The environmental organisations have filed judicial review proceedings in the High Court, claiming the Government took a ‘tick‑box approach’ to reviewing stewardship land.

They claim that the Minister’s 11 December 2025 decisions failed to protect some of the most ecologically significant public conservation land, including parts of Te Wāhipounamu South West New Zealand World Heritage Area, and were made without the transparency or legal reasoning required under the Conservation Act.

The case is challenging 99 of the Conservation Minister’s 576 decisions, covering more than half of the 644,000ha of stewardship land that was reviewed.

“Stewardship land is vital public conservation land that includes some of New Zealand’s most important ecosystems – ancient forests, rare wetlands, wild rivers, and the last refuges of threatened species,” says Forest & Bird’s Canterbury West Coast regional conservation manager, Nicky Snoyink.

Around 30% of public conservation land is held as stewardship land – more than 2.7 million hectares or 9% of New Zealand’s total land area. Many of these areas are home to threatened species and high-priority ecosystems.

“The minister’s decisions leave high‑value places vulnerable despite years of expert ecological assessment, public submissions, and clear evidence of their outstanding conservation importance,” says Snoyink.

“The Denniston Plateau should have been protected as a scientific reserve because of its extraordinary ecological values. Instead, it has also been left as stewardship land with a massive fast-track coal mining expansion looming over it, which would totally destroy Denniston’s ecosystems.

“The Waitaha Forest should have been added to Westland Tai Poutini National Park, but instead was left in the weakest possible conservation category, with no explanation.

“Then, in late March, a fast-track panel’s draft decision approved a previously declined hydro scheme on the Waitaha which would dewater a spectacular and near-pristine gorge which is worthy of national park status.”

Snoyink says the court action focuses on parcels of the highest ecological importance, where the consequences of inaction are the most serious.

“After four years of work by two expert panels, a full public submission process, and hundreds of pages of advice from the Department of Conservation, the Minister released a simple list of ‘proceed’ or ‘do not proceed’ decisions with no reasons at all.

“For decisions affecting hundreds of thousands of hectares of public land, that is simply not good enough.”

The current reclassification process was initiated in 2021 for West Coast stewardship land, and was intended to be followed by further reviews across the country.

The organisations say the Minister’s approach treated every decision as a binary choice. “The minister does not appear to have undertaken a careful evaluation of conservation values and consideration of alternative classifications. Forest & Bird, along with many submitters, put forward alternative options, but there is no indication the Minister considered any of these options.

“The minister appears to have applied the same tick‑box approach across all decisions, even where the law required a more careful assessment. That raises serious questions about whether the correct statutory criteria were applied,” Snoyink says.

A key concern relates to nationally significant areas that were recommended for higher protection by the National Panel and supported by DOC. The National Panel recommended 72,800 hectares for National Park addition, yet only 4,298 hectares were referred to the New Zealand Conservation Authority.

“This was a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity to secure real protection, but the minister’s decisions have left most of those areas in limbo, and in many cases, at risk,” says Snoyink.

“Public conservation land is for people and for nature – these are our wild places, we need to safeguard them for future generations.”