Vegetation must also not be cleared from a wetland, and agrichemicals not discharged within 20m of a wetland. In the Tukituki catchment stock are to be excluded from wetlands too.
These are all common agricultural practices, so farmers need to know where the restrictions will now be in place.
The exclusion of wet pasture and cropping land from the definition meant that hillside seeps, dam outlets, hollows in the land where water pools for weeks over winter, land that was drained generations ago for farming and is still used for production, were not at risk of becoming classified as wetland and therefore not subject to the rules. But this could change.
The potential change will have huge implications for farmers. What you and I think of as a wetland being a permanent wet area with a well established native ecosystem will no longer apply.
Every winter when ponding occurs the wetland boundary will extend out into production land, and all those rules will apply to this land permanently.
Farming will no longer be possible, and the pasture will be still classified as wetland even when it dries out.
Federated Farmers strongly supports the original wetland definition which excluded wet pasture and cropping land.
This exclusion was clear and understandable, and easy for farmers to apply in the field with confidence.
It also acknowledged the importance of farming and meant protection efforts were directed at real wetlands, not boggy pasture.
- Rhea Dasent is a senior policy adviser for Federated Farmers.
