Forest & Bird says the resource management reforms announced today need to protect, restore, and enhance the things that matter to Kiwis. New Zealanders care about the environment, they love our quality of life.
Forest & Bird is concerned to hear Minister Bishop describe the changes as transforming the resource management system from “precautionary” to “permissive” with the enjoyment of private property rights the guiding principle.
“Our way of life, health, and economy are all totally dependent on the quality of our environment,” says Erika Toleman, Acting General Counsel for Forest & Bird. “There is no enjoyment of property rights if your property gets washed away or covered in forestry slash due to weak regulation and poor environmental bottom lines, like we saw on the North Island’s East Coast.
“New Zealand’s environment is already in a state of crisis. Aotearoa has more than 4,000 threatened species, many rivers are unswimmable, and some ground water now has unacceptably high nitrate levels. We'll be measuring these reforms against how well they fix these and many other problems,” Ms Toleman says.
Forest & Bird is particularly worried that the government is trying to paint the protection of some of our most precious remaining biodiversity as simply interference in private property rights. Some our most significant natural areas (SNAs) just happen to be on private land. We need to make sure that these are looked after.
“Our total dependence on the environment is why we need a precautionary approach to resource management.”