The Department of Conservation has agreed to help with the cost of identifying significant natural areas (SNAs) on public conservation land.
Photo: RNZ / Tracy Neal
West Coast councils working on a new combined district plan for the region are scratching for funds to map SNAs on private property, a job that has to be done to comply with the government's new biodiversity policy.
The Te Tai o Poutini Plan Committee has been keen to have all West Coast land included in the SNA research, since one of the criteria for defining a 'significant' area is its rarity.
But it has baulked at leaving ratepayers to fund the added expense of analysing conservation land.
Project leader Jo Armstrong has told the committee she was pleasantly surprised when DOC said the job would cost $43,965.
"I met with DOC's West Coast manager Mark Davies and he's confirmed by letter that they are happy to pay $30,000 of that cost, leaving $13,900 to come out of the plan budget," Armstrong said.
"What that will do, we hope, is give a clearer picture across the whole of the West Coast of what and where the SNAs are and what's well-represented on DOC land."
West Coast Regional Council chair Allan Birchfield said that was good news.
The private land would "fade into insignificance when we look at the whole picture", he predicted.
"What I don't understand is why it's costing us $100,000 to research SNAs on private property when that's only about 7 percent of the Coast, and it's only costing $40,000 to do the rest, the DOC land," Birchfield said.
Senior planner Lois Easton said the reason was that contractors had already pulled up all the desktop material they needed for their research, which included information about DOC land and properties with shared boundaries.
The regional council is leading the combined plan project by order of the Local Government Commission, and has been given the power to strike a rate to cover the cost.
So far it has chosen not to do so, saying the region's small ratepayer base is already groaning under the growing burden of costs being loaded on councils by the government.
Local Democracy Reporting is a public interest news service supported by RNZ, the News Publishers' Association and NZ On Air.