Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announced $381,000 in Government funding to enable farmers and growers to better deal with waste. The funding, from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund, will mean farmers and growers can more easily recycle or safely dispose of a wider range of on-farm waste such as agrichemicals, scrap metal, soft plastics and used oil. Rural recycling programme Agrecovery will manage the project by offering one-stop-shop events where farmers and growers can drop off...

New Government funding will bring together landholders, iwi and hapū, and others in the wider community to improve stream health in the Waikawa catchment, in the Manawatu-Wanganui region. Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage announced that a $170,000 grant from Government’s Community Environment Fund would contribute to the Waikawa Stream Community Catchment Project. Others are contributing $90,000 - Horizons Regional Council ($45,000), Landcare Trust New Zealand ($30,000) and landholders ($15,000). The Waikawa catchment stretches from the Tararua Ranges to the coast...

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage today announced the largest addition of land to an existing national park in New Zealand’s history. A total of 64,400 hectares of conservation land in the Mokihinui River catchment on the West Coast north of Westport, including 15 km of riverbed, is being added to Kahurangi National Park. “Adding this area, roughly half the size of Auckland City, to Kahurangi is the largest addition of land to an existing national park in New Zealand’s history,” Eugenie...

New Government funding will see the Department of Conservation invest an extra $76 million over the next four years to address New Zealand’s biodiversity crisis. “More than 4000 of our native plants and wildlife are threatened or at risk of extinction,” said Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage. “In the 750 years since humans arrived in New Zealand, more than 50 native bird species have gone extinct, three frogs, at least three lizards, one freshwater fish, four plants and an unknown number...

Iconic high country land will be better managed under changes that Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage announced consultation on today. Tenure review is a voluntary process where Crown pastoral land can be sold to a leaseholder and areas with high ecological and recreational value can be returned to full Crown ownership as conservation land. “Tenure review has seen some land protected but also large swathes, 353,000 ha, have been privatised and large areas intensively farmed or subdivided,” Eugenie Sage said....

Employment Minister Willie Jackson, along with Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage, today announced the launch of a new training programme targeting the Waiapu catchment, Ka Hao te Rangatahi. The programme is designed to develop young people’s skills through conservation and erosion management.   He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) is supporting the programme as both HPR and Ka Hao share a strong focus on supporting rangatahi to be ready for real opportunities to work and contribute to their communities on the coast.  ...

The Government will end tenure review in the South Island high country, Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. Tenure review is a voluntary process where Crown pastoral land can be sold to a leaseholder and areas with high ecological and recreational value can be returned to full Crown ownership as conservation land. “Tenure review has resulted in parcels of land being added to the conservation estate, but it has also resulted in more intensive farming and subdivision on the...

Recent deaths of threatened seabirds killed by a longline fishing vessel show the fishing industry needs to do more to avoid seabird bycatch, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage says. Five Antipodean albatrosses and one Gibson’s albatross were killed when they were caught by a longline fishing vessel in the Bay of Plenty region between 2 December 2018 and 4 January 2019.  Both species are classed as ‘nationally critical’ – the most serious category for threatened species. Two black petrels, which are ‘nationally...

New research highlights the importance of New Zealand’s wetlands for one of our most secretive native birds, the Australasian bittern or matuku, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said today on World Wetlands Day.   GPS tracking of matuku/bittern has, for the first time, revealed that this threatened swamp dweller flies more than 300 km between wetlands in the eastern South Island as well as large distances between North Island wetland sites. Previously it was thought bittern ranged only small distances from...

Edward Ellison is the new Chairperson of the New Zealand Conservation Authority (NZCA), Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. A sheep farmer on the Otago Peninsula, Mr Ellison has previously served on the NZCA, Otago Conservation Board, Queen Elizabeth II National Trust Board, the South-East Marine Protection Forum and the Otago University Council.  The NZCA is a national statutory body that provides strategic policy advice to the Department of Conservation and the Minister.  It also has statutory functions around approving...