ESF Opposes Detrimental Conservation Amendment Bill
- Jun 12
- 2 min read
Tāngata Tuia te Ora, the Endangered Species Foundation, has submitted in opposition to the Conservation Amendment Bill, calling on the Environment Select Committee to recommend that it not proceed.
The Bill would make up to 60% of public conservation land eligible for disposal or exchange, putting the taonga species that rely on those ecosystems at serious risk.
This Bill is a systematic restructuring of the legal framework that has protected public conservation land in Aotearoa for nearly four decades. It would open the door to economic development on conservation land, weaken Treaty obligations, and reduce public and community oversight of decisions with permanent consequences for te taiao.
What the Bill would do
The purpose of the Conservation Act would be rewritten to require DOC to enable economic development on public conservation land, placing development on equal or superior footing to conservation values.
Up to 60% of public conservation land would become eligible for disposal or exchange (including land with significant conservation values) under a weaker test than the current law requires.
Decision-making authority would be concentrated with the Minister of Conservation, reducing the role of the New Zealand Conservation Authority, regional conservation boards, and tangata whenua in key conservation decisions.
A new category of "visitor amenity areas" would allow accommodation, restaurants, car parks, and other commercial infrastructure to be established on conservation land, including in proximity to sensitive habitats, without the safeguards that currently apply to land disposal or exchange.
Treaty settlement arrangements negotiated in good faith would be undermined, and the Crown's ongoing obligations to iwi and hapū reduced to procedural consultation. Whenua central to future Treaty negotiations could become easier to exchange, dispose of, or develop — without any right for that iwi to agree or refuse.
The threat to taonga species
The threatened species of Aotearoa do not exist in isolation from the landscapes that sustain them. Many of our most endangered taonga rely directly on protected public conservation land for their survival.
Tara iti depend on protected coastal breeding sites in Northland and Auckland. Whio rely on clean, fast-flowing rivers and forested catchments within conservation areas. Kiwi persist in protected ngahere and predator-controlled conservation land across the motu. Hoiho depend on secluded coastal habitats and undisturbed nesting areas. Kea continue to rely on fragile alpine ecosystems already under pressure.
Weakening protections for conservation land increases the risk of habitat loss, fragmentation, disturbance, and cumulative impacts on species that are already threatened or at risk.
Our call
ESF is calling on the Committee to ensure that threatened species provisions are strengthened, not weakened; that no public conservation land containing or adjacent to the habitat of any threatened or at-risk species becomes eligible for disposal or exchange; and that DOC retains a statutory obligation to apply precautionary management to all conservation land decisions affecting species at risk.
Public conservation land is critical to the survival and recovery of Aotearoa's endangered native species. This Bill must not proceed as proposed.
