reduction in herd size and a shift to organic milk production to protect the environment and preserve New Zealand's brand. “It's much better to go up the value chain and sell fewer, more expensive items than it is to stay at the commodity end.”
New Zealand's Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. is the world's largest dairy exporter, selling vast amounts of milk powder to China. When the cooperative was formed in 2001, it was required to collect milk from any farmer who wanted to supply it, which encouraged the intensification of dairy farming and its expansion into less suitable areas.
Farmers are working with Fonterra and other companies to find solutions to the environmental impact.
Mackenzie Basin between Twizel and Omarama.
‘Very Motivated'
Dairy cattle are now excluded from 97 percent of the waterways on farms by almost 27,000 kilometers of fencing, while extensive tree planting has helped filter pollutants leaching into rivers, according to an industry-funded report last month. Fonterra is now able to refuse to collect milk from farms that don't meet environmental standards, a spokesman said.
“Farmers are very motivated to deal with the issues,” said William Rolleston, president of lobby group Federated Farmers New Zealand. “It's taken a long time to get to the point where there's stress on our waterways, and it will take decades to get back to the point we want to get to, but we're heading in the right direction.”
That hasn't prevented a fight over the future of the 4,300 square-kilometer (1,660 square mile) Mackenzie Basin, home to New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki Mount Cook, and an increasingly important tourist destination.
The latest shot in a 10-year legal battle has seen farmers appeal an Environment Court ruling that requires them to seek council permission to install fences and irrigation and spread soil or fertilizer on their land.
Battle of Pelennor Fields
Since 2000, when Peter Jackson filmed the Battle of Pelennor Fields, the showdown between the armies of men and Sauron's evil Orcs in “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” vast swathes of Mackenzie landscape have been transformed.
Drawing water from nearby rivers and using pivot irrigation, farmers are creating circles of pasture that are as much as two kilometers wide, converting tussock grasslands that are the habitat of numerous endangered and threatened species of plants, birds, lizards and insects.
“If ever there was a place in New Zealand where we should say no more dairying, this is it,” said Gary Taylor, chief executive of the Environmental Defence Society. “It is high, cold, and has thin natural soils. It is not a natural environment suited to intensive farming.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Brockett in Wellington at mbrockett1@bloomberg.net, Tracy Withers in Wellington at twithers@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew Brockett at mbrockett1@bloomberg.net, Jason Gale
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