The battle over the future of Aotearoa’s conservation estate is intensifying, with Greenpeace accusing the Coalition Government of retreating on plans to make conservation land easier to sell while retaining provisions it says could fundamentally change what conservation land is for.
Greenpeace says the revised Conservation Amendment Bill, released by the Environment Select Committee, retains one of its most controversial provisions — clause 6ea, which environmental campaigners have labelled the Shane Jones Clause.
According to Greenpeace, the provision would require the Department of Conservation to enable commercial activities on public conservation land to the greatest extent practicable.
Greenpeace spokesperson Gen Toop says that wording represents a fundamental shift in conservation law, potentially elevating commercial use alongside the protection of nature.
The organisation is now calling for the entire Bill to be abandoned and is preparing for a major public march in Auckland on 19 September.
Government retreats on land disposal — but fight shifts to purpose
The original legislation attracted fierce opposition over proposals Greenpeace says would have made it easier to sell or exchange around five million hectares of public conservation land.
Following the backlash, those provisions have been removed from the revised legislation.
For opponents, that represents an important victory.
But Greenpeace argues the Government has removed one highly visible threat while leaving behind a provision potentially affecting the entire conservation estate.
Its concern is that changing the purpose provisions could influence future decisions about what commercial activities are considered appropriate on protected public land.
Greenpeace fears that could create greater opportunities for developments including mining, resorts, dams and other commercial projects.
Those are potential consequences raised by Greenpeace rather than projects automatically authorised by the Bill. Individual developments would still be subject to applicable legal, regulatory and consenting processes.
But Toop says the principle itself is the problem.
The Shane Jones Clause
Clause 6ea has become a focal point for environmental opposition because of its direction around enabling economic activity.
Greenpeace argues that requiring commercial opportunities to be enabled to the greatest extent practicable reverses the traditional starting point for conservation decision-making.
Instead of asking how an activity can be reconciled with the protection of conservation values, campaigners fear decision-makers could increasingly be expected to find ways of enabling economic use.
That distinction may sound technical.
Politically, it is anything but.
Public conservation land encompasses some of the country’s most treasured landscapes, forests, waterways and habitats.
Greenpeace says New Zealanders expect the word conservation to mean those places are protected primarily for nature and public benefit, rather than treated as an untapped portfolio of economic opportunities.
National Parks drawn into controversy
Greenpeace says its concern is heightened because the revised purpose provisions have implications across the conservation estate, including National Parks.
The organisation also remains opposed to proposed changes affecting Treaty provisions, visitor amenity areas, concessions and ministerial powers.
That means environmental groups no longer see the dispute as being simply about whether individual parcels of land could be sold.
It is becoming a much larger argument about who controls conservation land, how commercial applications are assessed and what weight environmental protection receives when economic interests are involved.
For trampers, hunters, fishers, campers and other recreational users, Greenpeace is also framing the legislation as an issue of continued public access.
Te Tiriti changes add another layer
For Māori, the debate carries implications extending beyond environmental protection and recreation.
Large parts of the conservation estate sit within ancestral landscapes where iwi and hapū maintain enduring whakapapa relationships.
Those landscapes can encompass wāhi tapu, mahinga kai, traditional trails, forests, waterways and places carrying generations of tribal history.
Changes to the Treaty provisions within conservation legislation therefore deserve particular scrutiny.
The issue is not simply whether commercial development should be allowed.
It is also about mana whenua participation, kaitiakitanga, rangatiratanga and how Crown decision-making involving ancestral whenua reflects Te Tiriti relationships.
Māori perspectives will not necessarily be uniform.
Some iwi and Māori businesses may support carefully managed economic opportunities capable of creating employment and strengthening regional economies.
Others may regard particular landscapes as inappropriate for mining or intensive commercial development regardless of the potential economic return.
Any system that places greater weight on economic use therefore raises the question of who gets to determine value — and whether cultural, ecological and intergenerational values carry sufficient weight against commercial ones.
Greenpeace says more than 90,000 have opposed Bill
Greenpeace says more than 90,000 submissions have been made against the Bill, arguing the scale of opposition demonstrates the Government has underestimated public attachment to conservation land.
It is now joining Forest & Bird and more than 30 other organisations supporting a March for Nature in Auckland on 19 September.
Thousands are expected by organisers to march down Queen Street demanding the legislation be abandoned.
That mobilisation will bring the fight out of the select committee room and onto the streets just weeks before the election campaign enters its final stretch.
Echoes of the 2010 mining fight
Greenpeace is deliberately drawing comparisons with one of the National Party’s most significant environmental political battles.
In 2010, the then-National Government considered opening parts of protected Crown land to mining.
The proposal triggered substantial public opposition, including a major protest in Auckland, before the Government eventually abandoned plans to remove land from Schedule 4 protection for mining.
Greenpeace believes the Conservation Amendment Bill risks creating a similar political backlash.
The circumstances are different, but the political lesson being invoked by campaigners is straightforward: conservation land can mobilise people who might otherwise have little involvement in environmental politics.
Economy versus environment too simple
The wider debate, however, cannot necessarily be reduced to a choice between all commercial activity and absolute exclusion.
Commercial tourism already operates successfully on conservation land.
Concessions allow businesses to provide guided walks, accommodation, transport and visitor experiences while operating within conservation requirements.
Those activities can create jobs and support regional communities while giving visitors access to the natural environment.
The question raised by the Bill is therefore more fundamental.
Should conservation law begin from protecting nature and then determine which commercial activities are compatible with that purpose — or should enabling economic activity itself become an explicit objective?
Greenpeace says the second approach changes the character of the conservation estate.
An election-year gamble
With Election 2026 approaching, conservation is rapidly developing into another dividing line between the Coalition and environmental parties.
The Government’s wider economic programme has emphasised development, infrastructure, investment and making greater economic use of New Zealand’s natural resources.
Greenpeace and the Greens argue that approach risks dismantling protections built up over generations.
The Government has already demonstrated it is prepared to alter the Bill in response to opposition by dropping the controversial disposal provisions.
Environmental groups now want it to go much further.
For Greenpeace, the revised legislation is not a compromise worth accepting.
Its position is that the purpose provisions, Treaty changes, concession reforms and concentration of ministerial powers leave the Bill fundamentally flawed.
And on 19 September, opponents intend to demonstrate just how much political weight sits behind that argument.
At the centre of the dispute is a deceptively simple question that could now follow the Government all the way to election day:
When New Zealand sets whenua aside for conservation, is its first purpose to protect what is there — or to determine how much economic value can be extracted from it?
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