Natural resources and environment March update
2 March 2022
By Michelle Sands, HortNZ strategy and policy manager
First published in the March 2022 issues of The Orchardist and NZGrower.
Michelle Sands, HortNZ strategy and policy manager
Resource Management Reform
The government has provided more details and timeframes for the Resource Management Act Reform.
The Resource Management Act will be replaced by three new Acts:
- Natural Built Environment
- Strategic Planning
- Climate Change Response.
Horticulture New Zealand submitted on the exposure draft of the Natural and Built Environment Bill in 2021. In the third quarter of 2022, the government intends to introduce the full Natural and Built Environment Bill as well as the Strategic Planning Bill to Parliament. Both Acts are expected to be passed into law in 2023.
Consultation on the Climate Change Response Act will begin in 2022.
The Natural and Built Environment Act and the Strategic Planning Act include the following key elements:
- A national planning framework that sets national environmental limits and targets.
- Regional spatial strategies that identify the big issues and opportunities facing each region. These strategies will be used to plan infrastructure to direct development.
- Natural and Built Plans, which will be single regional plans that will replace regional and district plans. They will cover use, allocation and land use management.
- A consenting framework that is proposed to be more directive and reduce council discretion.
- A compliance monitoring and enforcement framework, which will look to strengthen cost recovery, financial penalties and other sanctions.
HortNZ has provided feedback through targeted engagement. The key issue raised by HortNZ is ensuring the national planning framework adequately provides for the rural environment and rural communities. We seek a framework that recognises the values associated with horticulture, including economic contribution, food security and low emission food production. We want these values to be considered when natural resource allocation policies are set.
We also seek that provisions that support housing and municipal water supplies are planned for in a manner that also supports the use of highly productive land for food production.
National Environmental Standard for Drinking Water
The government is proposing a new National Environmental Standard for Drinking Water. HortNZ has consulted with product groups and district associations to gain feedback on the proposal.
The National Environmental Standard for Drinking Water will build on the new definition of a drinking water supply, which was introduced in the Water Services Act in 2021. The new definition captures many more water supplies. It includes many growers’ bores where water is used for drinking and supplies more than one dwelling. For example, a supply that provides water to a grower’s home as well as workers’ accommodation.
A large area of productive land will be captured by drinking water source protection areas. HortNZ seeks an approach aligned with the National Policy Statement for Freshwater, where values and limits are set at a catchment level, to account for a range of values. This is so that the safety of drinking water is planned for at a strategic level, rather than by imposing conditions on activities through source water protection zones at the consent level.
He Waka Eke Noa – Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership
He Waka Eke Noa is a partnership between government, the primary sector and iwi/Māori to build a framework for pricing and reporting agricultural emissions. The aim of the partnership is to build a framework that will encourage emissions reductions, support integrated sequestration, and improve the ability of farmers and growers to adapt to a changing climate.
There are milestones within the Climate Change Response Act that will measure the influence the partnership is having on how many farmers and growers understand their emissions and their options to reduce emissions. To date approximately 20 percent of growers know how much greenhouse gas emissions their farm generates and nearly 70 percent have an approved Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) plan that provides a framework to manage their greenhouse emissions sources.
HortNZ has asked growers for their thoughts on the pricing options that have been developed by the He Waka Eke Noa Partnership. There are two options, as well as the Emissions Trading Scheme backstop:
- Farm Level, where pricing, rebates and reporting all occur at the farm or farm collective level.
- Processor Level Hybrid, where the emissions price would be included in the price of milk, meat and fertiliser, and rebates and reporting are via a voluntary contract at the farm or farm collective level.
Grower feedback has emphasised the importance of a system that is clear, simple and has efficient administrative costs so that revenue generated by the horticulture sector can be recycled to benefit low emissions horticultural farming.
The He Waka Eke Noa Partnership is open to feedback until 27 March. Go here to have your say: hewakaekenoa.nz/your-say/