Conservation Amendment Bill – unpicking the new economic opportunity function.

Prepared by Clare Lenihan, Environmental and Public Law Barrister

The Conservation Amendment Bill introduced on 7 May 2026 contains a significant change to the purpose architecture of the Conservation Act 1987 – it proposes a new function for the Department of Conservation to “recognise the economic opportunities that arise from the use and development” of the land and resources it manages, and to “enable this use and development to the greatest extent practicable under this Act and other enactments”.

This change is materially different to what was described in a Supplementary Analysis Report (SAR) prepared by the Department less than three weeks earlier, which described a more modest amendment which would “allow development” as a function “subservient to conservation”. 

There is no mention in the SAR of the wording now proposed as the new function in the Amendment Bill.

This article traces that gap – what the SAR said the amendment would do, what s6(ea) actually does, and why the difference matters for the first National Conservation Policy Statement, concession decisions and even the litigation risk the reform was partly meant to reduce.

The current overall aim of the Conservation Act 1987 is for the Department to manage all land and other natural and historic resources for conservation purposes. This isn’t contained in a neat purpose statement, but gleaned from various sources including the long title to the Act  - “An Act to promote the conservation of New Zealand’s natural and historic resources, and for that purpose to establish a Department of Conservation” - the functions of the Department in section 6 of the Act and definitions in section 2 of the Act (conservation means the preservation and protection of natural and historic resources for the purpose of maintaining their intrinsic values, providing for their appreciation and recreational enjoyment by the public, and safeguarding the options of future generations. See also “preservation”, “protection”, “natural resources” and “historic resource” defined in the Act). 

Recreation and tourism are specifically mentioned in the Department’s functions – to foster the use of natural and historic resources for recreation, and to allow their use for tourism, to the extent the use is not inconsistent with its conservation.

The Bill doesn’t change the essence of the recreation function but rewords it to “foster the use of land and other natural resources and historic resources managed by the Department for recreation to the extent consistent with their conservation”.

Specific mention of tourism has disappeared, to be absorbed in the new economic opportunity function.

The purpose of the Department’s Supplementary Analysis Report (SAR) “Amending the purpose of the Conservation Act 1987” (15 April 2026) was to address two cabinet decisions which directed the Minister of Conservation to amend the purpose statement of the Conservation Act to ensure wider reforms to the conservation and management system (including ensuring the NCPS and area plans) enable greater economic development on conservation land, (refer to CAB-25-MIN-0213.01, dated 2 July 2025 and CAB-25-MIN-0334.01 – any reference to amending the purpose statement is redacted in the minutes).   

The policy problem noted in the SAR was because statutory documents must be consistent with primary legislation, the purpose of the Act limits the extent to which a National Conservation Policy Statement (to replace the two existing general policies) and area plans (to replace existing conservation management strategies and plans) would be able to enable economic development, given the overarching purpose of the Act.

The SAR notes three options were considered by Cabinet – the status quo, targeted changes while retaining conservation as the primary purpose (option 1) or a purpose that balances conservation and economic development outcomes (option 2). Option 2 was discounted on the basis there wasn’t a strong case for a fundamental shift from conservation as the primary purpose, given most concessions are already approved. Also, such an approach was considered to be a significant departure from the current purpose – balancing conservation with other outcomes would introduce significant risks without guarantee of effectiveness. It would also raise questions related to the purpose of the Crown holding public conservation land more generally.

The SAR notes the proposed changes for Option 1 were to amend section 6 “allowing development” as a function that is subservient to conservation, to add new purpose provisions to management planning and concessions to clearly state the National Conservation Policy Statement (NCPS)  and area plans would enable use and development of PCL (public conservation land), and to include new empowering provisions for the NCPS that explicitly state one of its functions is to provide additional information on how consistent an activity is with the purpose for which land is held or managed. 

The SAR repeatedly notes the proposed purpose changes are intended to enable economic development currently impeded by the Act, but which are not inconsistent with conservation. The phrase “not inconsistent with conservation” appears 17 times in the paper (occasionally slightly differently expressed).

