Submission on Proposed South Waikato District Plan

2

SUBMISSION ON PROPOSED SOUTH WAIKATO DISTRICT PLAN

To: South Waikato District Council

Submission on: Proposed District Plan

Name: Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc

Address: Al Fleming

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc

PO Box 70 171

TAURANGA 3155

ph 07 544 4987 or 021 988 295

Date: 8 February 2013

INTRODUCTION

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand (Forest and Bird) make the following submissions on the South Waikato District Council Proposed District Plan (the Proposed Plan).

The submissions are structured as follows:

· The specific provisions that this submission relates to are largely set out below using the same system of identifying numbers as that contained in the proposed plan;

· Outcomes sought shows new text as underlined and original text to be deleted as strikethrough.

GENERAL SUBMISSION

Since the previous plan became operative the South Waikato District has experienced extensive land use changes; the most notable is the expansion of the dairying industry. This land use change is both directly and in-directly accountable for extensive adverse environmental effects. These effects include, but are not limited to, indigenous biodiversity loss, the degradation of surface and groundwater quality, and changes to the South Waikato District’s important landscapes.

The specific submissions that follow are intended to be constructive suggestions to provide for adequate protection of the values of concern to Forest and Bird in the Proposed Plan.

Section 2.1 Introduction

Issue 4 – Safeguarding the productive potential of rural areas:

Outcomes sought

Amend Issue 4 to read:

“ ... to continue to enable ensure that rural land uses and activities are sustainably managed to operate in rural areas, but in a manner that ensures that potential adverse environmental effects are managed effectively ....”

Explanation

An ‘issue’ is described in the proposed plan as “a statement about an existing or potential environmental problem in the district that the plan needs to address, or an opportunity that if taken advantage of, will assist to achieve the sustainable management purpose of the RMA.

The current wording in Issue 4 undermines sustainable management as defined in the RMA and better reflects the purposes of the RMA.

SIGNIFICANT NATURAL AREAS AND INDIGENOUS BIODIVERSITY IN THE SOUTH WAIKATO

A considerable amount of biodiversity has been lost and the remaining indigenous biodiversity is being degraded further in the South Waikato District. This has resulted in an imbalance in the representativeness of the remaining indigenous biodiversity. Forest & Bird note that Raukawa have identified the loss of indigenous biodiversity as 1 of the 6 most important resource management issues affecting them in the South Waikato District.

The District Council has used criteria from the Waikato Regional Council’s Regional Policy Statement to identify the location and extent of Significant Natural Areas (SNA) in the SW district. This has resulted in many of the areas identified in the Waikato Regional Council’s Inventory of Natural Areas being identified as not significant.

Outcomes sought

Forest & Bird request that the district council provide an assessment of how the RPS criteria compares with the following criteria as identified in Forest & Bird’s submission to the Draft District Plan:

Representativeness

· The extent to which indigenous biodiversity represents what was originally characteristic of the ecological district.

Diversity & pattern

· The extent of natural diversity present within an area. This includes physical, habitat, biological, genetic and ecological processes.

· Biological diversity can be further subdivided into species (number of species and abundance) and community diversity.

· Ecotones are particularly important as transitions between adjacent communities or patterns as they are usually very productive and support high species diversity.

· Some areas are naturally of low diversity, but support the full range of diversity expected for that habitat type.

Rarity & distinctiveness

These two are often combined because of their similarities and relationships, e.g. uncommon, unusual or atypical.

· The extent to which an area supports an indigenous species, habitat or community which is rare in the ecological district or threatened/at risk nationally.

· The extent to which an area supports uncommon physical and ecological features in the ecological district.

· The extent to which an area is characterised by endemism, relict distributions, type localities, distribution limits, atypical bedrock/habitats, unique or specialised species. This includes geological, scientific or other special features.

· supporting protected indigenous fauna for some part of their life-cycle (e.g. breeding, feeding, moulting, roosting), whether on a regular or infrequent basis;

· playing an important role in the life-cycle of protected migratory indigenous fauna;

Naturalness

· The extent to which the area is modified by human activity, including the presence of weeds or pests.

