ECO - Environment and Conservation Organisation of Aotearoa New Zealand

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Kia Ora and Welcome!

This is the virtual home of ECO. Since 1976 ECO has been the umbrella group for environment and conservation organisations in New Zealand. This website has information about ECO and its 60+ member groups as well as news of the environment and major conservation issues in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Please look around our website to learn more about our work and access resources and links of importance.

ECO Activities

ECO Annual Conference 2012

Environmental Responsibility: Leadership, Inclusion and Good Governance:

The ECO Annual Conference and AGM will be held in Wellington from Friday 6 - Sunday 8 July 2012.

PLEASE DIARY THIS NOW!

The Conference will look at the need for environmental responsibility and good governance in an open society focusing on particular issues such as changes to the RMA, the EEZ legislation, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and more.

Friday and Saturday's programme (including the AGM) will be held at the Salvation Army Citadel, 8 Jessie Street. Sunday’s programme will involve a ceremonial tree-planting and workshops, to be held at Turnbull House,11 Bowen Street, opposite Parliament.

More information here

2011 Conference Report

See presentations from the 2011 conference here

Working Group updates - see here for more details

See the Coastal and Catchment working group paper on the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement 2010. The complete analysis may be downloaded for free on the ECO website here. (380KB)

Read about individual policies and participate in the discussion on the forum.

ECOLink

The latest ECOLink March 2012 has been sent to members and friends.  The previous ECOLink December 2011 can now be downloaded.

Oil Spills, Mining and Climate Change

Rena Disaster

Since the RENA split in half in early January, more oil continues to spill.  Any oil sightings should be reported via the 0800 OIL SPILL hotline.

The Rena disaster has raised a range of problems with our current NZ Oil Spill and maritime disaster recovery.  This includes the failure to ratify a range of important maritime international agreements which has been raised by ECO over several years.  ECO consider there should be a full review of marine pollution response and capacity, and the priorities in ratifying international obligation.

The Rena Disaster shows that New Zealand could not cope with a moderate let alone a large oil spill.  Like the proposal to open our best conservation land for coal mining, deep sea oil exploration is the wrong future for New Zealand.  Then there is the impact on climate change including sea level rise and ocean acidification, from increasing greenhouse gas emission from fossil fuels.

ECO urges you to support the Greenpeace petition to the Prime Minister John Key and the New Zealand Government:

“We call on you to permanently STOP ALL plans to open up NZ’s coastal waters to offshore oil drilling and STOP ANY expansion of coal mining in NZ. We demand a clean energy future.”