The amendment to the Wildlife Act, New Zealand’s foundational wildlife protection law, was passed under urgency today and allows the Director-General of Conservation to grant companies permission to kill kiwi and other native wildlife if they get in the way of projects like roads, mines or dams.
Greenpeace says it’s the latest escalation in the Luxon Government’s war on nature and is calling for the immediate repeal of the amendment and for the Government to strengthen, not weaken, protections for the country’s endangered wildlife.
“This will go down in history as the moment the New Zealand Government decided that roads and coal mines needed protection from skinks and kiwi, instead of the other way around,” says Greenpeace spokesperson Gen Toop.
“We’re talking about our national icon – the kiwi – being put on the chopping block so a company can build a road faster. That is not who we are as a country.”
“We are a country revered internationally for bringing species like the kākāpō back from the brink of extinction. But we’re about to go from revered to reviled for making a law explicitly allowing big business to kill endangered wildlife for profit,” says Toop.
All three stages of the Bill were heard under urgency this morning, with Greenpeace likening the move to Trumpian style politics.
“Legalising killing kiwi is Trumpian style environmental vandalism. The Luxon Government clearly knows how deeply unpopular this is. It’s why they have rushed it through parliament under urgency with no chance for public input or scrutiny,” says Toop.
According to the latest Environment Aotearoa report, nearly 80% of the country’s native birds are threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened, along with 94% of indigenous reptiles. There’s only one native frog left out of 14 that is not threatened with extinction.
“Luxon’s Government just signed a death warrant for native wildlife already on the brink of extinction. And once they’re gone, they’re gone for good,” says Toop.
“This Government have been waging a war on nature since day one. They’ve steamrolled environmental protections with the fast track approvals act, they’re trying to reverse the oil and gas ban, they plan to dismantle the RMA, and now they have literally legalised killing kiwi.”
The law change comes after a landmark High Court decision in the case of the Environmental Law Initiative v The Director-General of the Department of Conservation (DOC) and others. The case challenged DOC’s decision to grant Waka Kotahi permission to kill wildlife during construction of the Mt Messenger Bypass in Taranaki.
The Judge ruled that the permit was unlawful, upending years of DOC’s practice of granting permits which authorised the killing of wildlife under the Wildlife Act.
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