Biodiversity
Indigenous biodiversity is hugely important to our farmers. Sheep and beef farmers are already looking after a large portion of indigenous biodiversity with 24 percent of the country’s native vegetation cover on sheep and beef farms, second only to the conservation estate.
The Government recently released an exposure draft of the National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity (NPSIB), which sets out the objectives and policies to identify, protect, manage and restore indigenous biodiversity.
We support the maintenance and enhancement of indigenous biodiversity because it is important to our farmers who are actively protecting and restoring indigenous habitats.
The NPSIB is fundamentally flawed. In its current state, it will not incentivise farmers to protect their biodiversity as it treats it as a liability rather than an asset.
The criteria for identifying Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) is too wide and concerns about this have been raised by many respected biodiversity experts.
The current criteria will include virtually all areas of on-farm native vegetation (regardless of value) and this could be hugely restrictive for landowners on a significant proportion of their farms.
If implemented in its current form, a substantial cost and time burden will fall on landowners, including engaging in planning and appeals processes, and obtaining resource consents for many activities in and around SNAs.
We want an integrated approach that supports landowners to integrate and manage biodiversity as part of productive farming systems and incentivises rather than penalises the protection and enhancement of indigenous biodiversity.
This could include support with fencing, pest control or provision of ecologists to do assessments.