New Zealand’s natural resources are under increasing pressure from competing uses and are, in some areas, approaching limits. Management of our natural resources has been and will continue to be a complex and contentious intergenerational issue. This complexity arises because of the many interrelationships and interdependencies between environmental and social systems involved in natural resource management, as well as the legacy of past decisions. The contentiousness arises, in part, because natural resources are typically finite and shared, where people hold different values regarding their appropriate use.

Authors: Edward Hearnshaw, Trecia Smith, Jane Carpenter, John Pennington, Jace Mowbray, Rebecca Maplesden and James Palmer.