Bruce Bisset: Let's support our native species

Bruce Bisset

In an effort to stop biodiversity loss and, hopefully, reverse that trend, the Ministry for the Environment has proposed relatively sweeping regulations that may result in privately-owned swathes of indigenous ecosystems being protected for the first time.

This initiative, in the form of a National Policy Statement, has flown under the radar since the draft was published in November.

But earlier this week Forest & Bird highlighted the issue with data, including aerial mapping, showing how much native forest and tussock has been lost over the past decade – nearly 4000 hectares worth in total, including 40ha of forest and 171 of tussock in Hawke's Bay Regional Council's area.

That may seem a relatively small amount, but when the vast majority of our native species have been decimated by urban sprawl and pastoral farming, this is a vital and overdue regime.

Particularly because with three-quarters of the country privately owned, there are myriad pockets of native habitat that do not enjoy the protections of the Crown conservation estate.

The NPS will, if adopted in its present form, require councils to identify all native flora and fauna in their territorial area and decide which bits to rate as "significant natural areas" (SNAs). These will then be subject to regulations whose bottom line is to ensure indigenous biodiversity is maintained.

By "maintained", they mean "at least no reduction" in size or form or native populations.

In essence that means the ability of a landowner to alter any SNA will be severely limited, even if the habitat in question is already modified or degraded but is still deemed to be making an important contribution to the local ecosystem's indigenous biodiversity.

This may for example be a nesting site for a native bird species, or an area a native reptile inhabits, even if the flora is highly modified.

This is akin to, but goes further than, the existing covenanting regimes – such as under the QEII National Trust scheme – whereby landowners set aside areas of bush or wetland or open spaces (in theory in perpetuity though in practice such covenants can be broken by new owners), because it replaces the arbitrary "choice" nature of such covenants with mandatory obligations.

And while this may seem draconian, one glance at the list of threatened and at-risk native species shows why it has become necessary: there are about 4000 species on that list, including nearly half of all native plants; and 12 of 13 types of native habitat have declined since 2012.

In short, as in so many other instances with land-use, voluntary compliance and care is not working, so it's time for regulation.

If, that is, we want our grandchildren to be able to enjoy New Zealand as it was made – not just as what it's been made into.

Note the draft does allow for clearance of regenerating vegetation on farmland, if it's part of a regular pattern of such clearance.

There are two other interesting facets to the proposal. One is that tikanga Māori is implicitly embraced, including tangata whenua having decision-making input into the SNA process.

The other is that councils will be obliged to work to try to ensure that both rural and urban areas within their territory have at least 10 per cent indigenous cover - a noble goal that may or may not survive the consultation process.

However if you wish to make a submission on this you'll need to be quick – consultation closes at 5pm today (although not-too-late submissions are often accepted).

Let's support our (non-human) indigenous rights.