· This must be assessed at the ecological district scale to reflect the degree of modification that is characteristic of that district.

Ecological context

· The extent to which the area has ecological value due to its location and functioning in relation to its surroundings e.g. hydrology, pollination and dispersal.

· An area may be ecologically significant because of its connections to a neighbouring area, or as part of a network of areas of fauna habitat, or as a buffer.

· The degree to which the size and shape of an area contributes to its natural diversity. Larger areas and its life supporting or carrying capacity. Larger areas tend to support greater natural diversity, and compact areas are less influenced by edge effects.

· Small areas do contribute to total genetic diversity and may be viable habitats for invertebrates and threatened plants. They can also collectively have increased value e.g. scattered small wetlands used by waterbirds.

Sustainability

· The long-term ecological viability of an area requires an overview of its ecological values and functioning. Ideally an area should be able to retain its ecological health and values over time, but this will in part depend on management inputs, this may include restoration.

· This will be more difficult in highly modified areas because of increased ecosystem fragmentation and the effects of adjacent land uses, and in such contexts, restoration initiatives may be of increased importance.

Application of the criteria

· The Council needs to explain how the criteria will be applied, including the setting of a significance threshold. It is essential that this process explicitly acknowledges and details the need for setting a lower threshold in lowland and modified parts of the District.

WATER QUALITY AND WATER MANAGEMENT

There is no dedicated discussion on water quality and management yet these issues are probably the most pressing environment concerns for many residents of the South Waikato District.

There is inadequate discussion in the Proposed Plan on land use intensification, most notably dairying expansion over the past decade, which has largely been responsible for degrading water quality and quantity, and indigenous biodiversity degradation and loss.

The plan also fails to adequately address the effects of land use intensification on the natural character of water bodies and their margins.

Outcomes sought

· Articulate the issues that are facing water within the South Waikato District, including the effects that dairying has on the waterbodies;

· Include a discussion identifying Council’s intentions regarding the management of land use effects on the natural character of water bodies and their margins; and

· Acknowledge the necessity for a close working relationship with the adjoining territorial authorities and Waikato Regional Council to address water quality and management issues.

The following definition of waterway is added to the plan:

Waterway: means fresh water or geothermal water in a river, lake, stream, pond, wetland, or aquifer, or any part thereof (including ephemeral), that is not located within the coastal marine area but excludes stockwater races

5 Objectives and Policies for the District’s Rural Areas

The introduction focuses on agricultural development and utilisation with inadequate discussion relating to the biodiversity importance of the district’s rural areas.

There is also inadequate acknowledgement of the effects of rural land use and land management, primarily associated with farming and forestry activities, on water quality and availability of water to sustain biodiversity, landscape and natural character values.

It also does not discuss and give effect to section 75 of the RMA in relation to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and is inconsistent with the Waikato Regional Plan including variation 6 – water allocation

Outcomes sought

Add the following objectives:

To safeguard the life-supporting capacity, ecosystem processes and indigenous species including their associated ecosystems of fresh water, in sustainably managing the use and development of rural land, and of discharges of contaminants.

The overall quality of fresh water within a catchment is maintained or improved while:

a. protecting the quality of outstanding freshwater bodies

b. protecting the significant values of wetlands, and

c. improving the quality of fresh water in waterbodies that have been degraded by human activities to the point of being over-allocated.

Establish freshwater objectives and ensure freshwater quality limits for all bodies of fresh water in the district give effect to the NPS on Freshwater management and the Waikato Regional Plan, having regard to at least the following:

i. the reasonably foreseeable impacts of climate change

ii. the connection between waterbodies

b. establishes methods (including rules) to avoid over-allocation.

Associated policies, methods, rules and performance standards need to be developed and give effect to these objectives.

6 Objectives And Policies For Managing The District’s Landscapes and Indigenous Biodiversity

In accordance with the Resource Management Act s31 (1) (a) the Council is required to establish, implement and review provisions to give effect to the purpose of the Act. In achieving the purpose of the Act the Council is required to recognise and provide for outstanding natural landscapes (ONL) (s6 (b)).

