100% Pure New Zealand ?!
When you google New Zealand chances of finding tourism advertisments with the slogan: “100% Pure New Zealand” are inevitable. Images and videos like the offical tourism commercial of New Zealand show up and try to attract the attention towards New Zealand’s beautiful and untouched landscape. This and several other videos show everything the common tourist is looking for: lonely beaches, cristal clear water, white glaciers and cultural heritages. I, for my part, asked myselft: “How can a country be so untouched in todays industrial times?”
While googling around, I came across the economical facts about New Zealand: Most economy is based on its nature. Agriculture, forestry and tourism. All of those sectores leave their marks on nature. Especially agriculture and forestry generate a huge enviromental problem in the form of a massive production of greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emission increased 42 percent between 1990 and 2013. Besides agricultural greenhouse gases the oversized use of cars harm the pure air of New Zealand. Despite its small population, New Zealand has the thrid highest number of personal owned cars in the world.
But not only invisible greenhouse gases harm New Zealand’s nature. Pollution, which come along with diary industry and forestry, wreck by and by rivers and other biotops. The longest river and a big tourist magnet in New Zealand, Waikato River is heavily contaminated by the dirt of diary farms and factories.
Regarding to the high pollution rate in New Zealand, the 100% Pure New Zealand commercial seems to be rather questionable and not 100% true. To meet this high standard of pureness, New Zealand’s government should spend time and money on another campaign which approaches those pollution problems and encourage a rethink about using public transport. 100% is in today’s times an almost unreachable standard but on the other hand, who would like to visit a country which advertises with pictures of polluted rivers?!
