Court case a threat to QEII exemptions

The court case before the New Plymouth District Court could have implications for Taranaki farmers with QEII covenants.

Environmental group Forest & Bird (F&B) is taking the New Plymouth District Council to Court.

It wants the council to regulate landowners who have native vegetation on their property, making it a likely Significant Natural Area (SNA).

Around 900 landowners and 2200 land titles are affected. This includes properties with existing QEII covenants, something which may have national implications.

The council previously decided against regulation, after statistics showed bush cover was not declining significantly and had in fact been stable for many years.

Federated Farmers and others successfully argued that farmers didn't need rules imposed to make them caretakers of their native vegetation. Instead, the council put an educational programme in place.

A QEII National Trust contractor was sent to visit landowners and offer advice on pest control and funding available for fencing etc. This approach has been extremely successful, with many farmers going the extra mile to protect their bush.

As a consequence, Taranaki is now generating more QEII covenant applications than the Trust can keep up with.

However, F&B were never happy with the 'no rules' approach and wanted SNAs listed in the district plan, with rules attached, something that some other councils already do.

They are also asking the court to remove the exemption for land under a QEII covenant. This is significant, as any land legally protected by covenant is generally excluded from the list of SNAs that councils may decide to regulate. There are concerns changing this could set a precedent, undermine the work of covenant holders and cause unnecessary duplication, by retrospectively applying another set of rules to already protected land, without the landowner's consent.

Federated Farmers has long advocated a non-regulatory approach to SNA management, as the best way to get landowner buy-in for biodiversity protection.

Where councils choose the regulatory route, we encourage them to identify SNAs using robust and widely accepted criteria. This prevents areas of little biological value (such as manuka regenerating in pasture or the understory of plantation forests) being classified as significant.

Checking the real situation on the ground to make sure it matches the assessed level of significance is also important, so normal farming activities do not become unreasonably captured by any rules. We also advocate that stewardship be recognised and supported through rates relief and assistance with fencing and pest control.

Federated Farmers has already become a party to the court action, to represent our members. The Court granted F&B permission to notify affected landowners via newspaper advertisements, which came out just before Christmas.

Part of our role is to keep members informed of regulatory changes that may affect them, so the local Federated Farmers team sent 855 letters to the landowners involved. This prompted a wave of enquires from people previously unaware of the case.

Mediation will take place in late March, with a hearing to resolve any outstanding issues likely in June/July. With other districts assessing the implications of this case on their own district plans, we will be watching this space.