Govt pours fuel on Conservation Bill backlash by retaining controversial purpose change – Greenpeace

Greenpeace says the Government has poured fuel on the growing backlash over its Conservation Amendment Bill, with a revised version of the Bill retaining controversial changes to the very purpose of New Zealand’s conservation law.

The new Bill just released by the Environment Select Committee retains clause 6ea, dubbed the “Shane Jones Clause”, which rewrites the purpose of the Conservation Act by requiring DOC to enable commercial activities on public conservation land “to the greatest extent practicable”.

Greenpeace spokesperson Gen Toop says the Government is attacking the fundamental principle that conservation land exists to be protected, not exploited.

“The Government has just confirmed it still plans to open up protected public conservation land to private commercial exploitation. Mines, private resorts, dams, shopping complexes – all on land and waters that are supposed to be protected for nature to thrive and the public to enjoy.

“People would not accept the Government selling off public conservation land, so instead it is trying to strip away the very protections that make it conservation land in the first place.”

“This is a cynical and underhanded move. You cannot rewrite the law to enable corporations to exploit conservation land ‘to the greatest extent practicable’ and still claim it is protected. And if protection is no longer the purpose, it is no longer conservation land in any meaningful sense,” says Toop.

“I don’t believe for a second that people will accept a future where public conservation land in Aotearoa no longer means land protected for nature and the public. These are places that are deeply cherished by our people and that previous generations chose to protect, not exploit.”

The Conservation Amendment Bill originally proposed making it easier to sell or exchange around five million hectares of public conservation land. Following a massive public backlash to the Bill, the Government committed to removing those specific provisions.

But the revised Bill retains the purpose change, which applies to the whole conservation estate, including National Parks. It retains controversial changes to Treaty provisions, visitor amenity areas and concession rules as well as proposals to concentrate power with the Minister.

Toop says, “Let’s be very clear: the Conservation Amendment Bill is unsalvageable. From start to finish, this Bill is rotten to its core. It must be thrown out.”

“More than 90,000 submissions have been made against this Bill and thousands are expected to march down Queen Street against it in two weeks. The public continues to make its opposition clear. It is time the Government listened and abandoned the Bill altogether.

“Nobody wants to show up to their favourite conservation park to go hunting, camping, tramping, or fishing and discover that it has been fenced off and turned into a private resort, open-cast mine, or commercial development.”

Toop says the coalition Government should remember what happened the last time the Beehive tried to open up conservation land to exploitation.

“In 2010, the John Key Government tried to open some of our most treasured conservation land to mining. It became a major political battleground — and the Government lost. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders took to the streets and forced it to back down.

“This Government has made a huge political gamble by repeatedly putting public conservation land in the firing line in an election year. It has badly underestimated how deeply people from all walks of life love these places — and how fiercely they are prepared to defend them.”

Greenpeace, Forest and Bird and more than 30 other organisations are calling on people to join them to march against the bill on September the 19th in Auckland.