The Coalition Government says work has begun on stopping further designations of Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) on private farmland, but no timeframe has been given for completion of the task.
There have also been briefings on how to go about ending work on SNAs from the Ministry for the Environment.
SNAs are hugely contentious and provoked large protests from farmers and others in 2021.
A halt to further development of SNAs was included in the coalition agreement between National and Act.
Act’s Simon Court is parliamentary under-secretary for reforming the Resource Management Act (RMA) and says the first stage of the process is complete: the repeal of the previous Government’s landmark replacements for the RMA.
“In the second phase, there will be some targeted amendments to the RMA to make it easier to farm,” Court says.
“We will be focusing on the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity - that’s where councils have been told to map green areas on farmers farms.”
These are the SNAs that farmers have long complained about.
They say SNAs can impose high legal costs, and worse still, penalise farmers who have taken steps to improve their environment.
That is because the beautiful landscapes they create attract attention from councils, which then put a protection order on the land.
But farmers who don’t care about the landscape don’t get noticed in the first place, are not hit with protection measures, and so incur lower costs.
Court says these matters will be dealt with.
“We need to carry out targeted amendments as soon as practical, while we get on with wholesale reforms….as far as I’m aware, it’s a policy under development with no timing set in, but it will be done as soon as possible.”
SNAs are not the only things farmers are concerned about on the basis of the costs they can impose from rulings by local councils. Others are Outstanding Natural Landscapes (ONLs) and Sites and Areas of Significance to Maori (SASMs).
Court says these matters will be dealt with by the substantive reform of the RMA, at a later date than SNAs.
“The basis of resource management reform is to establish a new resource management system based on property rights,” he says.
“It’s quite clear a lot of things are stopping New Zealanders from getting on with building and stopping farmers from farming and stopping infrastructure from being built in a timely manner," Court says.
“We need this to be addressed in a comprehensive way - it’s for the next 30 years - so that’s a long-term programme of reform which we’ll be working on this year.”
In the meantime, “our message to farmers is that this government is working on a 100-day commitment to make it easier to farm, starting with policies like getting rid of SNAs.”
The board member who deals with these matters for Federated Farmers is Mark Hooper. He is pleased SNAs are being dealt with.
“The West Coast has huge swathes of private land which would be captured by SNAs - obviously there’s a high level of concern about the loss of property rights and the ability to graze some land or further develop it, whether it’s part of land use rotation or improved pasture clearing," says Hooper.
“The problem is that it’s a recipe for uncertainty, for increased costs, potentially perverse outcomes and less effective management of private land.”
Meanwhile, hostility to SNAs is not universal.
Environmentalists have long argued they can protect biodiversity, which is threatened by species extinction.
In addition, SNAs are less economically damaging than farmers sometimes allege.
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“The West Coast has huge swathes of private land which would be captured by SNAs - obviously there’s a high level of concern about the loss of property rights and the ability to graze some land or further develop it, whether it’s part of land use rotation or improved pasture clearing," says Hooper.
I think that's an awfully convoluted way of saying land title holders should be able to continue at will with the burn-off of native bush.
I quantified the land use change/natural environment losses for students in a way that could be easily visualised for them (these rates of loss were as at 3 years ago);
We cleared 70,000 Waikato Stadiums worth of native bush for pasture, plantation forestry, and urban areas between 1996-2012. That’s a rate of 4,375 stadiums per annum lost.
And
We shrank our wetlands by 1,247 Waikato Stadiums between 2001-2016. That’s a rate of 83 stadiums per annum lost.
Just curious as to whether you see this as acceptable, or of concern? My understanding is that it is the rate of loss of these natural areas that led to the development of the SNA concept in regulation. I've not spoken to a directly affected landowner and really would have liked to do a bit more on-the-ground/case study research in to actual examples of detrimental effects on existing landowners. There was quite an outcry by Fed Farmers at the time, but no direct evidence (i.e., examples of economic harm) that I was able to get access to. Maybe some landowners who were directly affected read interest.co and could comment.
Kate firstly your data is completely out of date, while probably accurate still well out of date.
Working along side the Ag sector I see no land clearance or land drainage projects, quite the reverse, planting, creating wetlands at great expense, generally self funded out of existing farm cash flows.
ETS, NPS and mired of district and regional council plans and permits are doing the work of SNA so need for double up.
Yes, it is out-of-date - the data was from the most recent national environmental report on land-use change at the time. So, yep accept it is now out-of-date and that's why I said so.
