Lake Taupo: a multi‐sector collaborative partnership towards sustainable development

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1540
• Date: 01 May 2015
• Published date: 01 May 2015

■Academic Paper

Lake Taupo: a multi-sector collaborative

partnership towards sustainable

development

Juliet Roper

1

*, Eva Marie Collins

2

and Josef de Jong

2

1

Management Communication, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

2

Strategy and Human Resource Management, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

This paper explores the motivations for and processes of a unique multi-stakeholder collaboration aimed at the long-

term sustainable development of a region. The region is that of Australasia’s largest lake, Lake Taupo, New Zealand.

Lake Taupo has geographic featuresthat have not only enabled the development of a strong economy basedon tourism,

forestryand agriculture but have also generated particular environmental problems. The findingsof the case study pres-

ent highly innovativesolutions that are premisedon collaboration and on a ‘businesscase’for sustainability. From exten-

sive interviewswith a wide range of stakeholders,the case confirms extant literaturethat looks at the roles of leadership,

stakeholder engag ement, and first movers in bringing about change, but it also highlights further findings that include

the surprisingly important role of fringe stakeholders, the difficulties presented by uncertain regulation, and the need

to innovate in tailoringsolutions to fit the peculiarities of a specificproblem. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley& Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

A sustainable environment is today considered cru-

cial for a nation’seconomic,socialandculturalwell-

being with business and governments increasingly

required to make informed and timely decisions

about environmental risk and to cooperate to achieve

objectives they couldnot achieve on their own (Kolk,

Dolen, & Vock, 2010). However, little research has

been recorded on suchcooperation in practice, which

remains rare. When it does occur, it is typically com-

plex and fraught with tension as each sector seeks to

maximize its own interests.

This paper examines the processes and outcomes

of an example of multi-sector stakeholder engage-

ment aimed at collaboration for sustainability in

the context of the largest environmental protection

project in New Zealand, incorporating economic,

social and environmental sustainability goals. The

case centres on Australasia’s largest lake, Lake

Taupo, situated at the centre of the New Zealand’s

North Island. In the late 1990s, Taupo’s Regional

Council, along with the community, realized that

intensive land use was threatening the pristine qual-

ity of the lake’s water with science indicating that

because of the porous nature of soil within the

catchment, deer, dairy, sheep and beef farming have

resulted in increased nitrogen flows into the lake.

However, as nitrogen can take up to 50 years to flow

through and impact the biodiversity and clarity of

the water (Environment Waikato, 2003), causal links

between nitrogen and the declining well-being of

the lake were not immediately apparent.

The range of stakeholders with vested economic,

political, aesthetic or moral interests in the future of

the Lake is broad. The forestry and farming sectors

dominate, but the area also has a growing retirement

population and is heavily dependent on tourist

activity, as well as hydro electricity generation, all

of which represent interested stakeholders. The local

indigenous Maori tribe, or Iwi of the Lake Taupo

Catchment area, Ngati Tuwharetoa, who have lived

*Correspondence to: Juliet Roper, Management Communication,

University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

E-mail: jroper@waikato.ac.nz

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 2 pp 143–152 (2015)

Published online 12 September 2014 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1540

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.