28 February 2015

New Resource Management Act (RMA) regulations for plantation forestry may be introduced by 2016 to replace the current diverse range of district and regional plan rules.

The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) and the Ministry for the Environment are working with forest industry stakeholders to ''improve planning consistency for plantation forestry, which is likely to lead to a National Environmental Standard (NES) for plantation forestry operations,'' MPI's director for Spatial, Forestry and Land Management, Regulation and Assurance, Aoife Martin, says.

Ms Martin said the working group had spent the past 18 months developing a set of rules to ensure national consistency across the eight forestry activities - including land preparation, pruning and thinning, harvesting and replanting - that were regulated under the Resource Management Act, while managing natural and physical resources sustainably.

It identified a need for greater regulatory consistency nationally as differing rules between regions has meant forestry owners often had to ''repeatedly engage in RMA processes'', which results in ''re-litigation of the same issues across the country, inconsistent treatment of forestry operations [across the country] and operational inefficiency as multiple rule regimes can sometimes apply to a single forest''.

Part of the group's work has been to improve the existing Erosion Susceptibility Classifications (ESC), which outline potential erosion risks that applied to various land types across New Zealand.

Land with a low ESC score would have more permissive rules applied to the forestry activities taking place on it, compared with areas with a high risk of erosion. 

''The majority of Otago and Southland has a yellow or green ESC classification, which means that the erosion risk is low to moderate. ''This means that the default activity status for forestry is permitted and does not require resource consent provided the permitted activity conditions are met. On that basis, MPI does not expect significant changes to the ESC classification for Otago and Southland due to the soil and rock type, and topology of the land.''

Ms Martin said the new rules were not expected to result in any significant additional costs to forest owners as regional and district councils already had similar rules in place through their plans. If the NES is approved by Cabinet in April, MPI will carry out public consultation in June and July.

''If a decision is made to progress the NES, the rules will be legally drafted and it is expected that the regulation will by publicly notified in early 2016.''

Source: Story by Yvonne O'Hara, Southern Rural Life