Infrastructure, development and primary sector national direction

The Resource Management (Stock Exclusion) Regulations 2020 (Stock Exclusion Regulations) prohibit access of cattle, pigs and deer to wetlands, lakes and rivers. Livestock entering waterways contaminates water, damages riverbanks and compromises recreation and mahinga kai. Livestock dung and urine can carry disease and promote weed growth, degrading the ecosystem and inhibiting fish spawning.

In 2024, the Government cut red tape for farmers by repealing the map of low-slope land in the Stock Exclusion Regulations and simplifying rules for intensive winter grazing.⁴² These changes were part of the Government's move to a more risk-based, catchment-focused approach.

The Government wants to remove further parts of the Stock Exclusion Regulations where the benefits of the rules do not outweigh the costs to the primary sector. 

^{42 Through the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024.}

Regulation 17 of the Stock Exclusion Regulations requires all stock to be excluded from wetlands that support threatened species, regardless of the size of the wetland or the intensity of the farming system. Regulation 17 is inflexible and unable to be adapted to individual circumstances. This means that, in some areas (eg, along the West Coast and in the South Island High Country), there is the potential for the benefits of excluding stock from these wetlands to be disproportionate to the cost.

The proposal to amend regulation 17 of the Stock Exclusion Regulations includes amending the requirement that all stock must be excluded from any natural wetlands that support a population of threatened species⁴³, so that it would not apply to non-intensively grazed beef cattle and deer.

Proposed provisions to amend the Stock Exclusion Regulations are included in attachment 2.7.

^{43 As described in the compulsory value for threatened species in the NPS-FM.}

Table 10 includes an overview of the anticipated impacts on various parties of proposed amendments to the Stock Exclusion Regulations proposal. More detailed information about the potential impacts of the proposal is included in the Interim Regulatory Impact Statement: Options to amend regulations for farming activities available on the Ministry for the Environment’s website. 

Table 10: Overview of anticipated impacts on parties

Claimants in the Wai 2358 Stage 2 inquiry⁴⁴ held that the failure of the Crown to issue stock exclusion regulations in 2017 had contributed to the degradation of waterbodies. These regulations were issued in 2020, but the proposal set out above would remove protection from stock access in wetlands supporting a population of threatened species. Some of those species have a high likelihood of being taonga to Māori.

Freshwater planning will continue to provide opportunities for councils and tāngata whenua to develop freshwater plan rules to manage stock exclusion on low intensity beef-cattle and deer farms where they consider it necessary to protect Māori freshwater values. 

We consider that this proposal appropriately balances Māori rights and interests with the interests of private agricultural land owners. Severe impacts on Māori rights and interests could be mitigated through more stringent plan provisions where required.

^{44 Wai 2358 Stage 2 inquiry reports.}

Regulations made under section 360 (in this case, section 360(1)(hn)) of the RMA do not require resource consent, and they apply directly to the relevant party on the day they are gazetted.