You don't invest in conservation land 'by flogging it off', Forest and Bird says

Forest and Bird is concerned a government proposal could lead to a sell-off of conservation land.

The government has just released a proposal to "modernise New Zealand's conservation management system".

The aim, it says, is to cut red tape, maximise benefits from commercial activity on public conservation land, and make it easier to dispose of or swap whenua.

The plan would also give the minister more powers to decide the fate of the estate.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) is the country's biggest land manager with an estate of 8.7 million hectares, including 15,000 kilometres of tracks.

In an earlier briefing to the minister, DOC said it was managing more assets than it could afford to and its funding had not kept pace.

Forest and Bird general manager of advocacy Richard Capie told Checkpoint New Zealand did need to make changes in how conservation land was managed and some of the proposals sensibly looked to streamline the process.

"But we also need to keep our focus on improving conservation and biodiversity and what the government's announced this morning is pretty heavily on commercialisation of public conservation land and actually really light on how conservation's going to be improved."

There were also some red flags in the details of the proposal and fast-track decision making did not work in the conservation area, he said.

"At present we have something called the New Zealand Conservation Authority and independent expert conservation decision makers, who make decisions on plans so they're actually like a check and balance there to make sure that some of the key decisions that are made about what we're going to do with our public conservation land is really carefully thought through - we don't want more fast-track style decision making on that project."

The proposals wanted to take the principals such as those used on the Ruataniwha Dam proposal and apply them more broadly to conservation land, he said.

Capie said DOC's budget was slashed at the beginning of the year and we are in the middle of a biodiversity and climate crisis.

"In the discussion paper the minister talks about three to four billion dollars of income coming in through tourism on public conservation land and yet we're massively underfunding it.

"The way to fund it is to actually do that properly not by flogging off the land to the highest bidder."

Giving ministerial decision making on things like area plans and amenity zones, it risked seeing large scale rezoning of conservation land to be more permissive, he said.

"If we don't have those checks and balances in place with an independent expert group then we could see things like helicopter landings in remote areas of the Darran Mountains in Fiordland."

Choices need to be made but the key word was conservation which meant looking after biodiversity, he said.

"Absolutely we need to invest in that, but you don't invest in it by flogging it off."

It is possible to allow changes for commercial activity, but it must be done in the right place and in the right way, he said.

The Environmental Defence Society policy director Raewyn Peart said the conservation system was no longer fit for purpose and the government's proposal was a welcome first step towards modernising it.

But the society had concerns, she said.

"The proposal to make it easier to exchange conservation land is of some concern and needs further thought. Any exchanges need to be subject to robust considerations and should not include land with high conservation values," she said in a statement.

"There is an urgent need for more money for conservation and EDS supports some access charging in principle. However, the details will need to be carefully worked through to ensure that New Zealanders are not excluded from accessing conservation areas."

In a statement, Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram said there was a lot to digest in the proposals.

It would be getting the views of its members before making a submission, she said.

"It's very important that consideration of access charging also recognises that the International Visitor Levy is now $100 and will generate tens of millions of dollars of funding for conservation and visitor management on the conservation estate."

The public have until 28 February 2025 to make a submission on the government's proposal.

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