5 Conclusion
One of the key differences between use rights and other forms of economic instruments is the infrastructure needed to operate them, in terms of defining the nature and quantum, right and its relationship to other rights, tracking who owns it, and providing for its exchange. The payoff for the creation of this infrastructure is a greater ability to control and optimise the use of the underlying resource.
Other economic instruments, such as taxes and fines operate within existing rights frameworks so can be implemented more easily but are also constrained by the coverage of those frameworks. This means that introducing new systems of use rights is appropriate only when the benefits from the creation of that infrastructure exceed the costs. “Theory has much to offer environmental protection, but in the end, local culture, institutions and infrastructure will determine the success of any policy” (Bell and Russell 2003 :25).
Such new systems are seldom easy or quick to create. There is no generic legislation in New Zealand (or even adequate provisions within the RMA) giving the support structure needed for such endeavours so measures such as fishing quota, aquaculture management areas and carbon credits have required specific legislation. These regimes have also required a major effort in time and resources to get up and running and then to refine. New systems, such as potentially for water, are also unlikely to be simple to create and may lend themselves less to national approaches which in itself will delay progress given the limited resources of regional councils and the importance of scale (and market liquidity for certain types of rights) in determining the viability of use rights approaches.
These problems demonstrate the potential advantages from providing structures for specifying rights, gathering the supporting information and administering them in as generic a fashion as possible in order to achieve economies of scope and scale. Instruments such as national policy statements offer some scope for this and the Local Government Act facilitates joint provision of services by regional and territorial councils, but there still appears to be scope for improved statutory support for use rights within the RMA along with other forms of non-prescriptive regulation, and for greater efforts to provide guidance for local government and other stakeholders on how such regimes can help them and on how to put them in place most efficiently.
Designing new institutions such as registries and research programmes in a manner that could be used to support a range of activities would also be desirable. This could include testing of options using techniques from experimental economics to narrow down viable options at much lower cost than post-implementation changes.
Communications is also an area for focus. There is a reluctance to create or acknowledge any private rights to some resources, in particular rights to take water or discharge to air or water. Such concerns have been less significant for fishing, minerals or radio frequencies. This requires perhaps some illustration of how such approaches can create incentives that improve outcomes for society, such as higher economic returns or lower cost reduction of pollution.
It is difficult to identify in advance where the net benefits from such moves will be greatest, or even exist, and this paper has not attempted to do so. Rather, the suggested approach is to think beyond both the theory and the specifics. This means looking at how, given limited resources and diverse governance structures and markets, it might be possible to facilitate broad adoption of a core set of use rights to achieve a range of environmental, economic and social goals.
Such a facilitative or empowering approach avoids prejudging where the greatest benefits will come and over-investing in specific areas. It creates an environment that allows multiple experiments, while leaving scope for guidance to narrow down those experiments where appropriate. This is not an easy prescription, but given existing commitments to a range of goals, limited resources to invest in intensive regime development which may not be justified by outcomes, and the likely cost and difficulty of managing conflicts within more prescriptive regulatory methods, it may be the best practical option.
