B+LNZ update on environment policy advocacy June

Here’s another quarterly round-up of B+LNZ’s environmental policy advocacy. It outlines some of the key areas we’re working in on behalf of our farmers and what we’re advocating for. 

Afforestation

We’re still getting regular calls from farmers concerned about whole farm sales into carbon farming in their areas.

Recent developments:

• Following the December 2024 announcement of restrictions on farm sales, the Government has now introduced legislation that will put a three-year moratorium on whole farm conversions being entered into the ETS for land classes 1-5 and a 15,000-hectare quota on whole farm conversions of LUC 6 land. This is expected to be passed by October.
• Earlier this month B+LNZ released updated independent research by Orme & Associates showing whole sheep and beef farm sales for conversion to forestry, particularly carbon farming, continue at an alarming rate. Nearly 40,000 hectares has been confirmed as sold since September last year, and the total amount of sheep and beef farmland sold since 1 January 2017 is now more than 300,000 hectares. Read more here.
• The Orme research got a lot of media attention and Federated Farmers have used it in their ‘Save Our Sheep’ campaign.
• Based on the calls we’re getting from farmers, we believe a further 50,000 hectares of whole farms are likely to go into trees before the new rules come into effect, as carbon farming entities are exploiting the broad definition of ‘intent’ to purchase a farm before the above restrictions were announced.    

What B+LNZ is advocating for:

• While we welcome the steps the Government has taken to introduce limits, we do not believe the legislation goes far enough in slowing down whole farm sales.  
• We are intending to seek changes to the legislation when it goes through the Select Committee process, including pushing for the removal of seedlings and third-party assessments as sole proof of ‘intent’ and further restrictions on the land-classes that can be entered.  
• We’ve had further meetings with Ministers about this issue and shared many specific examples of recent farm sales around the country. We’ll continue to keep them aware of concerns.
• Landowners have a right to do what they wish on their land, but there is a problem in long-standing policy settings that encourage offset planting instead of carbon emissions reduction, and at the expense of food production. These policy settings have created a massive distortion in the land and carbon market.
• However, we strongly support the integration of trees within farms.

Methane targets

A major focus in the last month has been urging the Government to amend the domestic methane targets (from the current target of 24-47 percent by 2050 from 2017 levels) because methane-emitting sectors are being asked to do more than their fair share. 

We have had a wide range of meetings  with Ministers and coalition partners on this. Farmers need certainty about what they are being asked to do. 

Recent developments:

• We are hugely disappointed there have been no announcements on targets, despite the Government-appointed independent panel reporting back on recommendations in December 2024.

What B+LNZ is advocating for:

• The targets must be amended based on the principle of no additional warming. We want a fair and balanced approach – methane should only be asked to do what is being asked of the other gases, which is to achieve no additional warming.
• There should be no price on agricultural emissions. Emissions from our sector are already coming down due to afforestation and improvements in farm efficiency – there is no need for a price. 

RMA reform

The Government is proposing to introduce a more streamlined and practical regulatory framework. 

Recent developments:

• The Government is currently consulting on a range of RMA national direction ‘instruments’ which set national resource management policy and rules including for freshwater (see more below) – these will ultimately affect farmers through regional council plans and other rules.
• The consultation topics are wide-ranging and many will help address a range of issues B+LNZ has been concerned about. For more info see our RMA national direction consultation webpage.
• The wider work to reform the RMA legislation will happen later. 

What B+LNZ is advocating for:

• We will make a submission on the current consultation. This will be strongly informed by farmer input. Our submission will highlight where proposals need to go further to make the regulations fit for purpose and it will push back on other proposals as required.
• More widely, we advocate for a risk-based system that’s centred around allowing farmers to manage relevant issues on their individual farms in a simple and tailored way. While we support the intent of simplifying systems and relying less on consenting, we have concerns the emphasis is going to be on increased compliance and monitoring and enforcement.

Freshwater

Two of the RMA national direction ‘instruments’ currently being consulted on are the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) and the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater (NES-F). There are a range of proposals in the freshwater package – for more information see the Ministry for the Environment’s website here. This will be one of the main focuses of our consultation submission. 

What B+LNZ is advocating for:

• Since the release of last year’s B+LNZ-commissioned Torlesse report into national bottom lines, we’ve made it clear that there needs to be a rethink about how we approach freshwater policy. Rules need to better account for natural processes, better accommodate different land uses and provide more realistic targets and timeframes.
• A community-driven, targeted, and risk-based approach is needed. Every waterbody is different and will respond differently to different actions, therefore we do not believe one-size-fits-all national bottom lines are appropriate.
• The farming sector and rural communities need robust, inexpensive and uncomplicated frameworks for freshwater that deliver more reasonable, affordable and enduring outcomes. Instead of unachievable numeric limits the focus should be on the health of ecosystems.
• We will also keep pushing for there to be some direction provided for councils on how to start freshwater plan processes again when the new rules come in – as we remain concerned they’ll simply restart from where they got to under the old rules.

There has been no further information on freshwater farm plans since our last update. We’ll continue to push for a practical approach to farm plans that are based on risk and can be used in place of consents. We don’t believe that all farm plans should need the same degree of complexity and auditing, and the lowest risk farmers should be exempt from the requirement.

Biodiversity

Farmers should be recognised and rewarded for the work they do on farm to protect and enhance native biodiversity.

Recent developments:

• The Government recently announced the trial of a voluntary nature credits market framework. More information in Minister Hoggard’s media release here. 

What B+LNZ is advocating for:

• The voluntary nature credits market framework could provide important recognition of the work sheep and beef farmers do to protect and enhance indigenous biodiversity on their farms. We look forward to seeing how the pilot programme progresses.
• We remain concerned about the definition of Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) in the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity (NPS-IB). The definition of SNAs needs to be amended so that it only captures truly significant biodiversity.
• While it’s not part of the RMA national direction consultation package, as part of our submission we will also be asking for the Government to consider these changes to the NSP-IB.   

Regional policy

B+LNZ works in regions around NZ to support farmers on plan changes and other relevant work.

Recent major developments and what B+LNZ is doing:

• The Environment Court recently released its interim decision on Waikato Regional Council (WRC) Plan Change 1 (PC1). Our preliminary analysis of this long and highly technical document shows that many of the provisions have improved (compared with the decisions version) but there are several things the Court has queried which we are working through with WRC to ensure the provisions are workable. We know affected farmers are very keen to understand how the plan change will affect them. We’ll provide information in e-diaries in the next couple of weeks and will keep affected farmers up to date with what they’ll need to do and when.
• We are preparing an Environment Court appeal to decisions made on the proposed TANK Plan Change (Proposed Plan Change 9) in Hawke’s Bay relating to the Tūtaekurī, Ahuriri, Ngaruroro and Karamū (TANK) catchments. We’ll provide more information on this in e-diaries soon. 

Further information 

We’ll look to send you another environment policy roundup in another three months. 

Our other advocacy work currently includes:

• ongoing work in the trade policy space, including US tariffs, a potential FTA with India and the imported beef safeguards investigation in China
• a submission on the National Animal Welfare Advisory Council’s consultation on the Code of Welfare: Sheep and Beef Cattle – this will be informed by farmer input (for more information see this recent e-diary story). 

Keep an eye on B+LNZ e-diaries for the latest developments. 

As always, please talk to one of us or your local B+LNZ farmer director if you have any questions or concerns.