The important thing here is to use non-anecdotal evidence (i.e., quantitative data) - and don't forget the above figures relate to land clearance and drainage of wetlands for residential development as well. The data (if I recall correctly) did not break down those totals into what exact kind of land designations (i.e., rural vs residential vs industrial) that accounted for the losses.
It is also important to look at the whole picture. I queried this data and it does not include newly created areas. We are helping reestablish hundreds of wetlands and riparian zones on the Canterbury Plains. 2.8 million hectares of indigenous vegetation is found on sheep and beef farms. The growth of QEII covenants and others like the farmer led Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust. It is also important to understand the today - there are a lot less farmers clearing bush, wetlands etc today compared to anytime in the past. The key is that the trend is in the right direction and it is. We need all farmers, indeed all New Zealanders, to embrace the concept of guardianship/kaitiakitanga. With farmers that trend is rapidly upwards. Ill conceived regulations such as SNAs and the NPS Indigenous Biodiversity put roadblocks in place and turn biodiversity and conservation effort into a liability.
Indigenous forest in New Zealand increased between 2012 and 2018. This was driven by increases in Manawatū-Whanganui (3,395 hectares), Hawke’s Bay (3,095 hectares), and Gisborne (2,036 hectares). The West Coast continued to lose indigenous forest between 2012 and 2018 with 1,423 hectares lost.
Kate yes we still have a problem but it aint the slash and burn ideology of the past - and SNA were not necessarily the solution
Urban sprawl and lifestyle blocks figure in the problem as well
I personally believe that some of the areas need to be acquired by the Crown - especially when you are talking wetlands that should be back into wetlands -and the Crown could use some of its Landcorp landbank to achieve the objective
Yes, agree. Just mentioned that to the above poster - we don't know quantitatively what the land-use changes were related to.
I also agree that government does need to be more proactive in acquiring wetland areas - and indeed areas that have been developed over wetlands in order to restore the wetlands to closer to their original size. The example I provided of that to my students was a golf course that was developed here in the Hutt adjacent to the tiny, tiny fraction of estuary that remains with respect to the Hutt River. We definitely have plenty of inland golf courses near here.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of golf courses which constrain rivers and estuaries in NZ. Which is just plain dumb.
It is entirely acceptable Kate. It isn't about "economic harm". The land isn't yours, it's not for you to decide how it should be used or what should be growing on it. That is called property rights (and it is the Governments job to protect those rights). The farmer has those rights, you do not.
Indeed I'm well familiar with the argument but the existence of urban and environmental regulation the world over suggests you are wrong. It is all a matter of weighing public good vs private interests. Neither are sacrosanct. When considering this conflict of interests in the development of environmental regulation - the question that makes it simplest to understand and answer is: is it equitable? Not, is it acceptable?
Many people do not think a 100kph maximum speed limit it acceptable (i.e., their reactions are quicker; their car is safer; etc.) but most would agree it is equitable.
Urban dwellers user-pay for their environmental impacts via residential rates. We had a 99 acre LSB 12 minutes drive to Palmy North - sold that rural-residential zoned property and moved to an 800m2 residential zoned property in the city.
Paid more than three times the amount in rates for the urban section.
Going about their business.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/north-canterbury/9781362/Farmer-…
This one always bugged me. Such wilful destruction but the court case will just be the price of doing business to these people.
As I say, Belle, I got the info from the MFE/Stats published report. King Country is not the whole country - the figures I quoted relate to the whole country (and that report was three years old)..
Anecdotal evidence will only get you so far... and it's never useful as a means to deny statistically measured data.
No 'The' King Country is not the whole country, however it is representative of our country. We have DOC land everywhere in New Zealand. I guess if you stick to the highways you see farms. If you take the metal roads you see our farms that have bush left on them. Plus all the Scenic Reserves and national parks. Most people have no idea what Pureora is. Where it is. What it is. No bugger even knows how to spell it. No one cares. Yet it is the jewel in the crown of The King Country. Try a tiki tour...then you will understand how blessed we really are.
Well said Belle and it is the whole country. People get stuck on outdated data and don't look at current trends. There is a huge amount of biodiversity on farms - 2.8 million hectares on sheep and beef farms. There are hundreds of positive environmental initiatives in areas we work - Canterbury & Marlborough. 13 new catchment groups in our area in the last 12 months. Hundreds of new wetlands being restored on the Canterbury Plains. Extensive fencing of waterways. QEII covenants unprecedented demand. Drive around with open eyes anywhere in the country and you will see the change.
And I'm all for the progress being made. But it isn't enough.
Generally, we are not trending well at many of our freshwater monitored sites. My students are tasked with this kind of research in their own backyards, and so I've read reports from them from all over the country.
