Tama Potaka Unveils Conservation Amendment Bill With International Visitor Charges and Faster Approvals on Five Million Hectares of DOC Land

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka has lodged what the government is calling the most significant rewrite of conservation law in nearly four decades, with the Conservation Amendment Bill introduced this week opening the door to international visitor charges at a small group of iconic sites, faster approvals across the public conservation estate, and a single national policy statement that will sit above the existing layered system of regional plans.

The Conservation Act has been on the statute books since 1987, and the Department of Conservation manages around five million hectares of public land under it, roughly a third of New Zealand. The amendment bill is designed to update that framework rather than replace it, but the practical reach is wide. The government estimates that between 30 and 40 per cent of concession applications under the new system will skip individual case-by-case processing through pre-approved activity classes and an exempt category for low-impact uses, with the rest still going through assessment.

Potaka argues the change is overdue. The minister told reporters that tourism on conservation land already generates around 5.3 billion dollars a year and supports jobs across the country, and that “New Zealanders shouldn’t have to choose between protecting nature and growing the economy”. The bill, in his framing, lets the country do both by clearing administrative backlogs that he says have stalled hut maintenance, track upgrades and the kind of small-scale tourism operations that help fund the conservation estate.

The most eye-catching feature for international audiences is the new charging power. The bill enables the government to set access fees for overseas visitors at a small number of highly visited locations, with industry coverage flagging Milford Sound, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and Cathedral Cove as the most likely first targets. Officials project the charges could raise in the order of 60 million dollars a year, ringfenced for biodiversity work, heritage sites, tracks, huts and visitor infrastructure. New Zealand residents will continue to have free access to all conservation areas, with the new fees applying only to international visitors at designated sites.

Not everyone is convinced the trade-off lands on the right side of the ledger. Former Green MP and former conservation minister Eugenie Sage has been the sharpest early critic, describing the package as the most serious weakening of conservation law in decades. Sage argues the bill quietly shifts decision-making away from the New Zealand Conservation Authority and the regional conservation boards, both of which carry independent statutory functions, and centralises power with the minister of the day. Her concern is that the new National Conservation Policy Statement, while presented as a tidying-up exercise, replaces specific protections in regional plans with broader ministerial discretion.

Sage has also drawn attention to provisions that allow land deemed surplus to conservation requirements to be disposed of or exchanged. With around five million hectares in the estate, she argues even a small percentage shift represents a significant transfer out of public ownership, and that the threshold tests for what counts as surplus need to be tighter than the bill currently allows. The select committee process, where iwi, environmental groups, local councils and industry will all submit, is where those tests are likely to be tested.

The bill has its supporters outside government as well. Recreation Aotearoa, which represents the outdoor recreation and education sector, welcomed the move to exempt low-impact, not-for-profit outdoor education from the concession process. The organisation said the current system can take years and run into thousands of dollars in fees, costs that small charities and school programmes struggle to absorb. Its chief executive said that by exempting those activities, the government can help more young people experience and enjoy the country’s special places, with knock-on benefits for physical and mental health.

On the Treaty front, the government says the bill provides clearer and more consistent processes for applying Treaty obligations and engaging with iwi and hapū on decisions affecting culturally significant land. The detail of how that interacts with existing co-governance and co-management arrangements, of which there are many around the conservation estate, will be one of the more contested areas at select committee. Several iwi have spent years negotiating bespoke arrangements through Treaty settlements, and any move to replace those with a generic statutory framework will be watched closely.

The fast-tracking question is the other live tension. The coalition has already legislated separate fast-track approval powers for major infrastructure, and critics including Forest and Bird have argued the cumulative effect of those changes, combined with the conservation reform now on the table, is to tilt the system away from precaution and toward consent. The government rejects that framing, pointing out that public access remains free, statutory safeguards remain in place, and the new charges target only foreign visitors at a handful of sites.

The bill now heads to first reading and then select committee, where public submissions will open. That will be the moment the abstract debate over five million hectares becomes a series of concrete arguments about specific clauses, and where the political costs and benefits of the reform will start to show up in the polling.

What do you make of the Conservation Amendment Bill, and would charging international visitors at sites like Milford Sound or Tongariro be a fair way to fund the conservation estate? Drop a comment below and let us know how you would balance economic use of conservation land with protection of it.

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