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Most farmers have no intention of destroying native bush just to get in ahead of new rules protecting significant natural areas, a farmer and district councillor says.

Most farmers have no intention of destroying native bush just to get in ahead of new rules protecting significant natural areas, according to Grey Valley farmer Anton Becker.

West Coast Regional Council chairman Allan Birchfield has lost his bid to bar significant natural areas from private land.

It also postponed any further work on SNAs until the Government finalises its national policy statement on indigenous biodiversity, which will set the SNA rules in concrete. But the planning team charged with writing the new district plan says there is no guarantee the national policy statement will be out before the new draft plan is due to go out for public consultation. “It is absolutely critical to have some rules in there ... it would be unfair to landholders and the community if the...

Photo: 123RF Members of the Te Tai o Poutini plan committee agonised over the issue for more than an hour at their meeting on Monday, trying to find ways to avoid slapping the significant natural area label on private land. A majority of the committee sees the process as an attack on private property rights. Last month the committee refused, by a narrow majority, to accept a desktop study it had commissioned, mapping SNAs across the region. It also postponed any further work on SNAs until the g...

The new SNA map captures 95 per cent of all private land on the West Coast, according to Westland Mayor Bruce Smith. "It also includes DOC stewardship land, which will skew the independent evaluation of that land thats supposed to be getting under way," Smith told the meeting."We are now up to 91.5 per cent of Westland controlled by DOC or other protection ... we should not receive this report - it takes away property rights without consent." Māori TV Tāmati Tiananga of Te Ao Mārama spea...

Tourist attractions or industrial sites? The future rules for West Coast ports have come under close scrutiny this week from the Tai o Poutini Plan Committee. Photo: RNZ / Tracy Neal Mayors, chairs, councillors and iwi are gradually working their way through every section of the Westland, Grey and Buller district plans, to come up with a revised document that rolls them into one. The committee this week tackled performance standards for ports at Westport and Greymouth - and protecting the right...

Because there were no rules to cover that in Westland, Buller and many areas around Greymouth, there had been conflicts between lifestylers and rural landowners, the planners said. Lifestyle blocks next to milking platforms or mining activities for instance were creating “reverse sensitivities” – with newcomers objecting to noise or other practices that pre-dated their arrival. Unregulated lifestyle development also created demand for infrastructure like footpaths not normally found in...