This is the one of the sites where they get data from - https://www.lawa.org.nz/
And here's the trends at one site on the Rakaia;
https://www.lawa.org.nz/explore-data/canterbury-region/river-quality/ra…
Just a random pick by me.
I'm not being critical - I'm just being realistic. We have to do better.
I would think an area likely to be declared a sna,would be mature bush, or an established wetlands, and cannot see how having such an area declared a sna hurts a farmer who is taking steps to protect them. I do see none of us like been told what to do, even if we are doing it anyway, especially on our own patch.
And I think farmers doing so should be rewarded. Perhaps make it more of a carrot than a stick.
But I suspect that the farmers protecting natural beauty, and those complaining about sna's, are 2 different groups.
I think you might be right - and we do have a carrot approach to natural preservation on private land - the QEII Trust initiative. If you put a protective covenant on private property - then you do not pay rates on that portion of land. Perhaps that as an incentive is not high enough - I'm not sure.
I've always been in favour of PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) schemes.
Yes , the QE2 scheme is great , and has worked well. i suspect it had the covenants are not for everybody though
and i don't think the SNA's require the land to be retired , just looked after. a rocky outcrop for e.g , can still be farmed around , you just can't blast it into oblivion.
A hīkoi of over 1000 iwi and hapū members including the 84-year-old daughter of Dame Whina Cooper who oppose the proposed restrictions on their whenua has targeted the imposition of SNA restrictions on about 42 percent of the land in the Far North.
Up to 100 percent of some properties were set to be classified as SNAs until ministers called a halt to the process.
Yes, iwi land was particularly disadvantaged by the proposal as it is largely land that has remained undeveloped (i.e., not farmed) due to the nature of the collective titles and the lack of resources (cash) to build the necessary agricultural infrastructure. Even fencing land has been difficult as commercial lenders don't favour these collective titles. The government should have set up an Māori land Development bank - then many of these properties would not have been left in bush for so long.
That they have been left in bush did disadvantage them in terms of the SNA policy.
I assume that was a settlement for past Treaty breaches? And given the abject poverty and poor housing many of those in the iwi are living in, I'm sure that amount of cash will not go far and is likely but a token amount in terms of what was stolen from them in the early days. My husband's ancestors arrived in Northland many generations ago and were a leading harvester of the vast kauri forests. They brought with them a steam engine to power the operations. I've read the history documented by a descendent in the family. I know these settlements are pittance compared to the wealth generated by the early settlers off the land, that in many cases was not theirs.
A development bank owned by the government would not use taxpayers dollars to fund development of Māori land. It would use its borrowing/currency creation power and charge interest on loans just like any other bank. Your argument is moot.
Never ceases to amaze me how shockingly bad some people's simple maths is. Try dividing those figures by the number of people for the cash or the number of Ha returned. Miniscule per person and a tiny fraction of land lost. Don't bother dividing by time waiting for redress that would really blow your mind.
Usually that poor arithmetic only applies to Maori waitangi settlements of course.
Yes, simple maths. And the injustices where land was concerned went on for generations and generations past 1840 - how many parcels of land were divvied out to returning white soldiers whilst excluding Māori vets from the ballots;
Of the 3,600 men who served in the Māori 28th Battalion in the second world war, 649 were killed or died in active service. Māori also fought in the first world war, in another regiment, known as the New Zealand Māori Pioneer Battalion. They became known for performing the haka (war dance) before going into battle, and 2,800 Māori had served by 1918. Many, however, were not properly recognised for their service. According to the Imperial War Museum, Māori were largely excluded from the ballot to allocate land and training to returning soldiers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/maori-battalion-veteran-w…
As someone who works in afforestation, they do have a material impact as there needs to be a 10m setback applied to new planting- this does sum to a large area across a long boundary.
Often the SNA is a very scrappy piece of Bush (I.e. heavily browsed, hardly natural) and the mapping is done at a coarse scale.
I am happy to talk to you. We were some of the first farmers in the country to get hit with SNAs in 1995. We also have many of our farming clients (we run an environmental restoration business for past 25 years) that have equally been hit with SNAs. The reason we got hit was (a) because my parents had the foresight to protect a lot of native bush/shrublands on our hill country farm and (b) because we allowed access for surveys. Farmers that had no biodiversity on their land or refused surveys access were not hit with SNA's. Initially the council and particularly DOC tried to capture 120 ha of our farm as SNA but we argued 17 ha. Cost us $thousands and we won our court case. Other impacts of having SNA was we had a lot of rules to comply with, more bureaucratic interference, more monitoring obligations. We also have to remain vigilant and involved (more cost and our time) at each plan review or plan change affecting SNAs. No funding to help us with weed and pest control, fencing etc. Farmers with large areas classified as SNAs/wetlands have had the saleability of their property detrimentally impacted. As a native planting business we have lost projects because farmers nervous they are creating a liability. Part of our business is restoring rare species back into the wild but by doing so we are turning some areas into an SNA. The SNA policy is not just bad for farmers, it is really bad for the environment.
