Key points
This indicator monitors people’s personal actions towards protecting the environment (types and frequency of activities), and people’s reasons for not making personal efforts to protect the environment. In 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006, Environment Waikato surveyed randomly chosen adults living in the Waikato Region about their personal environmental actions.
- In 2006, on average people made greater efforts in their daily lives to help the environment compared with 1998. In 2006 people took an average of at least 2.7 actions to protect the environment, compared with an average of 1.4 actions in 1998.
- In the 1998 and 2000 surveys, people said a lack of knowledge was one of the main reasons stopping people taking personal environmental actions.
Source: Environment Waikato
What agencies are doing
- Every three years, we run a telephone survey of over 1000 randomly chosen people in the region to find out what people’s concerns are, what they know about, what actions they take, and the attitudes they hold towards the environment.
- Environment Waikato aims to raise people’s awareness of the environment so that people understand that the daily actions in their lives and business can affect the environment, and what actions they can take to improve their own local environments.
- We keep in contact with major resource users and other resource management agencies to make sure they know about the community’s concerns, values and expectations for their environment.
- The trends identified here help us to determine priorities for policy development work and review the objectives for managing the region’s environment. Information from this survey is used in the development of the region’s major policy documents, such as the Waikato Regional Policy Statement, the Regional Coastal Plan, the Waikato Regional Plan, the Regional Pest Management Strategy and the Regional Land Transport Strategy.
What you can do to help
- Find out more about your local environment (for example, join environmental groups).
- Get involved in environmental issues (for example, make a submission on a plan).
- Do more things that are better for the environment (for example, compost your kitchen and garden waste).
- Join or form a Landcare group in your area.
More information
More detail on this indicator, including how and where this information is collected, is available here.
What we want to achieve
The community outcome we are seeking to achieve by monitoring people’s personal environmental actions is:
- We are aware of what we need to do to look after our environment. Our region is renowned for linking environmental awareness with community action.