Christopher Luxon's Government continues to show its true colours on environmental protection, today rejecting most of the advice of expert panels established to consider the right level of protection for stewardship land on the West Coast, and reducing the protection of tens of thousands of hectares recommended for National Park status.
"The Government's announcement today shows their complete disregard for, and failure to, protect our taonga places and species," says the Green Party's conservation spokesperson, Marama Davidson.
"Our national parks and conservation areas connect us to the natural world, reminding us of how much we have to protect. When nature is only valued for its economic benefit, the outcome is inevitable: degradation.
"Stewardship land is a holding category for public land set aside for conservation purposes, but which hasn't been assessed for the correct level of protection. Most of it has high value.
"Reviewing stewardship land meant the Conservation Minister could have protected hundreds of thousands of hectares of land by giving it national park or conservation park status, but has chosen not to. Just 0.67% of the land National Panels recommended for this classification has been accepted, while conservation park classified land will be reduced by 51,000 hectares. This failure reduces the protection of the precious animals, plants and ecosystems in these outstanding places.
"The beautiful and ecologically significant Denniston Plateau was recommended for protection in a Conservation Park, and the Minister chose not to, instead leaving it available for coal mining, which this government is fast tracking. Luxon's Government has made it clear that when forced to choose between the interests of industry or the interests of the public, and the environment, it will always choose the bulldozer.
"The environment provides the basis for life itself. We must be responsible stewards of the natural world which sustains us, and ditch the regressive exploitative and extractive approach that benefits an already wealthy few at the expense of all of us.
"Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au. In Aotearoa we are inherently connected to our whenua and her wellbeing is our wellbeing. A Green Government will act on the recommendations to protect 77,000 hectares of stewardship land with national park status," says Marama Davidson.
