Forest & Bird is slamming the government’s decision to extend the deadline for water plans for farmers, saying the direct interference "is unprecedented and significant overreach".
Last week, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard announced that Cabinet had agreed to provide more time for farmers and growers to comply with regional rules in the Southland Water and Land Plan, by allowing them until mid-2026 to do that.
Otherwise, Southland farmers would have been required to complete a farm plan by the end of the month.
The news was welcomed by Federated Farmers and Environment Southland (ES).
However, Forest & Bird acting general counsel Erika Toleman said the organisation was "appalled" the main tool the plan used to address water quality was being deferred.
"There is nothing unreasonable about requiring compliance with a regional plan rule that has been developed over a decade, and which farmers have helped develop.”
She said many Southland rivers, lagoons and estuaries were highly degraded, and this was having impacts on native species as well as recreational and cultural uses.
“Direct government interference with the outcome of a regional planning process is unprecedented, and significant overreach. And there is no apparent consideration of what this means for Southland water quality."
The relationship of Southland Fish & Game and Forest & Bird with Federated Farmers became estranged after a difference in opinion over a court decision which Federated Farmers said would require Southland farmers to apply for a resource consent to keep farming lawfully.
Last month, Federated Farmers put out a call for farmers to ban access to Southland rivers and last week Southland president Jason Herrick said the boycott was still ongoing.
He was having meetings with ES and had had one with Fish & Game so far, but said it would be a "long process . . . before we get things sorted".
