Federated Mountain Clubs’ President Peter Wilson warns it could signal the end to proposals for Remarkables National Park, while the Environmental Defence Society ‘s Gary Taylor says a massive fund will be needed to buy Crown high country leased land to protect it. Meanwhile, Federated Farmers high country chairman Simon Williamson fears the proposed changes could lock up leased land.
Distinguished author, scriptwriter and former NZ Poet Laureate Brian Turner believes growth and how it affects our environment is the issue that we are most at risk from.
Federated Farmers High Country chairman Andrew Simpson, owner of Balmoral Station at Tekapo, says the Mackenzie District Council’s Plan Change 13 will likely place an “impediment” on farming in the Mackenzie Basin.
The Government says eight high country properties have a binding tenure review contract. David Williams names them.
A planned high country farm lease overhaul will crack down on privatisation and put greater emphasis on environmental protection.
The process has been controversial for the amount of land given to intensive farming, which Ms Sage said has “contributed to major landscape change and loss of habitat for native plants and animals”. But Landcare researcher Susan Walker told Newshub New Zealand’s environment had already been damaged and native species were worse off. “The rivers, the scrublands, the grasslands, cushion fields, herb fields, those sorts of things are rarer and much more threatened,” she said,
Glenbrook Station owner Simon Williamson says tenure review was always a “fraught” process.
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Federated Farmers says a tougher management regime for high country lessees could “cripple” the sector, but a conservation lobby group says reform is needed to prioritise the protection of native plants and animals over farm development.
Tenure review will be scrapped later this year following a report from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) that says it has favoured farmers at the expense of the environment.Ms Sage said New Zealanders had lost out in a process that had seen 350,000 hectares of Crown land sold to farmers and then converted to luxury housing or intensive farming.
An end to tenure review is a vital reprieve for some of New Zealand’s most endangered species, says Forest & Bird.
“We’ve argued for many years that not only is tenure review a spectacularly bad deal for New Zealanders, it’s been terrible for our natural environment,” says Jen Miller, Forest & Bird conservation and advocacy manager.