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Snails, miming and climate change

Snails, miming and climate change. Trevor Daya-Winterbottom Senior Lecturer in Law University of Waikato. Overview. Background Environmental regulation Snails and mining Protecting significant indigenous vegetation Mining on conservation land Climate change. Introduction.

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Snails, miming and climate change

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  1. Snails, miming and climate change Trevor Daya-Winterbottom Senior Lecturer in Law University of Waikato

  2. Overview • Background • Environmental regulation • Snails and mining • Protecting significant indigenous vegetation • Mining on conservation land • Climate change

  3. Introduction • New Zealand is rich in endemic fauna and flora and provides a home for 70,000 native land based species with insects and fungi being the predominant species groups. • Approximately 1,000 species are considered to be threatened, with terrestrial invertibrates such as large land snails (Powelliphanta) being listed as “nationally critical” or “nationally endangered”.

  4. Environmental regulation • The primary statute governing the protection of biodiversity on private land is the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). • The overarching statutory purpose of the RMA is to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources.

  5. Kaimanawa Wild Horse Preservation Society • The Court has not been given any authority to make declarations about New Zealand's obligations at public international law, or about the application or interpretation of international instruments. Even a superior Court of general jurisdiction does not enforce provisions of international instruments …

  6. Environmental Defence Society • We accept that the present scientific consensus is that the cumulative anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide on a global basis contribute to climate change. … After a careful consideration of the evidence we are left with a considerable disquiet about the efficacy, appropriateness and reasonableness of a condition as proposed.

  7. District plan rules • Far North District Council adopted a prescriptive approach in the proposed district plan notified in 1996 that sought to identify significant natural areas on planning maps together with rules designed to assess the adverse effects of actvities. Overall, 38% of the district contained significant natural vegetation. Under half of these areas (17% of the district) were located on private land.

  8. Biodiversity of private land • Property rights and the sanctity of a Crown grant are eroded where society decides that certain attributes on a property are of sufficient significance to warrant directing the owner on how that attribute should be managed. This is in total contradiction to most people’s concept of the spirit and intent of freehold title … as well as the concept of privacy, security and – above all – surety.

  9. Biodiversity offsets • JF Investments Ltd • The practical answer is usually that if the proposed remedial or mitigatory action is the repair of damage of the same kind as the adverse effects of the activity, it is easier to accept as not only relevant, but reasonably necessary as well.

  10. Scientific perspective • Viable biodiversity barter and meaningful biodiversity protection seem mutually exclusive. We can achieve one or the other, but not both. Although compensation and no net loss are laudable ideals, ecological and political problems appear intractable, and mean that bartering is likely to accomplish more harm than good for biodiversity.

  11. Enforcement - Conway • If a sentence of imprisonment were not imposed potential offenders might well regard the economic risk of a fine, or the possible sanction of community work, as a risk worth taking to gain profit from illegal activities. A short sentence of imprisonment is much more likely to be regarded as a deterrent by the community than a sentence of community work.

  12. Snails and mining • Arguably, achieving this goal would have reduced the amount of coal available to Soilid Energy and risked economic losses. Under the Wildlife Act the Ministers were required in law to undertake a balancing exercise weighing up the benefits from mining against detriments to the snails.

  13. Open space covenants • Latest statistics (June 2009) reveal that 3,189 registered covenants have been entered into, that 524 covenants have been approved and were awaiting registration, that the total land area subject to registered and approved covenants is 109,948 ha, that the average covenant area is 29.6 ha in size, and that the largest covenant area is 6,564 ha.

  14. EBEX21 • The amount of land available for preservation and the potential cost of active restoration have, to date, prohibited large-scale programmes to reverse the decline in biodiversity and national heritage … pilot projects demonstrated that regeneration of farmland over 20 or more years could take place …

  15. Conclusions • Voluntary methods have performed well and increased legal protection of indigenous forest • Regulation and innovation has tended to suffer at primary council stage due to entrenched philosophical and political views • Regeneration of native forest can provide net increase in lowland forest cover and the long-term carbon sequestration

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