Environment Southland response to winter grazing consents/compliance
Environment Southland is encouraging famers to undertake their winter grazing in a compliant way. This will either be by meeting all permitted activity criteria if they can, or if they are unable to do that, to obtain the necessary land use consent or deemed permitted activity authorisation (available for intensive winter grazing on land between 10 and 15 degrees where all other permitted activity criteria are met).
Our consents team continues to process applications for winter grazing land use consents or deemed permitted activities. Council has also had a number of farmers make contact to establish that their winter grazing is permitted, as they are able to meet all permitted activity criteria and hence don’t need a resource consent.
Our focus continues to be on working with the rural sector to encourage compliance with the existing rules for winter grazing by providing advice and education on the three pathways available.
While the Freshwater Farm Plan system is not currently available for farmers, we have established an additional pathway, the deemed permitted activity, for farmers to have certainty with winter grazing rules. The three pathways give farmers an opportunity to meet their regulatory obligations and achieve good environmental outcomes.
Monitoring will continue to be undertaken as it has been over recent seasons, with a focus on high risk activities and any investigations into non-compliance or enforcement will follow our enforcement and monitoring policies available on our website.
If non-compliance with the rules is identified it will go through our standard investigation process and any outcomes are not predetermined. The Resource Management Act provides for a range of regulatory responses, however, in the first instance our focus would be on encouraging compliance rather than fines. Until we have a better understanding of the number of farmers who may need a consent we haven’t finalised any monitoring plans for winter 2023 but planning is underway and being tailored as more information comes to hand.
