Photo: Kieran Somerville / Pixabay

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is proposing stringent measures to make tourism more sustainable, once our borders reopen. Just over a year ago, Simon Upton released a major report warning tourism – both domestic and international – was putting the country under major pressure and eroding the very attributes that make it such a draw card.

His follow up report released yesterday puts forward four proposals to redress that, including a departure tax to reflect the environmental cost of international air travel, and giving the Department of Conservation more power. He tells Kathryn tourism is not benign and a return to the status quo must not happen.