Transcript Snails, Mining and Climate Change

Snails, miming and climate
change
Trevor Daya-Winterbottom
Senior Lecturer in Law
University of Waikato
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Overview
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Background
Environmental regulation
Snails and mining
Protecting significant indigenous vegetation
Mining on conservation land
Climate change
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Introduction
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New Zealand is rich in endemic fauna and
flora and provides a home for 70,000 native
land based species with insects and fungi
being the predominant species groups.
Approximately 1,000 species are considered
to be threatened, with terrestrial invertibrates
such as large land snails (Powelliphanta)
being listed as “nationally critical” or
“nationally endangered”.
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Environmental regulation
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The primary statute governing the protection
of biodiversity on private land is the Resource
Management Act 1991 (RMA).
The overarching statutory purpose of the
RMA is to promote the sustainable
management of natural and physical
resources.
Kaimanawa Wild Horse Preservation Society
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The Court has not been given any authority
to make declarations about New Zealand's
obligations at public international law, or
about the application or interpretation of
international instruments. Even a superior
Court of general jurisdiction does not enforce
provisions of international instruments …
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Environmental Defence Society
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We accept that the present scientific
consensus is that the cumulative
anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide
on a global basis contribute to climate
change. … After a careful consideration of
the evidence we are left with a considerable
disquiet about the efficacy, appropriateness
and reasonableness of a condition as
proposed.
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District plan rules
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Far North District Council adopted a
prescriptive approach in the proposed district
plan notified in 1996 that sought to identify
significant natural areas on planning maps
together with rules designed to assess the
adverse effects of actvities. Overall, 38% of
the district contained significant natural
vegetation. Under half of these areas (17%
of the district) were located on private land.
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Biodiversity of private land
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Property rights and the sanctity of a Crown
grant are eroded where society decides that
certain attributes on a property are of
sufficient significance to warrant directing the
owner on how that attribute should be
managed. This is in total contradiction to
most people’s concept of the spirit and intent
of freehold title … as well as the concept of
privacy, security and – above all – surety.
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Biodiversity offsets
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JF Investments Ltd
The practical answer is usually that if the
proposed remedial or mitigatory action is the
repair of damage of the same kind as the
adverse effects of the activity, it is easier to
accept as not only relevant, but reasonably
necessary as well.
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Scientific perspective
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Viable biodiversity barter and meaningful
biodiversity protection seem mutually
exclusive. We can achieve one or the other,
but not both. Although compensation and no
net loss are laudable ideals, ecological and
political problems appear intractable, and
mean that bartering is likely to accomplish
more harm than good for biodiversity.
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Enforcement - Conway
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If a sentence of imprisonment were not
imposed potential offenders might well regard
the economic risk of a fine, or the possible
sanction of community work, as a risk worth
taking to gain profit from illegal activities. A
short sentence of imprisonment is much more
likely to be regarded as a deterrent by the
community than a sentence of community
work.
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Snails and mining
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Arguably, achieving this goal would have
reduced the amount of coal available to Soilid
Energy and risked economic losses. Under
the Wildlife Act the Ministers were required in
law to undertake a balancing exercise
weighing up the benefits from mining against
detriments to the snails.
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Open space covenants
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Latest statistics (June 2009) reveal that 3,189
registered covenants have been entered into,
that 524 covenants have been approved and
were awaiting registration, that the total land
area subject to registered and approved
covenants is 109,948 ha, that the average
covenant area is 29.6 ha in size, and that the
largest covenant area is 6,564 ha.
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EBEX21
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The amount of land available for preservation
and the potential cost of active restoration
have, to date, prohibited large-scale
programmes to reverse the decline in
biodiversity and national heritage … pilot
projects demonstrated that regeneration of
farmland over 20 or more years could take
place …
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Conclusions
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Voluntary methods have performed well and
increased legal protection of indigenous
forest
Regulation and innovation has tended to
suffer at primary council stage due to
entrenched philosophical and political views
Regeneration of native forest can provide net
increase in lowland forest cover and the longterm carbon sequestration
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