Thanks. All really useful feedback - and yes, I understand why doing the right thing, that is, being a good steward of the land over generations was in many ways a disadvantage when the idea of SNAs was introduced. I think the main disadvantage you mention relates to saleability and bureaucracy... and fair enough, I agree that is not equitable (not one little bit).
I've talked here before about Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes as a means to address this issue (item 5.);
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/99722/katharine-moody-mad-doctrine-p…
If you were rewarded as landowners for the ecosystem services you provide (and there are many) - then you'd be contacting the regional council to come survey new areas of land on your property (or to check out the microbial health of your soil) where the land had been ecologically restored; where those new rare species have been reintroduced. To me, that's a win-win.
This is my point: the farmer-member organizations spend far too much time arguing against ecological restoration initiatives by government, rather than lobby for environmental improvements. The QEII Trust model should be expanded on and the incentives should be improved.
What seems to go under the radar so far is that how poor a job DOC appear to do on managing the existing conservation estate in NZ. People seem to think that once something is owned by the Government then it is all good. I live in South Otago and despite Tourism being a major source of national income I am aware of small areas of DOC estate on the tourist trails that are becoming overgrown with gorse and otherwise poorly maintained. It seems that many private landowners are better stewards than the Crown.
The reality is that DOC have been seriously underfunded by successive governments over decades and decades. The last government was particularly bad - given its obsession with increased spending with MFE (largely due to climate change fanaticism and its corollary RMA reform). Here are the figures from an earlier article:
When resource management was reformed during the 1980s, the Department of Conservation (DOC) was set up to manage the very large conservation estate, and MfE to give even handed policy advice on the environment. Some would say MFE is going well beyond that into advocacy, supporting these exaggerated positions on climate change. We can see this trend reflected in growth in the environment budget over recent years.
MFE output expenses rose from $114m in 2017/18 to $410m in 2022/23 whereas over the same period, DOC went from $386m to $720m – a near quadrupling of costs for advice on the environment versus not quite a doubling of costs for getting actual work done in the environment.
One word for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggIl-dA27i8
I own my car but I do not have the right to do wheelies in the grass of a publicly owned piece of land.
In other words, we regulate against environmental harm all the time.
If we had strict ownership rights assigned to all natural resources, agriculture would be majorly disadvantaged by paying for all of the water take rights that exist today.
All aspects of living on this planet impose obligations and restrictions on us all.
Private property rights are not immune from this reality - your argument is a bit like Trump's current argument about president's having absolute immunity.
Morality matters.
"I own my car but I do not have the right to do wheelies in the grass of a publicly owned piece of land." Lol, possibly the dumbest analogy I've seen in a long while. You don't solely own the land. And the owners (public) have made rules about doing wheelies on the land.
And who's morality? Yours?
Okay, here's a better 'real life' analogy;
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/73289051/wellingtons-v…
What do you think - should the guy with the playhouse built on his land have sacrosanct property rights to retain his structure?
Simple answer - it's complicated - and individual property rights are constrained in all sorts of ways through planning regulation. Common sense (for people and the planet) must prevail. But try writing rules to reflect common sense - and it's not easy.
I'm not saying the SNA regulation was well written, or well implemented but I do see the objective of it as being common sense.
And who's morality? Yours?
The means to survive (i.e., how one earns a living) is what I consider to be an individual morality, but all species share a common morality in terms of survival of the species. We are all a part of the human species, after all;
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/am-i-right/201308/morality-is-u…
It is foolish to compete our way out of existence. Adam Smith's notion of capitalism is rooted in moral theory (everyone to my mind would benefit from reading moral philosophy) - I suspect he would be very disappointed in terms of where it has gone and what it is used to legitimate these days.
No David - that's flawed. Probably originates in self?
We have to have all sort of controls - societies have learned the hard way what happens when you don't (Love Canal etc).
And you forget that Government is us. Almost all folk who don't realise that, think in other flawed ways too; it just goes with the territory.
No one actually owns land as it was always there and always will be. All we have is a piece of paper that gives us the right to occupy a certain area, in fact landowners are only temporary guardians.
