Serious concerns raised in NZ about environmental impact of major productions including Amazon’s Rings of Power

Picture three scenes: in a sheltered clearing, a stand of trees stretches skyward, trunks pale against the dark soil, leaves dappling the ground like golden dollar coins. In another, a maelstrom of white flakes is carried in eddies by the wind. In a third, sheer cliffs are slick with snow, icicles hanging like shards of glass.

Scenes like these have formed the visual signature for onscreen adaptations of the Lord of the Rings, including Amazon’s latest, monster-budget offering, The Rings of Power. That association has helped form the bedrock of a decade of New Zealand tourism campaigns, showcasing the country’s pristine environments to the world.

But the tree trunks in this clearing are not part of Aotearoa’s 9m hectares of native forest – they are carved polystyrene. The thousands of scattered leaves are woven polyester. The soil is actually a mess of plastic and bark chips. The white flakes are shaved polystyrene. And the cliffs were soon to be crushed into fragments and taken to landfill: one of a multitude of set-pieces trashed and dumped in the wake of major film productions.

Workers involved in Amazon’s The Rings of Power as well as other international studio productions in New Zealand say that behind the glamour and cashflow the industry is touted for lie serious concerns about its enormous environmental impact, including emissions and waste, partly underwritten by New Zealand’s government. They say the true size of that environmental