EDS’s Restoring Nature report sets out pathway to modernise the conservation system

“All of our core conservation legislation predates the dual climate change and biodiversity crises.  There is an urgent need to bring these laws in line with modern conservation practice, to better reflect ti Tiriti, current values and aspirations and to ensure that the system is responsive to the challenges ahead,” said report coauthor Dr Deidre Koolen-Bourke.

“The report builds on EDS’s 2023 reviews of the Wildlife Act and the Conservation Management Planning system. It demonstrates a clear need to prioritise indigenous biodiversity, shift management towards restoration, and strengthen a science-based approach across the system.

“DOC is charged with managing around a third of our country’s land, and it contains our most iconic landscapes, and irreplaceable natural and historical heritage. However, the Department has never been sufficiently funded to do this job. The report therefore looks closely at how the Department can increase its income,” says report co-author and EDS Policy Director Raewyn Peart.

Key recommendations set out in the report include:

• Updating the conservation system so that Māori values and aspirations are recognised and provided for. This includes providing clear direction on how Treaty Principles, under section 4, are to be given effect to. 

• Updating the definition of “conservation” so that it distinguishes between introduced and indigenous species, prioritising the later. 

• Setting a clear overriding statutory purpose for the conservation system, centered on protecting and restoring indigenous biodiversity and the ecological integrity of native ecosystems.

• Recognising connection and relationship with the environment as a secondary purpose, and the economic wellbeing of communities as a tertiary purpose. 

• Specifically defining and providing a management framework for tourism. 

• Requiring climate change mitigation and adaptation to be taken into account in all planning, operational and concessions decisions and providing statutory recognition for DOC’s Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan. 

• Modernising the Conservation Management Planning System to improve its functionality through a new more directive Conservation Policy Statement linked to National Conservation Standards. 

• Replacing the plethora of conservation management plans and strategies with Regional Conservation Plans that implement national policies and link to Regional Operational Plans that direct DOC operations at place.

• Strengthening DOC’s capacity and reporting requirements at the regional level, aligned with a strengthened planning role of Conservation Boards and tangata whenua. 

• Reforming the concessions system to provide a broader range of allocation mechanisms, adjusting fees to ensure fair market value, prioritising activities that deliver conservation gains, and clarifying that some priority should be accorded tangata whenua.

• Strengthening oversight and accountability of the system including by increasing the functions and powers of the New Zealand Conservation Authority.

• Reforming the Wildlife Act 1953 to prioritise the prevention of species extinction and the protection, management and restoration of all indigenous biodiversity, and to better address threats.

“Our recommendations are designed to provide a starting point for a national conversation on conservation reform. They highlight the critical gaps and pinch points that need to be addressed as matters of urgency. Our ageing conservation system is failing and it is crucial we get the settings right,” says Ms Peart.

EDS would like to thank the invaluable expertise of co-authors Billy van Uitregt and Clare Dowsett.