We have some QE2 area and there is a fairly substantial area that would fit the SNA criteria. I have no problem with that and if it protects that land from future disturbance, all good.
Putting that land into SNA will make no difference to our bottom line.
I do understand the difficulties with Maori land maybe that should be treated differently.
Property rights and SNAs
A drive through southern Hawke's Bay reveals a landscape with a lot of native forest cover existing. These have been retained through the era of land development encouragement loans, livestock incentive scheme, and supplementary minimum prices. That in itself speaks loudly of land owner's valuing those native stands, if people are willing to stop and think about how come they still stand and grow. And haven't been cleared in what some commentors indicate is a perpetuated slash and burn mindset of farmers.
An Interesting fact of recent environmental protection investment by farm businesses that won't yet show in any public data sets is:
In our local river catchment (88,000ha), around 77% (68,000ha) was moderately to severely hit by Cyclone Gabrielle. 47% of farms (31,900ha, 47 farmers) were surveyed. Losses of riparian protection/stock exclusion fencing and riparian plantings amounted $2.82m. That's a lot of money individual farm businesses have put into environmental protection and enhancement that has to be reinstated to continue toward the desired environmental outcomes.
QE2 and Nga Whenua Rahui covenants all occur due to land owner's desire to preserve and enhance native ecosystems. Sure there is initial support in fencing and predator control. B7t it is private people slicing off a chunk of their land in perpetuity for the nation's benefit.
With respect, as the colonists found those streams, the riparian plantings were all there; all intact. So in perspective, current riparian planters are repaying an extractive - usually historical - physical debt. Can't sent the bill - those who did it are long gone. I also wonder if the still-intact bush was steep/inaccessible/untillable, rather than altruistically maintained. We aren't a very sapient species, and tend to think in terms of very short-term advantage.
It seems you maybe haven't taken the time to talk to farmers about why they left the bush there. We have over 300 farming clients as part of our environmental restoration business and many of them talk of the appreciation of the native biodiversity on their farms. A lot of this native biodiversity is on land that could be developed. Many of these farmers are taking a generational view both historically and in the future - I may not get much benefit (actually get penalized under SNA classification) but futrure generations will benefit as mighty totara reestablish and galaxiids return to the streams. It is an extraordinary fact of 2.8 million hectares of native vegetation on sheep and beef farms, when the government previously encouraged and provided financial incentives for farmers to clear the bush and drain the wetlands.
Well said LouB. It is extraordinary that so much biodiversity is still on farms given the development at all cost subsidy mantra that ended not really that long ago. Well maybe it isn't extraordinary, but more that no one has really stopped and thought about the astonishing fact that 2.8 million hectares of native vegetation still exists of sheep and beef farms. We too have sliced of land for the nations benefit and farmers collectively spend $millions on weed and pest control, maintaining fencelines, restoration planting.
Over 40% of NZ land is tied up by DOC. The removal of the SNAs on private land is a welcome restoration of private property rights in a civilised western democracy. I own no farmland. I'm a city dweller. NZ laments the loss of young people to Oz and other countries (US, Canada) chasing higher wages and higher std of living often in the mining sector. NZ needs to expand its mineral exploitation if it wants to achieve incomes greater than what agriculture provides (which the country is grateful for - but which will never be high enough and which is maxed out anyway) so attacks on controlled land development (of which SNAs were the thin end of the wedge) consign NZ further into 3rd world economic status. NZ's land area is greater than the UKs yet we have only 5m people, 40% of whom live in one city, 80% live on one island. SNA designations on private land are ridiculous.
Short-term thinking.
(gave you the benefit of the doubt with that 3rd word).
Extraction from finite sources, always ceases. Exponentially-increased extraction, always ceases sooner. Actually, sooner than sooner.
Then what? What's money worth, once low-entropy resources (including energy ones) have all been tapped, consumed, and ejected in a high-entropy state?
We are dissipative, just by living, but our current social construct is orders of magnitude more dissipative, and is therefore temporary. The question is: What do we put in place for 'after'? Which can't be far away, exponential growth and all...
Land use and rights are always restricted. Remember that we don't actually own land in NZ, regardless of title. Urban landowners have known this for a long time, but it seems to be yet another area where a vocal minority rural landowners think legislation shouldn't apply to them. It’s a very MAGA attitude.
Productive and stable societies are only possible if there are restrictions on personal freedoms. Anyone who can’t see or accept that needs to find another planet. I believe Mars is available. And I believe Elon Musk is working to facilitate the migration.
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