Focus area 1: Encourage all Aucklanders to be stewards of the natural environment, and to make sustainable choices

​Aucklanders interact with the natural environment each and every day.

Māori, through whakapapa, have a role to be kaitiaki. By protecting and caring for the environment, balance and harmony is maintained in the natural world, supporting holistic wellbeing.

In our own way, we all value and enjoy the natural environment.

It is important that we protect and conserve it, acting as stewards of the natural environment. We also need to ensure our interactions with the natural environment are respectful and sustainable.

As the impacts of climate change become clearer, this will become more and more important.

How this can be done

Stewardship of our environment needs to be part of our daily decisions, whether we are acting as individuals or as businesses and industries.

As our population grows, so does our shared responsibility to take care of the natural environment.

Our choices and behaviours have a direct impact on the natural environment.

We can consider:

• the choices we make about the food and other products that we consume and use
• how we travel to work or school
• the products we use to construct and maintain our buildings
• the way we manage manufacturing processes
• how we deal with waste, by reusing or recycling resources
• choosing to buy and use fewer non-recyclable products.

We all can, and must, shift from simply using and drawing on the natural environment to becoming active stewards of it and leaving natural places and our cultural heritage in a better state than we found them.

Find out more about what you can do for the environment.

See how we'll minimise and manage our waste.

Related information

• Green infrastructure
• Our cultural heritage
• Climate change
• Ridge to Reef: Auckland’s marine environments and their relationship to the land.