Fauna and flora survey fears

Feds Meat and Fibre group chair Jeanette Maxwell is referring to a voluntary biodiversity survey done in conjunction with Ashburton District Council (ADC).

The Mid-Canterbury foothills farmer says she has no problem with district councils wanting to identify local indigenous biodiversity areas.

"But the important thing is that landowners understand clearly what the information will be used for and by whom. Will it be included in future district plans? If so, what will be the likely outcomes for farmers?"

Information given freely by farmers in the interest of protecting areas of high conservation value has in the past resulted in ordinary farming practices being curtailed, she says.

"Mid Canterbury high country farmers who assisted in the Protected Natural Areas programme in the late 1980s did so in good faith only to find they had effectively put their heads in a noose."

Areas of potential interest were identified but full assessment and selection of sites worth including in the PNA programme were not done. Lacking its own database, ADC adopted the PNA survey's preliminary data in its entirety and noted all sites in its next district plan.

Despite an Environment Court ruling that some areas in dispute be re-assessed within five years, the notifications and subsequent farming restrictions remain.

Maxwell is concerned history may be about to repeat itself.

Recent changes to the RMA mean that rather than having 'regard for' regional biodiversity policies, district councils must now enact them.

In 2010, frustrated by Environment Canterbury's (ECan) tardiness in developing a regional biodiversity statement, ADC launched its own initiative. It set up a community-based biodiversity working group, telling it to develop and implement a plan giving effect to ECan's proposed regional policy statement. Maxwell and Robin Grigg were appointed the group's Feds representatives.

Maxwell worries that ADC's mission statement refers not only to indigenous biodiversity but also to habitats and systems which support indigenous biodiversity – systems such as shelter-belts.

"The mission statement's vague, warm-fuzzy terminology is open to wide interpretation and gives regard to biodiversity full-stop. It allows the working group to capture virtually anything it wants, and given the strong conservation leaning of its membership, that capture is pretty green."

She and Grigg have withdrawn from the group, saying Feds cannot be seen as supporting an ADC/Forest & Bird-driven initiative to survey and virtually classify local indigenous biodiversity.

Grigg says the survey builds on a previous limited vegetation survey of Ashburton Plains roadsides but has been broadened to "looking over fences onto private land."

He fears that in the absence of other data ADC will use the survey's raw information to define outstanding indigenous biodiversity values, elevating all sites to 'outstanding' status no matter how low-value or repeated they are. Once listed in the district plan, the sites will become subject to council monitoring and rules.