Water pollution is now considered to be one of the most important environmental issues facing New Zealand. Water quality in rivers, lakes and streams is generally falling alongside the increase in farming intensity. Currently, technical and regulatory mechanisms to reduce non-point source...

Millions of mines lie in or on the ground in 62 countries resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries each year. Most mines are cleared using probes and hand held mine detectors; although sniffer dogs and a variety of machines are becoming more common. Clearing landmines is very expensive with...

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...

Climate change is one of the toughest challenges facing the world today. Putting a price on carbon emissions is an important step towards climate change mitigation. A cap and trade system is one of the ways to create a carbon price. The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZETS) is the...

We conducted an online choice survey to inform advice to the Tasman District Council on setting management objectives for multiple uses and values across several catchments. One sub-sample was recruited via a survey company and a second via a public call with prize draw. From a survey with...

There is growing interest in non-market valuation research to explore the importance of attitudes and perceptions in explaining heterogeneity of preferences among consumers. Previous research on environmental attitude (EA) and its influence on preferences has been criticised for the...

While there is a large and growing international literature on economic aspects of biotechnology innovation (e.g. work by Carlsson, McKelvey, Orsenigo, Zucker and Darby) these studies concentrate on the United States and Europe. The New Zealand biotechnology industry may be expected to develop...

The New Zealand Government has indicated a strong interest in fostering innovation and aims to concentrate on selected areas where New Zealand may be able to develop a new comparative advantage. One such area is biotechnology, which would build on New Zealand's existing comparative advantage in...