April 08, 2024
Funding cuts make DoC stewardship land vulnerable
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says it’s time for a more pragmatic and creative apporach to the conservation estate.
He says people fear the DoC estate could be compromised by the Government’s development agenda, but the realty is that a third of the country is managed by the Department of Conservation, including areas with little or no conservation value.
He says that’s a result of the way the estate was created 35 years ago during the Rogernomics period, when DoC was given stewardship over blocks of land that had been in the hands of other government departments.
“There’s no reason a lot of that land isn’t restored back into either private ownership through long term leases or transferred back on the right basis to adjoining Māori landonwners. I think all of that is possible becuase we don’t have the putea to cover the entirety of the DoC estate obligations,” Mr Jones says.
Putting a lot of that land into forestry would help New Zealand’s climate change obligations.