Our environment 2025 Tō tātou taiao
As educators and students, we are familiar with school reports – they use data to track and communicate student progress and provide those involved with regular, updated information and insights.
Our environment 2025 Tō tātou taiao report cover
Our environment 2025 Tō tātou taiao is a synthesis report – bringing together key findings from regular 6-monthly reports that cycle the five domains of air, freshwater, marine, atmosphere and climate, and land.
Source: Ministry for the Environment, Stats NZ and data providers and licensed by the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Stats NZ and the Ministry for the Environment have a similar approach with environmental reporting. Every 6 months, they report on an aspect of Aoteaora New Zealand’s environment. These reports help all involved to understand our environment, track impacts of human activities over time and identify environmental challenges. Key findings from these reports are used to create 3-yearly synthesis reports – Our environment (previously titled Environment Aotearoa).
Our environment 2025 provides a picture of the whole environment and its interconnections, showing how changes to different parts of the environment impact each other.
The environment includes people. Our lives and livelihoods are intertwined with environmental systems and processes in countless complex ways. Human actions are responsible for driving changes in the state of the environment, and our lives are also affected by those changes.
Interconnections – how the report reflects the environment
In line with the focus on how humans are impacted and are in turn impacted by environmental change, Our environment 2025 Tō tātou taiao begins and ends with people. The report looks at drivers – how decisions influence environmental change – from global economic and geopolitical factors through to individual choices. It then devotes chapters to pressures and their impacts on ecological systems and native species.
All aspects of the environment are interconnected. Referred to as domains, Our environment 2025 is structured to reflect what the data is telling us about the state of te taiao:
The activities that drive changes in our environment often begin with how we use and manage our land. Pressures arising from our land-use decisions affect many native species and flow through into other domains.
What happens on land flows into our freshwater. Erosion, pollution and run-off affect the water quality of our lakes, rivers and groundwater, along with the species and ecosystems that depend on them.
Rivers and streams enter the marine environment. Pollution and sedimentation that reach our coasts and oceans, as well as fishing practices, put coastal and marine habitats increasingly under threat.
Human actions also drive changes to the air. Transport, home heating, agriculture and industry lower air quality, which can pose risks to our health.
Changes to the other domains are amplified by changes in our atmosphere and climate. Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns increase many of the pressures seen in other parts of the environment.
Our environment 2025 concludes with impacts on people – reporting on the effects that interconnected changes to the state of the environment are having on our health, property, places and livelihoods. It also outlines knowledge gaps with the aim of improving the knowledge base from which we make decisions about our impacts.
Our environment 2025 – infographic
Synthesis reports like Our environment 2025 focus on the interconnectedness of all aspects of the environment to each other and to people.
Download a PDF of this infographic.
As you observe this infographic, consider these questions:
How does the infographic imply interconnectedness?
Why do you think the domains are placed where they are on the spiral/koru?
How does the infographic place this environmental system within an Aotearoa New Zealand setting?
How does the infographic use colour to help get the message across?
Source: Ministry for the Environment, Stats NZ and data providers and licensed by the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Interconnections – using Our environment in the classroom
The New Zealand Curriculum recognises mātaioho – encouraging schools to bring the curriculum to life through local, national and global contexts. Our environment 2025 provides information about numerous scientific and social challenges we face. Each of the environmental domains can be overwhelming to explore as a whole – one approach is to choose an aspect of interest to local curriculum. Here are some examples:
Land
The effects of urban expansion and land fragmentation on highly productive soils.
Erosion – this is of particular concern to some Māori as over 80% of all Māori land is hilly or mountainous and susceptible to major erosion events such as landslides.
The positive and negative effects of exotic plantation forestry on native species.
The trends and impacts of waste disposal in landfills.
Access Our environment 2025 reporting about land use and its impacts.
Freshwater
New E. coli monitoring data shows that faecal pathogen contamination continues to be the most widespread water quality issue affecting New Zealand groundwaters.
Poor water quality has impacts on mahinga kai and its associated practices.
Litter Intelligence data finds 68% of the items counted in freshwater sources are plastic.
Access Our environment 2025 reporting about the freshwater environment.
Marine
More coastal and estuarine water quality monitoring sites have reported improving trends than worsening ones between 2006 and 2020.
Marine heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense and longer lasting in some parts of the ocean around the country.
More non-native species are being found in our marine waters and are spreading to new locations.
Access Our environment 2025 reporting about the marine environment.
Air
There’s been a decline in the emissions of most air pollutants – however, many sites still exceed World Health Organization guidelines at times.
Artificial light (light pollution) is increasing in both extent and brightness.
Access Our environment 2025 reporting about air quality and artificial light.
Atmosphere and climate
Our gross greenhouse gas emissions from human activities peaked in 2006 and have been declining since 2019.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s share of global greenhouse gas emissions is small but our gross emissions per person are high compared to other developed countries.
Changes to the climate are changing the environment across all environmental domains.
Access Our environment 2025 reporting about the atmosphere and climate.
Use some of these questions to prompt engagement with the examples listed above or with other aspects mentioned in the report:
Does this reflect what is happening in your area?
How do we know this is happening?
What is driving the change?
Are there aspects of the drivers that are positive?
How might the change(s) affect our local environment, personal wellbeing and/or cultural practices?
Active travel
Active travel – using your own energy to get to places – reduces air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. It’s good for personal health and for the environment.
Pictured are students at Titahi Bay School learning about scooter safety on the Scooter Ready Programme.
Photo by Lisa Campbell.
A note of caution and a call to action
The purpose of Our environment 2025 is to provide high-quality information about how and why our environment is changing and the resulting impacts. Its scope does not include solutions or advice – so the report can be daunting to read.
Many aspects of our wellbeing are linked to the environment. The multitude of impacts on te taiao may seem immense but it is important to remember that data from Our environment 2025 shows that we have a good understanding of these impacts. We can use this information to create change. Exploring opportunities to get involved and take positive action can help with the wellbeing of our students and the environment.
Supporting resources
The Hub has partnered with the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ across a range of their environmental reports. Our collaborations have produced media-rich suites of teaching resources and classroom activities, underpinned by mātauranga Māori.
Environment Aotearoa 2022 uses Te Kāhui o Matariki as the guiding framework. Curated resources present a holistic story of the different environmental domains. The activities make use of beautiful Matariki representations and infographics.
Our atmosphere and climate looks at how climate data is gathered, analysed and reported and the implications of climate change for Aotearoa. The activities feature interactives and climate datasets.
Related content and activity idea
Our environment 2025 includes the Our environment 2025 – infographic featured in this article. The article Understanding infographics provides background information on how infographics are constructed and why they are useful communication tools.
Unpack how and why Stats NZ and the Ministry for the Environment created this infographic with the activity Using infographics. The context is different, but the design fundamentals are the same.
Useful link
Stats NZ and the Ministry for the Environment report on different aspects of Aotearoa’s environment every 6 months. Access their reports here.
Acknowledgement
This resource has been produced in collaboration with the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ.
Our environment 2025
TThe Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ produce New Zealand’s Environmental Reporting Series.
Our environment 2025 is a synthesis report that provides an overall picture of our environment across the land, freshwater, marine, air, and atmosphere and climate domains.