The Plan does not provide the ONLs with adequate protection from inappropriate use and development with regard to rules, site and zone standards. For example:

1. There are no rules protecting the ONLs from the potential spread of wildings from permitted forestry activities;

2. There are no controls governing mineral prospecting, earthworks (except for area of disturbed earth and the volume of earthworks), intensive farming and effluent disposal from the potential adverse effects on ONLs.

Through the rules, site and zone standards the ONLs needs to be recognised as a matter of national importance. These regulatory mechanisms need to provide the appropriate protection to these vulnerable landscapes from inappropriate use and development

.

· Acknowledge the importance and significance of the remaining biodiversity located on the Rural Zone; and

· Clearly articulate the percentage of indigenous vegetation in the South Waikato District, and that this vegetation only represents a fraction of the indigenous biodiversity that was once present within the District.

Section 11 ‘Indigenous Biodiversity’ of the RPS outlines a number of implementation methods that the district plan must give effect to. The focus of these provisions is the identification and protection of significant natural areas, and the protection and enhancement of indigenous biodiversity.

Section 12 ‘Landscape, Natural Character and Amenity’ of the RPS similarly contains policies and a

series of implementation methods for identifying and protecting landscape values. The only

regionally significant natural feature or landscape identified in the RPS that is located within the

district is the Waikato River. However, the RPS does encourage district councils to identify

outstanding or significant natural features and landscapes at a district level. This identification has

been done for the South Waikato District, and is recorded in Appendix C – Schedule of Outstanding

Natural Features and Landscapes and in the Natural Values overlay on the planning maps.

Some of these are large forestry landholdings are managed by companies with Forestry Stewardship Council (‘FSC’) accreditation, which the Council supports as being an audited

certification system.

Outcome sought

Add the following method:

Assess the current level of uptake and compliance to the range of forestry standards within the South Waikato.

This would include:

· Forestry Stewardship Council membership

· Other industry, standards NZ or international standards

· Accredited forestry operators compliance to:

o New Zealand Environmental Code of Practice for Plantation Forestry (Cop)

o New Zealand Forest Code of Practice (LIRO 1990, revised 1993)

· And WRC documents:

o Design Guidelines for Earthworks, Tracking and Crossings: A Practitioner’s Technical Guide to Minor Effects Based Activities

o Erosion and Sediment Control: Guidelines for Soil Disturbing Activities

o Erosion and Sediment Control Plan Preparation Guidelines

Add the following objective:

To identify, protect and enhance areas of significant nature conservation value, wetlands and ecosystems; and maintain and enhance indigenous vegetation and habitats of indigenous fauna generally.

6.2 Objectives for the District’s Landscape and Natural Values

Forest and Bird support the following objective:

To safeguard the significant historical, cultural, landscape, natural and recreational values

associated with the high quality water resources of Te Waihou River and its tributaries.

6.4.2 Other methods

Forest and Bird support the following objective:

Collaborate with the Regional Council, Department of Conservation, landowners and special interest groups such as Federated Farmers, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society and the Waikato Biodiversity Forum, to identify areas of significant natural conservation value and the options for their protection, as part of a local indigenous biodiversity strategy.

8.3.2. Reservation of control – Controlled activity subdivision

applications

Outcome sought

Amend to read

q) In respect of subdivisions which are related to the establishment of a new dairy farming activity resulting from the conversion from a non-dairy farming or forestry activity, Council has reserved its control over the ‘Operational Standards for Land Conversion November 2008’. The new activity shall comply with these standards to avoid, remedy or mitigate the adverse effects of stormwater runoff, vegetation clearance, erosion and sedimentation, having particular regard to the maintenance

and protection of existing wetlands and waterbodies, and including by:

i. Provide adequate fencing so as to exclude stock and protect riparian margins and vegetation alongside any waterbody including streams, rivers, and wetlands.

ii. Design and creation of appropriate riparian buffers which filter pollutants and nutrients from surface runoff and shallow subsurface flow; stabilises stream banks and reduces erosion, and protects both riparian and in-stream biodiversity, i.e. provides habitat, shade and water temperature regulation.

iii. Provide fencing of indigenous vegetation areas to permanently exclude stock