Smith seeks collaboration between farmers and environmentalists on bio-diversity

Environment Minister Nick Smith is seeking a repeat of the collaborative approach used to agree freshwater management reform as the government prepares to write a new National Policy Statement on bio-diversity.

Speaking to the Environmental Defence Society's annual conference in Auckland, Smith outlined plans for four new NPSs and the same number of new National Environmental Standards, which the government intends to use to give greater national direction to managing natural resources, having failed to gain a parliamentary majority for fundamental reforms to the Resource Management Act.

NPSs and NESs are already available as tools under the RMA and a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year established that their provisions over-ride the provisions of the Act.

On the bio-diversity NPS, Smith said the area was "fraught with difficulty that has to date been unable to be progressed by governments of either persuasion."

"Positions have been highly polarised between those who view property rights as an absolute right to do whatever they wish on their own land, to those whose passions for nature are so strong that they see no difference between national parks and private land," he said. "This issue is being relitigated repeatedly across the country and we need stronger national guidance.

"My preferred way forward would be through a collaborative process involving farmers and conservationists in a forum similar to the Land and Water Forum", which successfully brought competing water users together.

"I sense the same sort of frustration that preceded the Land and Water Forum," said Smith. "People are tired of the uncertainty and are looking for national direction and consistency. The government cannot force a collaborative process but I'm encouraged by recent discussions with organisations like Federated Farmers, Forest and Bird, and the Environmental Defence Society."

The Ministry for the Environment would be inviting discussions on terms of reference and a process for collaboration.

The other areas requiring NPSs were urban development, aquaculture, and natural hazards, while NESs would be prepared on standards for telecommunications equipment, such as cellphone towers, and on plantation forestry, pest control, and standards for air quality and contaminated soils.

On RMA reform, Smith gave no hint of when reform legislation might be introduced to Parliament, but his speech made no mention of the government's apparently abandoned ambition to reform Sections 6 and 7 of the Act to shift the balance between environmental protection and economic development.

"Our objective is to secure better management of natural hazards, to introduce a system of standardised templates, to eliminate the need for consents for minor activities and streamline the plan-making process," he said of the legislation being negotiated with support parties. Most of these elements are already broadly agreed, including by Opposition political parties in several cases.

Smith also foreshadowed the release of the first report on the state of New Zealand's environment under new national environmental reporting legislation, in November, with rolling reports to be released six monthly in specific areas thereafter.

(BusinessDesk)