Conservation Minister Tama Potaka says saving every species is 'very aspirational'

Forest and Bird is horrified the government is suggesting it cannot afford to save all of New Zealand's native species.

On Tuesday, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka told the Parliament's Environment Committee it could cost hundreds-of-billions of dollars to stop all species here becoming extinct.

"If we say, hand on heart, we're going to save every single species and get it out of a space where it's endangered or at risk that job is going to take an absolutely, probably superhuman effort, that'll cost, I don't know, I wouldn't want to imagine the cost, but that is literally hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars, and I don't think we're in that space.

"I think we're in a much more practical space to say what are the species, what are the areas, what are the ecosystems that we're going to focus on, focus our attention on and get to that."

He believed the view from the environmental sector that every single species must be saved was "very aspirational and ambitious objective".

"It's one that we may not be able to deliver on," he said.

"So we have to be very careful before we say every single species is going to be saved. We have to be very mindful that that comes at a cost which up until this point in time no one has figured out."

Asked whether that meant he was agreeable to species extinction, Potaka said he was not, but for politicians to promise to save every single species without having a proper costing was "very myopic and shortsighted".

He did not have such a costing and did not think anyone in the past six years had been able to provide one.

"There is a cost with maintaining species and ensuring that they don't become extinct. And I don't think anyone in the history of the Department of Conservation has costed that in a [meaningful], defensible and credible way, and if they have, please tell me."

Forest and Bird chief executive Nicola Toki told Morning Report Potaka's comments made it sound like he was picking and choosing what to save.

"I was actually horrified by the minister's comments. He's basically picking winners, right?

"He's essentially saying, well, you know, I have an underwhelming ambition to not save them all, 'cause it's really expensive and so, you know, we'll pick some things that we might like to save. He's forgotten his job."

The comments came after Dame Jane Goodall's Thursday visit to Parliament with a number of dignitaries, where she highlighted New Zealand's role in saving the black robin from the brink of extinction.

"To have a conservation minister come out and say it's all a bit hard and (expensive) is just appalling, and he needs to step up," Toki said.

The Department of Conservation's (DOC) report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, released in 2019 and covering the period of 2014-2018, stated one quarter of the nearly 4000 species currently classified as threatened or at risk had only been assessed once and there was no way to know whether their conservation status had changed.

Planning tool to help inform decision-making, minister says

One of the areas Toki believed could widely benefit conservation efforts if boosted was sustained pest control.

"We only have sustained pest control on the public conservation land across New Zealand on a fraction of the estate, it's around 7 percent overall, right?

"If you have been in Wellington recently and you look at the work that's going on to reduce predators in Wellington, the benefits to multiple species is huge. Some species don't actually take that much money to look after."

Department of Conservation director-general Penny Nelson told the Environment Committee they had developed a biodiversity planning tool which explores the species and representative ecosystems to make it clear what was being invested on those and the expected returns.

"And for each of our regions, we've got priorities and we're standing up portfolios to meet those. So internally, we've put some more effective processes in place to help us prioritise and then other thing, I think is critical, is we're currently working on the next implementation plan for the biodiversity strategy and that's where we can leverage opportunities with others.

"So for example, with some of the threats we've got to our biodiversity like ungulates and predators, we're really lining investment we've got with local government, business, iwi partners et cetera, to really focus on the things that will have the biggest impact for biodiversity."

Potaka said this tool was key because it was not relying on the "loudest voice in the department, or the loudest voice in the community" to inform decision-making on biodiversity.

Toki said it was particularly important to invest in conservation efforts as the country dealt with the impacts of climate change, and considering the economic returns of preserving nature and our ecosystems.

"The Department of Conservation, which looks after a third of our country and guards the economic asset that is our tourism industry, not to mention 70 percent of our businesses rely on our natural resources, right now it's funded on less than the budget of the Christchurch City Council, and that is a disgrace.

"I think governments make choices about what they spend their money on and every government does that. But what this government is missing is the fact that our national identity is based on our natural environment...

"If the government can't understand that this is who we are, then they're gonna get a bit of a rude awakening as more and more people call it out."

DOC's funding overall was due to drop from $880 million this year 2023/2024 to $728m in 2026/27.