What could it mean at our special local places if DOC is required to enable economic development “to the greatest extent practicable” under the Conservation Amendment Bill? We take a tour around the country and examine Forest & Bird’s maps of the areas that could be at risk.
These conservation maps sparked nationwide concern by showing that up to 60% of public conservation land could be technically eligible for sale or exchange. The Government has since said those disposal provisions will be removed - although NZ First may yet seek to reinstate and strengthen those provisions through coalition negotiations after the election.
But Forest & Bird’s Nicky Snoyink warns that every coloured area on those maps — effectively all public conservation land — remains exposed to a key major change through the Bill: a new requirement for the Department of Conservation to enable the economic use and development of public conservation land “to the greatest extent practicable”.
In this episode, Nicky returns to Coherent to explain how that wording could overturn the existing hierarchy in conservation law, in which economic use is permitted only where it is consistent with conservation.
We then take a tour through Forest & Bird’s maps, from Northland’s remaining kauri forests and the Coromandel, through the North Island’s “green spine”, across the top of the South and into Canterbury, the West Coast, Otago, Fiordland, the Chatham Islands and the Sub-Antarctic Islands.
Along the way, we look at what increased commercial pressure could mean in practice: mining, hydro schemes, roads, tourism developments, expanded grazing, trophy hunting, ski-field expansion and development within national parks.
We also discuss the years of public investment, legal protection and community conservation work that have gone into many of these places - and why opening them to greater commercial exploitation would represent a profound change in what public conservation land is for.
Nicky encourages to submit to the select committee about their special places - why they are important to them, and how they want to see them protected and enhanced.
This episode was recorded shortly before submissions on the Conservation Amendment Bill close - submissions close at midday on Monday 13th July .
Watch the video above or listen to the audio here:
