Clean, green image of NZ 'fantastical'

New Zealand's clean green image, represented by snow-capped mountains, clean rivers and pristine countryside, is being slammed internationally as false and misleading.

Tourism New Zealand's long-running "100 per cent Pure New Zealand" marketing campaign launched in 1999 has been questioned in a New York Times article.

"While the spectacular and seemingly untarnished natural backdrops, stunning waterscapes and snow-tipped mountains might look world-class on film, critics say the realm New Zealand's marketers have presented is as fantastical as dragons and wizards," the article says.

The tourism organisation's latest $10 million campaign "100 per cent Middle-earth, 100 per cent Pure New Zealand" was launched overseas in August to leverage off Peter Jackson's movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which premieres on Wednesday week.

The campaign portrays New Zealand as the real Middle-earth by using scenic imagery of green fields and people catching fish and accompanied with a voiceover talking about "a place that will forever keep you under its spell".

But the green message promoted in the 100 per cent Pure campaigns doesn't match some environmental statistics, which show more than half of monitored recreational sites on our rivers are unsafe for swimming, and that New Zealand is among the worst countries per capita for preserving natural surroundings. Greenhouse gas emissions per capita have also risen, while most other Organisation for Economic Development members have fallen.

Massey University senior lecturer in environmental science Mike Joy, who was quoted in the article, said the reality was New Zealand was nowhere near 100 per cent Pure.

He said awareness of New Zealand's environmental failings overseas should act as a wake-up call to the Government to protect the "crucial clean and green image" it relied on for tourism and export.

- Nzherald.co.nz