The Government is facing renewed calls to abandon its replacement resource management laws, with the Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand warning the reforms could weaken environmental protection, undermine public participation and leave future generations paying the price for decisions made today.
The Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand — ECO has called on the Government to reconsider its approach to resource management, arguing the proposed replacement for the Resource Management Act is fundamentally flawed and should be dumped rather than pushed through Parliament.
The intervention adds to mounting criticism of the Government’s environmental reform programme, with conservation organisations, environmental advocates and opposition parties raising concerns about the direction of changes being made to planning and environmental law.
ECO says it is time to think again
ECO’s message to the Government is straightforward: stop and reconsider.
The organisation argues the proposed environmental framework risks prioritising development and short-term economic interests at the expense of nature and the long-term public interest.
Its intervention follows months of debate over the Government’s resource management reforms and comes after environmental organisations raised concerns about changes emerging through the select committee and parliamentary process.
The central concern is whether Aotearoa is replacing a complicated planning system with one that may be faster for developers but weaker when it comes to protecting the natural environment.
Development versus environmental limits
The Government has consistently argued New Zealand’s planning system needs major reform.
The existing Resource Management Act has been blamed for slow consenting, housing constraints, infrastructure delays, complexity and unnecessary costs.
Few dispute that the system needs improvement.
The political battle is increasingly about what should replace it.
Environmental groups fear that in the drive to make development easier, Parliament is dismantling protections designed to ensure economic activity operates within environmental limits.
Recent critics of the reforms have characterised the changes as a significant rollback of protections, including concerns about the consequences for freshwater, biodiversity and public participation.
Māori participation also under scrutiny
For Māori, the reforms carry another layer of significance.
Resource management legislation affects decisions about whenua, wai, wāhi tapu, biodiversity, coastal environments and taonga species.
Changes to Māori participation mechanisms therefore have implications extending well beyond the efficiency of the consenting system.
Greenpeace has previously warned that the reforms roll back Māori participation, while other critics have questioned what the new framework will mean for Te Tiriti responsibilities and relationships developed between iwi, hapū and councils.
That is particularly significant because resource management decisions are frequently made over resources to which mana whenua maintain enduring whakapapa and kaitiakitanga relationships.
Freshwater becoming a major flashpoint
The wider reform programme is already creating concern around freshwater.
The Waikato River Authority has warned that delaying implementation of Plan Change 1 risks pushing restoration of the Waikato and Waipā rivers further away.
Elsewhere, councils, environmental organisations and community groups are questioning what changes to national environmental direction could mean for river restoration projects already requiring decades of investment.
The tension is obvious.
Restoring degraded waterways can take generations.
Weakening protections can potentially undo progress considerably faster.
Last-minute changes fuel concern
The criticism has intensified following concerns over amendments introduced late in the legislative process.
Environmental groups have argued some changes could further reduce safeguards and have questioned whether Parliament and the public have had adequate opportunity to scrutinise their consequences.
That criticism is important because resource management legislation is not simply another regulatory framework.
It determines how decisions are made about land, water, housing, mining, infrastructure, farming, forestry, biodiversity and urban development.
Rules written today could shape environmental outcomes for decades.
The economic argument cuts both ways
Supporters of reform argue environmental regulation carries an economic cost.
Delays can make houses more expensive.
Infrastructure projects can take longer.
Businesses can face significant consenting costs.
But environmental degradation also carries a price.
Polluted waterways require restoration.
Flooding and erosion damage infrastructure.
Sedimentation affects coastal ecosystems.
Loss of biodiversity can be irreversible.
Poor planning can leave communities exposed to climate risks that eventually require expensive government intervention.
The debate is therefore not simply economy versus environment.
It is also about which costs are recognised now and which are pushed onto future taxpayers, communities and generations.
Te taiao is infrastructure too
For Māori communities, there is an additional argument increasingly being heard throughout environmental policy debates.
Te taiao itself is infrastructure.
Wetlands absorb water.
Forests stabilise whenua.
Healthy rivers sustain ecosystems and communities.
Coastal environments provide natural protection.
Biodiversity strengthens ecological resilience.
Once those systems are degraded or destroyed, replacing the services they provide can become enormously expensive — if replacement is possible at all.
That means protecting nature cannot always be treated as something standing in the way of economic development.
Healthy natural systems underpin economic and community wellbeing.
A fundamental choice for Aotearoa
The Government argues its reforms will create a more efficient planning system capable of enabling housing, infrastructure and economic development.
ECO and other environmental organisations are warning that efficiency without adequate safeguards could produce a very different legacy.
The question now confronting Parliament is whether the legislation has struck the right balance.
Because changing planning legislation can happen in months.
Restoring a damaged awa, rebuilding a destroyed ecosystem or recovering a lost species can take generations — and sometimes the damage cannot be reversed at all.
ECO believes there is still time for the Government to reconsider.
Its message is that admitting the proposed framework has gone too far would not represent failure.
The greater failure, it argues, would be recognising the risks and proceeding anyway.
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