Understanding environmental constraints

Some of the biggest environmental concerns present in New Zealand include human-induced climate change from agricultural means, change in land use, and loss of biodiversity. The main contributors to these environmental constraints include the impacts of agriculture and population. To start with,  emissions from agriculture plays a main role in causing climate change. New Zealand's main exports are agricultural and it can be stated that the carbon dioxide emissions from agriculture are much higher than the carbon dioxide from land use. From FAOSTAT, figure 1 below shows the agricultural emissions to be consistent at about 40 gigagrams per year from 1990-2012 while land use amount results in values below 0 gigagrams per year for that same time frame. 

Figure 1: Carbon dioxide emissions per year (Source FAO)

 

Enteric Fermentation from livestock is found to be the largest source of emissions at 55.3%. A lot of methane is released into the air which is also considered to be a greenhouse gas and can cause climate change. The second largest source came from manure left on the pasture at 31.9% (Figure 2). There is also known water pollution present as fertilizers and pesticides are getting into their water supply as runoff.

Figure 2: Portions of Emissions based on the 1990-2012 time frame (Source: FAO)

Besides the concern of agriculture, there is also the issue of land usage and loss of biodiversity. New Zealand's population is very small being only half the size of New York City. But since colonization, the population has taken over the land, changed the landscape, and altered the original unique biodiversity present in New Zealand. Back in the 1950s, New Zealand's population was found to be 2 million and is expected to triple to 6 million by 2100 (See figure below).

Figure 3: New Zealand Population growth from 1950 to 2100 ( Source: UN Population Division)

As the population increases, the land present will be altered to accommodate the growing number of people inhabiting the two islands of New Zealand. Forests are being cut to give people more living space while using the timber as an export. Forests make up the lowest land resource found in New Zealand in 2011 (FAO New Zealand). Deforestation can also putting more carbon dioxide into the air contributing to climate change. Additionally, in an article published in New Zealand's Journal of Ecology, only 10% of pre-European wetlands remain today (Robertson 2016). New Zealand has utilized much of the land even though the population size isn't vast. The loss of biodiversity with such unique organisms like the flightless Kiwi is devastating. If the habitats of these unique organisms are continued to be destroyed, these organisms will sadly only be a distant memory.