High country dogma no good for conservation
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The provisions of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill put at risk the outcomes and objectives it claims to promote, writes High Country Accord Trust Chair Philip Todhunter
The numerous drafting errors that plague the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill in its current form are farcical. Requiring a consent to carry out fencing work necessary to comply with other regulations, or to replace a stock water trough; the almost-impossible list of conditions that need to be met to clear invasive exotic plants without a consent (even though the terms of the lease require that work to be done) – the list goes on.
While these can possibly be corrected at the select committee stage, what is more serious is that the bill’s authors clearly fail to recognise what is actually required to maintain, let alone enhance, inherent land values.
Removing a few sheep (high-country farms typically carry fewer than 1.5 stock units per hectare) will not in and of itself enhance biodiversity. That requires active management: plant and animal pest control initiatives, planting programmes, soil conservation initiatives. Most leaseholders do that work now - because the terms of their lease require it, but also because they have commercial (markets and customers who want to know every link in the supply chain) and cultural (historical connections to the land that span decades and even generations) reasons of their own. Requiring them to get a consent - at a cost - to carry out day-to-day farming operations will not encourage this behaviour.
Restricting leaseholders’ ability to farm profitably will also reduce the funds available for environmental enhancements above and beyond the bare minimum. Presently, almost all lessees are actively engaged in weed and pest control over and above their contractual obligations. A number have formal conservation covenants; many have informal conservation plans or detailed integrated farm management plans.
The idea that pastoral farming and good environmental outcomes are mutually exclusive is simply wrong. Throughout the high country, improved soil quality and low-intensity grazing have led to matagouri and manuka shrublands strongly regenerating – because of farming activity, not in spite of it.
The high-country landscapes of today, including the species that occur in them, are the result of some 750 years of human influences including fire, invasive plants and animals, domestic grazing animals, recreational use, and the interactions between all these.
Removing farms and farmers from the land will not remove the need for the outcomes of these various interactions to be managed. Let’s recognise the contribution high-country farming has made to New Zealand, not just to the economy and the environment, but also to our history, our culture, and our national identity. And let’s build on that history, together, based on a clear understanding of what people want from this land and how we can best achieve that.
Ann Brower’s call for the Commissioner of Crown Lands to lose his job - or at least his ability to determine outcomes on a case-by-case basis - and the bill’s introduction of a schedule of permitted, discretionary, and prohibited pastoral activities both call for a centralised and rigid management regime, when what is actually required is more flexibility, rather than less.
The idea that a single schedule of activities divided into three categories (albeit a four-page schedule) is the right tool to manage 160 properties that occupy some 1.2 million hectares spread between Marlborough and Southland is bizarre. The differences from one property to another in topography, soil type and condition, carrying capacity, plant and animal pests, and historic land use - let alone historic and cultural considerations - make this type of blanket approach unworkable.
Many high-country farmers already have integrated farm management plans in place - a tool regional councils and agricultural industry organisations are encouraging other farmers to develop.
Given the small number of properties involved, it should not be too difficult for the Crown as lessor, through the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and lessees to agree contractually binding farm plans as a basis for an ongoing relationship between individual leaseholders and LINZ, as administrators.
These plans would take account of the particular inherent values of each property, as well as any particular risks, and allow for the continuation and evolution of a farm management system that properly recognises any such values and addresses any such risks and removes the need for a recurring complex consent application process.
The key features of a high-country farm plan would be:
High level visions of the outcomes the Crown as lessor and the lessee seek for that property
Identification of key biodiversity and landscape values and protection measures
Specific management goals for specific blocks of the property and plans to achieve those goals
Agreed set of permitted activities within those goals
Agreed plans for the establishment, maintenance, or repair of lessee improvements
Risk mitigation
Monitoring and reporting
Integration and compatibility with other regulatory requirements (to avoid duplication)
Integration and compatibility with sustainability requirements of key commercial partners
Practical mechanisms for the Crown as lessor to enforce provisions of the farm plan as a contractual counterparty
The benefits of individual farm plans include:
A framework to identify the specific outcomes the Crown, as lessor, and the lessee seek for that property
An opportunity for meaningful input from mana whenua, particularly Ngāi Tahu
The opportunity to develop and record a collectively-agreed long-term vision for the property, which takes account of its particular inherent values
The basis for a catchment and/or multi-property management approach where appropriate
Support for a collaborative relationship between the contractual partners
Enhanced efficiencies on the farm and within LINZ and thereby reduced costs to both Crown and lessee (increasing the potential for resources to be applied to the outcomes)
Greater knowledge of individual properties within LINZ
A sample of 160 properties which could guide the Crown’s roll out of farm plans to the wider primary sector
A framework flexible enough to accommodate innovation and technological change
It is perhaps worth remembering how and why the Crown Pastoral Lease legislation was enacted.
The 1948 Land Act gave the right of freehold to farmers already leasing Crown land on permanent leases (except for leases of high-country land in the South Island); the underlying principle being that a secure tenure is a necessary basis for long-term stewardship. Prior to 1948, many high country runs were abandoned, often because they were overrun by rabbits. The Crown had to take over the management of this land, Molesworth Station being the best-known example.
Concerned by the adverse impacts of pest animals and weeds in the high country, the Crown saw pastoral leases as a way it could limit the use and disturbance of the land and make the lessee responsible for weed and animal pest control and erosion control. (Today, those objectives would likely be achieved by a grant of freehold supplemented by covenants or other legal mechanisms.)
Except for those express retained rights, the Crown alienated almost the entire bundle of property rights to the lessee to provide “absolute security of tenure”, creating an enduring contractual relationship.
The Government’s stated intention was to provide security of tenure, thereby incentivising better land management.
This is precisely what has occurred. Under the pastoral lease system, the high country is in much better condition than it was in 1948, and in many cases performing better than similarly situated land parcels not governed by this system. High-country pastoral farming has long been a way to deliver good environmental outcomes, not a barrier to achieving them.
The Environment Select Committee started hearing evidence on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill yesterday (Thursday, March 11)