In the SAR the Department notes that out of 2,810 concessions considered between January 2025 – October 2025 only 2% (50) were declined. Therefore, “an incisive, or targeted, amendment to provisions relating to the purpose of the Conservation Act is intended to impact those few applications more likely to be declined under the status quo…while minimising litigation risk that would come from more extensive changes.” The proposed changes are not intended to enable activities authorised through other regimes (e.g. through the Crown Minerals Act or Fast-track Approvals Act).

The Department assumed the changes were intended to target activities not inconsistent with conservation but “in the absence of a fulsome understanding of the exact nature of these activities, it has limited ability to comment on whether they would be better enabled as a result of the proposed changes.” (and the SAR notes that time, scope and consultation limitations impacted on its ability to conduct in-depth analysis).

The SAR identifies the primary beneficiary of the proposed changes as potential concessionaires who may be more likely to be given approval to operate on PCL. The Department expected this would only be a minor shift given only 2% of concessions were declined last year, the scope and nature of activities that would be enabled (the expected benefit would be to a small number of less economically significant activities with mining and more economically significant activities continuing to be permitted through the Crown Minerals Act or the Fast-track Approvals Act) and conservation would remain the primary purpose of the Conservation Act. The Department considered there would likely only be minor impacts on cultural, recreation, historic and natural values as a result of the changes.

It is difficult to bridge the gap between the proposed wording in the SAR and the wording in s6(ea) of the Bill. If the intent is the economic opportunities function is subservient to the conservation function, using a qualifier such as “except where inconsistent with conservation” would have provided the clarity identified in the SAR, and it is used in relation to the Department’s recreation function.

Instead, the qualifier for economic opportunities is for these to be enabled “to the greatest extent practicable under this Act and other enactments”.  It more closely resembles Option 2 that Cabinet discounted.

From a statutory interpretation perspective, one could argue that the statement “to the greatest extent practicable under this Act and other enactments”, along with the long title to the Act, imports the Act’s conservation framework, so conservation primacy can still bite. If this were the case, it would have been simpler to add the rider currently in the recreation function except where inconsistent with conservation, as consistently noted in the SAR.

The drafting of the Bill may yet change as it moves through select committee, and officials may argue that “to the greatest extent practicable under this Act and other enactments” implicitly imports the Act’s conservation framework. But if conservation primacy were meant to constrain the new economic function, the simplest course was to say so – as is stated in the recreation function. It is hard to read this omission as accidental, and it leaves s6(ea) looking less like the subservient adjustment the SAR describes and more like the balancing purpose in Option 2 that Cabinet discounted.

Lastly, although the SAR notes a subservient purpose of the new function (which it considered would be “allowing development”) is to mitigate the risks of legal challenge, the irony is this wording could well open up an argument that the new function is not intended to be subservient to conservation when it comes to economic opportunities (which now include tourism).

National Conservation Policy Statement

One issue with the relatively late introduction of the change in purpose relates to the first National Conservation Policy Statement. The Department carried out targeted consultation on this in July and August 2025. This did not include the proposed change to the purpose of the Act.

On 18 May the Department released a draft NCPS for public consultation. Proposed new s13D of the Amendment Bill states the purpose of a national conservation policy statement is to set policy relating to the Acts listed and to recognise the economic opportunities arising from use and development of land and natural resources and historic resources and to enable this use and development to the greatest extent practicable. There isn’t any mention of this in the draft NCPS. This appears to be a major omission which could have significant ramifications for what are likely necessary amendments to ensure the purposes are clearly stated in the NCPS.

The public has an opportunity to comment on the draft NCPS with submissions closing on Thursday 9 July. This is months before the Select Committee is due to report on the Bill on 11 November, so neither the public nor the Department yet knows the wording of the purpose against which the NCPS must ultimately be tested. This makes it challenging for all participating in these processes.