Opinion: Jamie McFadden

Recent council planning proposals around the country highlight why our environmental legislation is in need of reform.

On the West Coast landowners were shocked to receive notification from the local council that, in many cases, their entire properties had been classified as Sites and Areas of Significance to Maori (SASMs). The rules took immediate legal effect and there was no prior consultation. For some landowners subject to the strictest rules, they immediately became non-compliant throwing them into turmoil.

In Waimate District a whopping 35,000 hectares affecting 1,638 landowners was classified as SASM’s. This was surpassed by Timaru District who captured 143,000 hectares (over half the districts land area) affecting 4,500 landowners.

Whether it is SNAs, SASM’s, Outstanding Landscapes, Wetlands – they all stem from the same piece of legislation – Section 6 of the Resource Management Act. The inherent failing of this legislation is there is no respect for landowners, no protocols around private information, no requirement for consultation with affected landowners, and no compensation for loss of rights or drop in property values.

Councils and environmental lobby groups argue that regulation is needed to protect natural values. But they fail to recognise that to protect these values requires the buy in of landowners and active management, particularly around the biggest threat to biodiversity – pest and weeds. It is the actions and inactions of landowners, not the rules, that ultimately determine protection. Actions to protect result from motivated and empowered landowners that have sufficient funds and resources.

Another argument that councils and lobby groups often use, is to protect natural and cultural values regulation is needed to stop ‘bad’ landowners destroying these values. However, the role of councils is not to stop bad landowners, it is to find the most effective and efficient way overall to achieve the desired outcomes. A focus on bad landowners automatically means putting rules in place that inevitably penalize all the good landowners. And the odd bad landowner, which are becoming less, break the rules anyway. By taking such an approach councils are turning the values they are trying to protect into a liability and pitting themselves at loggerheads with their communities. This legislation delivers multiple downsides and perverse outcomes.

Some more enlightened councils have recognized that times have changed. The Hurunui District Council in a 2016 plan review, removed all mapped SNAs because the regulation SNA policy was deemed counterproductive and ineffective. Their view was that the attitude of landowners was changing, and that community led solutions were coming to the fore. With one of the country’s largest Landcare Groups, several Catchment Groups, a landowner-initiated Hurunui Biodiversity Trust, Wilding Tree trust, several landowner funded helicopter pest operations, and hundreds of other community and private initiatives, the people of Hurunui have proved their council right.

In a similar vein, when faced with a request to map cultural values the Hurunui District Council turned it down. They said they would not embark on a cultural mapping exercise without first consulting the community on the merits of that policy. Something other councils have failed to do.

The lack of recognition of community led solutions is in regional councils too. Last week I drafted Groundswell’s submission on the draft Otago Land and Water Regional Plan. Farming groups have been vocal on heavy handed regulatory approach but what surprised me was no recognition of community led solutions. Particularly given there are world leading initiatives in their region such as the acclaimed Pomahaka Water Care Group. Councils are always guided by their policy advisors, and they too have failed to change with the times, locked in a mindset that rules are the answer to everything.

For the past 30 years the SNA policy has, and continues to, cause upheaval among communities the length of NZ and waste millions of dollars on protracted planning and environment court processes. Councils are repeating the same failed process all over again with the Sites and Areas of Significance to Maori (SASMs). For 30 years local government and the farming groups have lived in the fantasy that tweaks to criteria will fix the problems, when wholesale legislative change is required.

Fortunately, with a new government in power, now is the perfect opportunity for legislative change. National is adamant that the RMA reforms of the previous government will be repealed. The ACT party campaigned on getting rid of policies like SNA’s and replace it with an enhanced QEII Trust covenant model that works in partnership with landowners.

Now is also the perfect opportunity for local government and farming advocacy to step up and call for the legislative change that is desperately needed. We will know in the next few months whether they have the courage.

Jamie McFadden

Groundswell environmental spokesperson