New Zealand's Capacity for Green Planning: a Polictical-Institutional Assessment and Analysis

Abstract

In the 1990s, New Zealand, as many other countries, took initiatives towards the development of more comprehensive, integrated and long-term environmental policy, often referred to as 'green planning'. Although green planning is generally seen as a promising new stage in environmental policy development, it often falls far short of the promise. In this article, the notion of 'capacity' is used to analyse some of the difficulties with green planning in New Zealand. Ways by which New Zealand's capacity for green planning can be strengthened are discussed, but it is argued also that capacity-building has been constrained by broader political-institutional factors and developments.