Forest & Bird warns that the Government’s proposed replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA) could weaken critical environmental safeguards and put native species and landscapes at greater risk.
Under the reforms announced today, the RMA would be split into two new laws: a Planning Act focused on development and a Natural Environment Act focused on environmental matters. Forest & Bird says that this split risks fragmenting decision-making and reducing accountability.
“Splitting land-use planning from environmental management could lead to duplicated processes, complex cross-references, and more litigation as councils and communities try to reconcile two Acts with potentially conflicting purposes,” says Forest & Bird General Counsel Erika Toleman.
“Nearly 4,000 of our native species are already on the brink. We simply cannot reduce environmental protections and expect anything other than more extinctions.
“Weakening habitat rules and sidelining biodiversity would accelerate the crisis. New Zealand needs stronger rules to save our wildlife, not reforms that could make things worse."
The reforms place greater weighting on private property rights. This narrow approach ignores major harms such as destruction of biodiversity on private land, erosion of soils and ecosystem services, and cumulative degradation of rivers and landscapes.
“Big environmental issues, from deforestation to water pollution, happen within property boundaries. Excluding these effects is a recipe for decline,” says Ms Toleman.
Introducing compensation for regulatory controls that may reduce land value will make councils fear liability for protecting nature, dramatically weakening biodiversity, freshwater, and coastal protections.
The reforms strip away the RMA’s strong sustainable management purpose and well-developed case law.
Replacing detailed policy statements with simplified “mandatory national policy direction” could strip out critical protections and weaken freshwater and biodiversity recovery.
Restrictions on who can submit on resource consents could exclude national environmental organisations. This will reduce accountability and allow poor decisions to go unchallenged.
Forest & Bird is also concerned that urgent legislation will be introduced this year to extend existing consents or those due to expire during the transition period through to 2031.
“There is a need for transitional arrangements, but we need to make sure that consents aren’t just rolled over without looking at environmental implications and conditions that might need to change.”
Forest & Bird acknowledges the need for reform but says the Government’s current approach risks prioritising short-term development over long-term environmental health.
“We all want a planning system that is faster, simpler, and more effective,” says Ms Toleman. “But weakening environmental protection will not fix the housing crisis or make the economy stronger. It will only lock in more environmental decline, more conflict, and more costly mistakes.
“These reforms are the biggest changes to environmental protections in generations. It’s essential that New Zealanders have their voices heard in coming months. Given the rushed and flawed approach we have seen with fast-track legislation, we urge the Government to run a robust process where they will listen and act on concerns.”
Forest & Bird urges the Government to:
- retain a unified system integrating land use and environmental management
- ensure strong, science-based environmental limits
- protect existing national direction on freshwater, biodiversity, and the coast
- remove the proposed regulatory-takings framework
- uphold meaningful public participation and the role of environmental NGOs.