Everyone should be able to enjoy the dawn chorus in Aotearoa’s forests and have rivers safe for fishing, swimming, and gathering kai.
But previous governments slashed conservation funding, causing hundreds of DOC rangers to lose their jobs, while allowing rivers to be degraded by intensive agriculture and urban pollution.
In Government, the Green Party has secured the largest investment in conservation ever. This funding will better protect kiwi, kākāpō, takahē, and other wildlife from the predator crisis. We’ve added 64,000 hectares to Kahurangi National Park – the largest ever addition to a national park in Aotearoa. We are responding to the job losses COVID-19 has created by investing $1.3 billion to create thousands of jobs for nature over the next four years, including 6,000 jobs in conservation.
There is still much to do to protect and enhance nature. The Green Party will support more people into jobs protecting forests, rivers, and wetlands. We can secure a future where Aotearoa’s wildlife is able to thrive the way nature intended.
The Green Party will:
- Protect kauri from kauri dieback by investing in a National Pest Management Strategy.
- Create sustainable employment through the Government’s Jobs for Nature programme, and support conservation volunteer groups nationwide.
- Enhance Predator Free 2050 by increasing funding for research, innovation, and landscape predator control; and by establishing more protected and pest-free islands and sanctuaries, including in our towns and cities.
- Invest in restoring wetlands, riverbanks, and estuaries to protect communities against rising seas and floods.
- Increase funding support for iwi and hapū, landholders, and community organisations to restore the health of forests and waterways, through programmes including the Community Conservation and Partnership Fund, Mātauranga Kura Taio, Ngā Whenua Rahui, Nature Heritage and QEII Trust Funds.
- Improve implementation of te Tiriti by Te Papa Atawhai, including reviewing key conservation policy and legislation.
- Resource the active implementation of Treaty settlements and co-management/co-governance of public conservation land.
- End new mining on and under conservation land, except for pounamu and some small scale river based gold mining.
- Eradicate pigs, cats and mice from Makauhuka/Auckland Islands in partnership with Ngāi Tahu.