Foreword
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry Programme aims to work with the agriculture, horticulture and forestry sectors, and their stakeholders, to identify and promote the adoption of best practices. Best practices translate local and scientific knowledge and information into practical, on-ground techniques that can be readily implemented by land users, to advance sustainable land management.
The Environment 2010 strategy, the Government's long-term strategy for the environment, stated that the Government would give priority to developing and implementing a Sustainable Land Management Strategy for New Zealand. The main objective of the Land Management Strategy, released in June 1996, is to enable land users, and those who provide support and services to land users, to work together more effectively to achieve sustainable land management.
The Strategy provides a national framework and statement of what the Government intends to do to encourage sustainable land management. Its primary focus is on providing information and support in a form that will encourage land users and managers to change unsustainable land use practices and to continually improve their resource management practices.
More than two-thirds of our land is used for agriculture and forestry production. MAF's role in advancing sustainable management of this resource reflects the principles and solutions identified in the Sustainable Land Management Strategy for New Zealand.
Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry involves interplay between economic, social and environmental factors. The sustainability of land-based management systems will be measured within these parameters over the long-term and based on a rural environment that is dynamic. As well as being measures of the pressure for sustainability these factors will also influence the capacity for achieving it.
Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry encompasses not just land management, of course, but also the industries that depend on the land-based products. MAF places an emphasis on working in an enabling and supportive partnership, with those responsible for making the ultimate decisions about resource use. This approach includes coordinating resources to promote best practices. A key component of this involves sharing, and collating information that can be delivered in an easily assimilable form to decision makers who are balancing multiple objectives.
The Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry Programme is a critical means of obtaining this goal.
Bruce J Ross
Director-General
Project Team
The project team and authors of this report include:
| Stuart Morriss (Project Leader) | Massey University | |
| Nicola Shadbolt | Massey University | |
| David Devine | Massey University | |
| Terry Parminter | AgResearch | |
| Liz Wedderburn | AgResearch | |
| Richard Bradley | SGS New Zealand Ltd | |
| Peter Wood | MAF Quality Management | |
| Murray Pedley | MAF Quality Management | |
| Jim Cotman | EQUAL Group | |
| David Horn | NOSLaM Group | |
| Frank Scrimgeour | University of Waikato |
| © MAF 1999 | ||
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