6 hours ago
A major new report on New Zealand’s environment has revealed a worrying outlook for its unique species and highlighted declining water health, while also noting some improvements in air quality.
The ministry of the environment’s three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains – air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine – to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand’s environment.
James Palmer, the ministry’s secretary for the environment, said the findings in the report were a “mixed bag”.
“It does highlight the real risks to people, communities and places, which left unaddressed threaten our livelihoods and our quality of life for generations to come,” Palmer said. “But the report also shows that there are reasons for optimism.”
The report painted a sobering picture for New Zealand’s indigenous animals, with 76% of freshwater fish, 68% of freshwater birds, 78% of terrestrial birds, 93% of frogs, and 94% of reptiles threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.
“New Zealand’s unique biodiversity has a high proportion of threatened or at-risk species – one of the highest amid the global biodiversity crisis”, the report said, noting that land use, pollution, invasive species and climate change can all have an impact on biodiversity.
The report also found the most widespread water quality issue affecting groundwaters was the presence of E coli – a bacteria found in the guts of animals and humans that can cause serious illness and has been linked to farming and cities in New Zealand.
Of more than 1,000 groundwater monitoring sites, nearly half failed to meet the drinking water standard for E coli on at least one occasion between 2019 and 2024, while nearly half of the monitored rivers shows worsening E coli trends.
Meanwhile, a significant proportion of groundwaters have accumulated excess nitrate due to activities such as intensive farming, logging and urbanisation, which also affects water quality and degrades surface water ecosystems.
Dr Mike Joy, a senior research fellow in freshwater ecology and environmental science at Victoria University of Wellington, said the report revealed the ongoing and – in most cases – worsening decline of the environment. “The report reveals starkly the fallacy of the label ‘clean green New Zealand’ and the urgent need for this to be taken seriously by government,” he said.
New Zealand also faced a significant problem with pest plants. “The most spectacular of those, arguably, is the wilding conifer,” Palmer said.
Around 2m hectares are thought to be invaded by wilding conifers, an introduced pest plant that spreads from plantation forests. Their area is expanding by around 90,000 hectares a year and, without proper management, could invade about a quarter of New Zealand’s land within 30 years, the majority of which would be conservation land.
The report traverses how New Zealanders will be affected by the climate crisis and the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events such as Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023. Around 750,000 people and 500,000 buildings, are near rivers and in coastal areas already exposed to extreme flooding, while low-lying communities are vulnerable to sea-level rise, and rural communities are at risk of wildfires.
“We’ll face some tough choices about our priorities as a country, including about where we put our efforts and our scarce dollars,” Palmer said.
The report identified some environmental improvements, particularly in air quality. While road transport remains the main source of nitrogen oxide pollution, air pollution from motor vehicles was reducing due to stronger emission standards, more people choosing to use lower-emission vehicles, and improvements to engines and fuel.
“We’ve started to turn the corner in meaningful ways on some of our measures – choices about the cars we drive, the heating we use for our homes, for example, are showing up in better air quality, which is likely to flow through into better health,” Palmer said.
“That underscores that we can make a difference, and we can build on the momentum that is already underway by doing more.”
