EWR comment: Now here’s a magic turnaround I wouldn’t be placing any confidence in. This is Agenda 21 planning signed up to decades ago … no consultation with the public … now materializing as in, more visible to us all. It smacks of diversionary tactics; call off the heat until everybody has gone back to sleep again… the word I’ve heard is, don’t let them on to survey your land; period. (To see if you think they can be trusted, check out our Local Government Watch pages, main menu).
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SNAs (Significant Natural Areas) and what they are really about
From the NZ Herald
West Coast mayors are calling for a halt to identifying significant natural areas (SNAs) on private land, after suggestions that the process could be paused in the Far North.
An item on TV One news on Friday night cited a leaked e-mail from the office of Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis, indicating that councils which had not already mapped SNAs could hold off until the relevant Government policy was finalised later this year.
As recently as May 31, James Shaw’s office told the Greymouth Star in response to a query that there would be no “outs” for councils when it came to identifying SNAs in their districts.
But since then there have been strong protests from Māori landowners in the Far North who had received council letters alerting them to potential SNAs on their land.
The likely need for resource consents to develop land classed as significant enraged many hapu who had protected their land for centuries, and led to plans for a protest hikoi to the council this Friday.
Attempts by the Greymouth Star to contact Environment Minister David Parker and his two associate ministers James Shaw and Phil Twyford for clarification on the leaked e-mail have drawn blanks today.
But Greymouth Mayor Tania Gibson said she had spoken to the Far North Mayor John Carter and was now hopeful that the entire SNA process could be halted.
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Environmental Health Watch NZ 