The Horizons Region has around 130,000 hectares of plantation forestry. It is an important land use in the region, making good economic use of marginal land as well as delivering environmental benefits such as erosion control. The National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry (NES-PF) came into effect on 1 May 2018, providing nationally consistent regulations to manage environmental effects of forestry. These applied to 1 hectare or more of continuous forest tree species planted deliberately for commercial harvest. On 3 November 2023, these were amended as the National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry (NES-CF) and provides for these activities with the addition of exotic continuous cover forest (sometimes called carbon forestry).
The Manawatū-Whanganui Regional Council resolved on 28 August 2018 to make a minor amendment to the One Plan – the consolidated Regional Policy Statement, Regional Plan and Regional Coastal Plan. This amendment (Plan Amendment 1 − 2018) has been made to comply with the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry. Chapter 13, and the Glossary are amended by Plan Amendment 1. The One Plan, amended by Plan Amendment 1 − 2018, is available on Horizons’ website www.horizons.govt.nz, and can be viewed during normal opening hours at the Regional Council’s offices. The changes take effect from 24 September 2018. Please contact Horizons (oneplan@horizons.govt.nz or 0508 800 800) to request replacement hard copy chapters, or the One Plan in pdf format on a USB flash drive, free of charge. Michael McCartney – CHIEF EXECUTIVE 24 September 2018
The regulations provide for eight main plantation forestry activities that require foresters to manage the adverse environmental effects of the activities. The regulated activities are:
MPI has provided three risk assessment tools to aid in the assessment of the environmental effects of certain activities. These can be found by following the links listed below:
Horizons Regional Council is responsible for implementing the regulation of these activities within the region and will receive notifications and request management plans. Some permitted activities require notification for afforestation, earthworks, river crossings, quarrying and harvesting activities to be provided to Horizons between 20-60 days before the activity occurs. Earthworks management plans, quarry erosion and sediment management plans and harvest plans need to be in place 20 working days before the works begin and may be requested at the time of notification or after the fact. It is your responsibility to ensure that you:
If your activities do not meet the requirements of permitted activities under the NES-PF regulation you will need to apply for a resource consent. These will then need to be sought and granted before works commence (allow at least 20 working days for Council to process applications). It is your responsibility to determine whether a consent is required, through assessing your proposed activity against the NES-PF standards and the One Plan where relevant. These forms can be found here. Any applications can be provided in hard copy to any Horizons office or emailed to regulatory.administrator@horizons.govt.nz. Sufficient information, in accordance with Section 88 and the fourth schedule of the RMA and the deposit fee will need to be provided with your application to ensure it is accepted and processed.
Please note that if you hold a resource consent that was granted before 3 August 2017 then it will continue to apply. If you hold a resource consent that was granted after 3 August 2017, then the NES-CF regulations will apply. If the activity is not a permitted activity under the NES-CF you will require a new resource consent before you can undertake the activity. If you are in doubt, please check with our consents team on freephone 0508 800 800 regarding the status of any existing resource consents before undertaking works.
You may have existing use rights for some activities. Under the Resource Management Act (RMA), existing use rights are applied differently depending on whether the activity is controlled by a district council or regional council. You are advised to contact the relevant district council in respect of activities under the NES-CF where the district council holds jurisdiction. From a Horizons perspective an activity has existing use rights if:
For any other forestry related enquires please email forestry@horizons.govt.nz or freephone 0508 800 800 to speak to a consents planner.