Introduction

Our environment 2025 is the latest three-yearly state of the environment report produced by the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ under the Environmental Reporting Act 2015.  

It is known as a synthesis report – it brings together key findings from the regular six-monthly reports that cycle the five domains of air, freshwater, marine, atmosphere and climate, and land. The last synthesis report released was Environment Aotearoa 2022. Where previous synthesis reports have been named Environment Aotearoa, this report has been intentionally named Our environment 2025 to align with the naming of domain reports (eg, Our air, Our freshwater). 

Our environment 2025 provides a picture of the whole environment and its interconnections, showing how changes to different parts of the environment impact on 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. 

Effective decision-making about the environment relies on an accurate and accessible knowledge base. The purpose of the report is to provide high-quality information about how and why our environment is changing, and the resulting impacts. Evaluating specific policies and advice on responses to environmental issues is out of scope for environmental reports under the Environmental Reporting Act 2015, and therefore they are not discussed here. 

Report structure

In line with the focus on how humans both impact and are impacted by environmental change, the report begins and ends with people.  

Section 1 covers drivers, exploring how collective decisions made by people in many different areas add up to influence environmental change – from global economic and geopolitical factors to changing demographics, new technologies and our individual choices. 

The next five sections cover each of the five environmental domains. Each chapter reports on: 

• the pressures our choices place on that domain 
• how these pressures result in changes to the state of the environment  
• the impact of these changes on ecological systems and native species  
• new and updated data and evidence since the 2022 report. 

Many of the activities that drive changes in our environment begin with how we use and manage land (section 2). Pressures arising from our land-use decisions affect many native species, and flow through into the other domains.  

What happens on land flows into freshwater (section 3). Erosion, pollution and run-off affect the water quality of lakes, rivers and groundwater. Although some freshwater bodies are in a reasonably healthy state, this affects the species and ecosystems that depend on them.  

Rivers and streams enter the marine environment (section 4). Pollution and sedimentation that reach our coasts and oceans, as well as fishing practices, put coastal and marine habitats under threat. Some of these pressures have decreased in recent years, while others are increasing. 

Human actions also drive changes to the air (section 5). Transport, home heating, agriculture and industry lower air quality. While air pollution has been declining in many areas, it can still pose risks to our health.  

Changes to the other domains are amplified by changes in the atmosphere and climate (section 6). Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns increase many of the pressures in other parts of the environment, along with the threats to native species and ecosystems. 

Section 7 covers impacts on people, society and the economy across all domains. It reports on the effects of interconnected changes to the environment on our health, property, places and livelihoods. 

The report then outlines some knowledge gaps (section 8) and areas where reporting on the environment could be strengthened. The aim is to improve the knowledge base from which we make decisions about our impacts. 

The data used in this report came from many sources, including Crown research institutes and central and local government. Further supporting information was provided using a ‘body of evidence’ approach. This includes peer-reviewed, published literature, and grey literature such as government reports. It also includes Māori knowledge (mātauranga Māori) and observational tools to identify changes in the environment. 

All the data, including references to scientific literature, were corroborated and checked for consistency with the original source. The report was produced by a team of analysts and scientists from within and outside the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ. It was also reviewed by a panel of independent scientists. The indicators and the most recent updates are on the Stats NZ indicator web pages (see Environmental indicators - Stats New Zealand). Reports released under the Environmental Reporting Act 2015 are produced independently of government ministers.  

More detailed context for the use of some of the data and evidence in this report is provided in Our environment 2025 Technical annex | Tō tātou taiao Āpitihanga hangarau (‘Technical annex’), and hyperlinks to the technical annex are included where this evidence is used.