New planning laws are now in place. The Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions & Transport is publishing guidance, tools and updates on this website as the new planning system is introduced in stages.
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The natural environment
Find out how the new planning system could affect environmental management, natural resources, limits, permits and protected wildlife.
Overview
The new planning system is intended to provide clearer, more consistent rules for using, protecting and enhancing the natural environment.
Natural resources such as freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil and indigenous biodiversity will be managed through national instruments, regulations, regional spatial planning, natural environment plans, environmental limits and permits for activities that need approval.
This means clearer national direction, earlier consideration of environmental constraints, and regional rules for managing natural resources. Environmental limits will also set boundaries for the effects that activities can have on ecosystems and human health.
More activities will be able to go ahead without a permit if they meet the relevant rules and standards. Activities with greater effects, or activities that contribute to pressure on natural resources, may still require a permit.
What the new planning system means for the environment
Setting direction for the natural environment
The Natural Environment Act sets out how the use, protection and enhancement of the natural environment will be managed. Its goals will guide national instruments, regional spatial plans, natural environment plans, environmental limits, permits and other decisions that affect natural resources.
The Act’s goals are to:
- enable the use and development of natural resources, including for the production of food and fibre (including aquaculture)
- safeguard the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil and ecosystems
- protect human health from harm caused by the discharge of contaminants
- support and enable the enhancement of the natural environment
- protect significant indigenous biodiversity
- safeguard against natural hazard risks that arise from, or affect, the use of natural resources or the protection of natural resources
- provide for Māori interests, through:
- Māori participation in the development of national instruments, regional spatial plans and natural environment plans
- the identification and protection of sties of significance to Māori, including wāhi tapu, water bodies, or sites in or on the coastal marine area
- enable the development and protection of identified Māori land.
Guiding how natural resources are managed
National policy direction and standards will make the goals more specific and set requirements for how they are to be achieved. They will help manage the natural environment by:
- setting national expectations for freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil, indigenous biodiversity, environmental limits, Māori interests, monitoring and decision-making
- making rules, methods, information requirements and plan content more consistent across the country.
This should make environmental management clearer and reduce the need to address the same issues in every plan and permit decision.
Considering environmental constraints early
Regional spatial plans sit below national instruments in the hierarchy of the system. They help each region consider development, infrastructure, natural hazards and environmental constraints together.
This can help balance development, the natural environment and cultural values over the long term.
It also means important issues can be worked through earlier, before detailed rules are included in land use plans and natural environment plans.
Setting regional environmental rules
Each region will also have a natural environment plan that sets the rules for how natural resources are used, protected and managed.
These plans will cover freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil, indigenous biodiversity and activities that can affect the environment, such as discharges.
Natural environment plans will implement the key instruments that sit above them in system hierarchy, including national policy direction, national standards for environmental limits, and regional spatial plans.
They will also show where activities can continue, where environmental pressures need to be managed, and where more action is needed to protect the environment.
Provide relief where rules affect land use
When councils propose rules to protect places such as high natural character coastal areas, wetlands, lakes, rivers, river margins or identifiable areas of terrestrial indigenous biodiversity, they must consider how those rules affect how landowners can use their land. If the impact is significant, councils will need to provide relief.
Relief could include monetary payments, rate or fee reductions, extra development rights, land swaps or targeted grants.
See regulatory relief and property rights.
Setting limits for ecosystems and human health
Natural environment plans will include environmental limits that set boundaries for the effects activities can have on freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil and indigenous biodiversity.
Environmental limits help show whether there is room for additional effects. Anyone applying for a permit will need to show that their activity can stay within any relevant limits.
National standards will set limits for human health. Regional councils will set limits for ecosystem health through natural environment plans, using any methods set out in national standards.
Limits will apply to specific places and natural resources. When setting them, decision makers will need to consider the likely impacts on communities, the economy, society and the natural environment.
If a limit is breached, or is likely to be breached, councils will need to prepare an action plan. These plans will explain how the breach will be avoided or, if it has already happened, how it will be addressed. Temporary interim limits may also be used while the breach is being remedied.
Managing activities through permits
Some activities and matters will be outside the new planning system. For activities covered by the system, many will be able to go ahead without a consent or permit if they meet the relevant rules or national standards. Other activities will need a planning consent, natural resource permit, or both, depending on the activity and its effects.
When a consent or permit is needed, decisions will focus on the effects covered by the relevant rules and legislation. This can include effects on freshwater, coastal water, air, soil, indigenous biodiversity, human health, Māori interests, natural hazards, protected places or features, and the wider environment.
In most cases, a permit cannot be granted if it would breach an environmental limit, unless national standards allow an exception.
Some applications may be publicly notified or notified to specific people. This will happen when the relevant thresholds for adverse effects are met, or when notification is required by legislation or a rule.
Managing impacts on protected wildlife
Some activities that affect protected wildlife require authorisation under the Wildlife Act 1953. The new system will allow applicants to apply for a wildlife approval alongside a natural resource permit through a single process, where they choose to use the Natural Environment Act pathway. The existing Wildlife Act pathway will also remain available.
This could make it easier to apply for both approvals at the same time, although some parts of the process, such as notification requirements, may differ.
Wildlife approvals will continue to be assessed under a separate decision-making framework that is broadly consistent with the Wildlife Act. Decision-makers under the Natural Environment Act must still consider effects on protected wildlife and cannot grant a wildlife approval where the activity would reduce the viability of an affected species, or of a local population of threatened or at-risk wildlife, unless conditions can be imposed that avoid that outcome.
This pathway will become available when applications for natural resource permits open under the new system.
Enforcing environmental rules
Councils and regulators will continue to monitor compliance and enforce planning and environmental rules.
Existing enforcement processes, notices, orders, investigations, offences and related compliance matters will continue to be dealt with under transition rules.
Over time, better data, clearer rules and more consistent compliance approaches are expected to make the system easier to understand and apply.
What happens next
The new planning system will be introduced in stages. During the transition, existing RMA plans and processes will continue while new national instruments, regional spatial plans and natural environment plans are prepared.
These plans and instruments will set out how natural resources will be managed, including environmental limits, biodiversity, freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil, permits, action plans and wildlife approvals.
Councils, iwi authorities, environmental organisations, landowners, resource users and other interested groups will have opportunities to take part in national direction, regional spatial planning and plan-making processes.
We will add more information over time, including guidance on environmental limits, natural environment plans, consents, permits, action plans and wildlife approvals.
See consents and notices of requirement during the transition period.