Councils working on one district plan for the whole West Coast have grasped the nettle and given the go-ahead for the
mapping of significant natural areas (SNAs) on private land.
But they've agreed to exempt certain Maori land from the process.
Te Tai o Poutini Plan Committee -- made up of council leaders and iwi -- meets every two weeks to thrash out the
policies and planning rules that will in future guide the Westland, Grey and Buller district councils.
The committee has deferred the vexed issue of SNAs until now, after strong opposition led by West Coast Regional Council
chairman Allan Birchfield, who argues that if the Government wants to preserve native forest on private land it should
buy it.
But the newly-operative West Coast Regional Policy statement requires that SNAs are identified and mapped in the new Te
Tai o Poutini Plan.
Coast councils which have either not done the work, or partly-completed it over the years, must now complete it.
The regional policy statement leaves room for some use and development of SNAs as long as environmental bottom-lines set
by government biodiversity standards, are met.
Planners guiding the committee through the mountain of work involved in creating the new plan have warned that putting
off the SNA project could delay the overall plan by a year and cost ratepayers an extra $500,000.
Committee members at their meeting last week expressed some anguish but agreed that a desktop identification of SNAs on
private land will need to be done.
"This will ensure decisions for the West Coast are made on the West Coast," chairman Rex Williams said.
The initial work will be done by researchers using Google maps to identify SNAs, but these will then need to be
"ground-truthed" -- physically inspected to see if they meet the criteria.
The committee has decided not to include SNAs on Maori-owned land at this time.
Iwi recently filed an appeal again Regional Plan Change 1, which identified Maori reserves -- some of which have never
been in Crown hands -- as scheduled wetlands.
Iwi representative Paul Madgwick said those lands should be excluded from the SNA process for the same reason.
Buller Mayor Jamie Cleine argued that if Maori land was excluded, private land should be as well, and the committee
should not pre-empt a court decision.
But Cr Laura Coll-McLaughlin said Maori were objecting on the basis of law, while for private landowners the issue was
fairness.
The committee agreed ratepayers should not have to fund SNA research of conservation land and will be asking the
Department of Conservation to pay for that work on stewardship land.
The hope was that if enough representative ecosystems and biodiversity could be identified on stewardship land, fewer
SNAs would be needed on private land.
Mr Williams said there would be no decisions about on-the-ground surveys until the committee had had a chance to see the
results of the desktop mapping exercise.
Project manager Jo Armstrong said community consultation on the combined district plan would be ramping up in the coming
months.
That would include the continuation of the one plan roadshow, which was postponed due to Covid-19, and drop-in sessions
would resume from Runanga to Karamea, starting late September.
"Our aim is to hear from as many people as possible, so the plan supports things the community are interested in," Mrs
Armstrong said.
"We are getting a lot of response to questionnaires on topics like natural hazards, which help us understand the
community's perspectives."
Information sheets and questionnaires can be found on the Te Tai o Poutini Plan website ttpp.nz