Forestry Minister Todd McClay today announced proposals to reform the resource management system that will provide greater certainty for the forestry sector and help them meet environmental obligations.

“The Government has committed to restoring confidence and certainty across the sector by removing unworkable regulatory burden created by the previous Labour Government.

Currently councils use a number of National Policy or Environment Standards to create rules for commercial forestry, rather than one comprehensive fit-for-purpose National Environment Standard for Commercial Forestry (NES-CF).

This has led to confusion and cost.

For instance, foresters can be required to get consents for new plantings on low or no-risk areas, the same as for high-risk land. It’s important that forestry rules are nationally consistent and always based on clearly demonstrable evidence.

For this reason, the Government will make a number of changes to the NES-CF to ensure councils have the tools they need, in one place, to enhance and enable forestry and provide smarter evidence based environmental outcomes.

In particular, we will look to repeal regulation 6(4A) and modify 6(1)(A) from the NES-CF, and improve slash management standards to clarify rules around low-risk slash.

These changes will allow the Councils to focus on the most at risk areas and work with the forestry sector to lower costs and deliver better social and environmental outcomes.

These changes will undergo consultation.

“Forestry’s success is an important part of our plan to rebuild New Zealand’s economy and meet our Climate Change obligations. The Government is working to ensure that we have the right settings to unlock the industry’s economic potential for growth.”

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