Tongariro Crossing (file photo)
Photo: Maridav/123RF
Federated Mountain clubs is concerned that international visitor access charges to top conservation sites could get rolled into day-to-day funding rather than used for extra preservation of native flora and fauna.
The provisions to allow visitor charges is included in the Conservation Reform Bill that had its first reading this week.
The Conservation Minister, Tama Potaka, says the provision is expected to raise around $60 million a year, which will be reinvested back into conservation, biodiversity protection, heritage sites, tracks, huts, and visitor infrastructure.
Federated Mountain clubs president Megan Dimozantos, told Nine to Noon the organisation is concerned that the Minister will have sole responsibility to decide what land has high conservation value.
“Leaving that decision about net conservation benefit in the hands of the Minister doesn’t seem fully appropriate, especially when the terrifying thing appears to be that the bar for net conservation benefit looks to be set pretty low.”
She said they were supportive of streamlining legislative structure and measures to streamline concession approvals but this particular bill “clearly depowers” the New Zealand Conservation Authority.
Currently the National Conservation Policy Statement gets signed off by the New Zealand Conservation Authority, and under the changes, all levels of legislative documents would be signed off by the minister.
“The Conservation Authority and the local conservation boards exist as a voice for the public, and having every level of legislative documents signed off by the Minister instead of the New Zealand Conservation Authority essentially removes public input and leaves our legislation, which should be by its very nature impartial, open to public whim.”
Labour’s conservation spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan had also warned the changes could open up 60 percent of conservation land to being sold.
Dimozantos said such a figure would be a “worst case scenario”.
“If we’re being realistic, I think that that 60 percent figure may be a little bit of scaremongering.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s 60 percent or 10 percent, you know, if that’s really important land for conservation values, well then it shouldn’t be disposed of and I think the really key thing here is that this is public conservation land, not government conservation land.”
A concern was also the loss of small parcels of land that would still be crucial not only for recreational use.
“You’re also talking about people who are accessing it to do pest control and biodiversity work and species monitoring.”
When it came to the international visitor charges, Dimozantos said the group had been happy that people who live in New Zealand did not have to pay but had concerns around the use of the revenue.
“We have concerns around this revenue potentially being used to offset core government funding, and this government has a track record of doing that with the international visitor levy (IVL) increase, where only 90 million of 229 million was used in line with the intent of the IVL, and the rest used to offset core funding.”
The concern was that funds raised from charging visitors to visit sites might be used for the core DOC budget or might be seen as enabling a reduction or a slowing of inflation increase in the DOC budget.
She said the government would need to be careful around ring fencing revenue as it might have unintended consequence of diverting funds away from sites of high biodiversity value and recreational value.
“So, I think what needs to happen is the additionality of the revenue in general needs to be legislated. It needs to be written into the bill”
She said going a bit further the same would need to be done for the international visitor levy.
In response, Minister Potaka said access charging revenue will be ring-fenced for conservation.
The money will go directly to DOC and will be a new source of funding.
On the disposal or exchange of conservation land, the minister says while 40 per cent of conservation land won’t be affected, that does not mean that the remaining 60 per cent can be sold or exchanged, as other requirements will have to be fulfilled and the minister will be required to consider key factors.
People would also have 30 days to provide feedback, and the minister says the changes to the decision-making system will provide clear national direction and greater consistency.
This conservation reform bill is now going to select committees.
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