Turei Metiria: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2454] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I want to address two issues in the financial review. The first is the Community Conservation Fund and the second concerns biodiversity protection. The Community Conservation Fund which was discussed at the financial review is a Green Party Budget initiative from the 2008 Budget. I am very pleased with the success of that conservation fund. In fact just last week the Department of Conservation announced the first round of successful funding applications whereby a million dollars was distributed to a large number—nearly 30 I think—of community organisations runanga and other organisations doing conservation work on public land. This fund is designed to support the work that is being done on public land such as dune lands wetlands and other areas that traditionally miss out on funding. It helps to build relationships between local communities councils and iwi. I note two particular projects: the Tomahawk Smaills Dune Restoration project in my area in Dunedin and the Hokonui runanga who received funding to do restoration work on the banks of the Mataura River—one of the most polluted rivers in the south of the South Island due to the high industrial pollution that goes into that river. I congratulate all of those who received funding from their applications and encourage all those who did not to apply again to the Department of Conservation because further rounds will be distributed. 
The second issue is around biodiversity protection which was mentioned in the review and I note that today the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has released the report  
Change in the high country: Environmental stewardship and tenure review 
. This is a very serious report and it highlights a great deal of the concerns that the Green Party has expressed about the tenure review process and its failure to protect biodiversity values of the South Island high country. The South Island high country is public land it is owned by the Crown there are long-term leases for that land distributed to farming families for the purposes of farming that land and tenure review is the process for dividing that land between leaseholders for productive use and the retention of land of high biodiversity value in public hands for public use. 
The biodiversity land of much of the South Island high country is absolutely huge but it is also hugely threatened. It is not that the public would necessarily know that because the commissioner has reported that the 2008 Government audit of the tenure review process did not mention any of the adverse effects of tenure review and only highlighted where there was an advantage. But in fact we know that for every 6 hectares of high-value conservation land in the high country only 1 hectare is protected by the tenure review process. I say again that only 1 of every 6 hectares of the most highly valuable conservation biodiversity land in the South Island high country is protected by the tenure review process. Tenure review is failing to protect the biodiversity values of the South Island high country and as a result New Zealanders are losing their most valuable biodiversity in the high country because the tenure review process favours privatisation of public land. 
The impact of this privatisation on water quality is extremely serious and that was also noted by the commissioner in the report. The report identifies the serious risk that farming practices have for water quality even those in the high country which are often different kinds of farming practices than one might find elsewhere. None the less there is significant intensification of those areas of land that are privatised. The report states that the continued intensification of privatised leases will inevitably result in “significant adverse impacts on adjacent water quality” contrary to the primary objective of the Crown Pastoral Land Act which is to promote ecologically sustainable land management. 
The tenure review process is failing our country. It is failing to protect the water quality of those very important areas and it is creating a serious risk to biodiversity protection and water quality. The commissioner’s report also notes that it is threatened by the weakening of the Resource Management Act by National. As we know the National Government is engaged in the process of weakening the Resource Management Act to make it more difficult for New Zealanders to be involved in ecological protection. That is a disgraceful position for this Government to take.