Browning Steffan: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5628. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): The Green Party supports forestry particularly permanent canopy sustainable production. We need very good forestry rather than—as we are seeing—conversions to unsustainable and intensive dairying. But forestry must be located without impact on the indigenous habitats and it must be done right and at the moment in too many cases it is not.We are very concerned about the direction of the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry which the Ministry for Primary Industries has been driving. It will not protect our indigenous habitats our streams and erosion-prone land from the impacts of forestry as we have been seeing lately. In my own area the estuary was seen as the worst of 32 in the country. The Marlborough Sounds has just been shown to have had an area of habitat the size of Blenheim destroyed by either dredging or forestry sediments and it was only a fraction of the Sounds that was measured. So we are worried about it.I went to seven of the consultations or hui around the country about this. I am optimistic that the Ministry for Primary Industries will tweak the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry a bit but I am not confident that it will go far enough to protect our fisheries fish nurseries and habitats from more sediment because this national environmental standard is for industry. Councils have been submitting—submissions finished today—because they realise that they cannot protect their local environments adequately under this national environmental standard. Once it is finalised and gazetted it will replace councils’ existing district and regional plan provisions for managing plantation forestry across New Zealand unless the national environmental standard specifically says otherwise. When it is a permitted activity there is no chance for further public comment. People will not even be able to comment ahead of a forestry harvesting that will destroy and wreck their water supply for a period of time.The Ministry for Primary Industries said: “Hey you can use the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and you can get in the collaborative process and deal with things.” but even just 2 weeks ago the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was talking about that process and said that there are gaping holes. One of the biggest ones is that estuaries are not covered and so our fisheries are still at risk. And that collaborative process is often not quite as effective being dominated by industry all too often with a result that is an increase in pollution rather than a decrease. So we need major changes to the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry.I will go back to the issue I spoke of earlier around genetic engineering. This national environmental standard is being used not only as a Trojan Horse to take communities out of looking out for erosion and looking after their fisheries their awa and their kai moana—it is a Trojan Horse to get GE trees in because the Government lost its ability to do so through Resource Management Act reforms. The Environmental Protection Authority which the Ministry for Primary Industries is saying should be the arbitrator has consistently failed. It has a long history of failure and shortcomings in relation to genetic modification and this Government carries on giving money to those fiddling with it. Crop and Food Research’s brassicas were planted and illegally flowering even when the decision to allow the field trial was being appealed to the High Court. It was ultimately stopped and a foot-deep of soil was removed from across that site and deep-buried at Kate Valley because of potential contamination. Crown research institute AgResearch has GE animals—it has breached its conditions. The Environmental Protection Authority can do nothing about that.