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 government finalises its national policy statement on indigenous biodiversity which will set the SNA rules in concrete.