Regional councils throughout New Zealand are in the process of drawing up plans to enable them to meet the requirements of the Resource Management Act and the National Policy Statement on freshwater. Some councils are working on targets for nutrient leaching at the catchment level and are...

New Zealand’s success in raising agricultural productivity has been accompanied by higher input use, leading to adverse effects on the environment. Until recently, analysis of farm performance has tended to ignore such negative externalities. The current emphasis on environmental issues has...

Data from a choice experiment on the community’s preferences for water quality improvements in streams was used to assess the effect of using a fixed status quo versus people’s perceived status quo on willingness to pay values. More than 50% of respondents perceived the quality of water in...