Murewa Rural District Council (Environmental and Natural Resources Conservation) By-laws, 2024

The Minister of Local Government and Public Works has approved comprehensive environmental and natural resources conservation by-laws made by the Murewa Rural District Council under the Rural District Councils Act. They apply throughout the Murewa Rural District Council area.

The by-laws are built around a local environment action plan prepared under section 95 of the Environmental Management Act. Once adopted, that plan can designate grazing areas and set stocking rates and grazing periods; designate cultivation areas and specify who may cultivate, what implements and crops are allowed, crop rotation, noxious weed control, contour ridging, woodlots and the date cultivation must cease pending conservation works; designate natural resource conservation areas; and designate waste management sites.

Enforcement in these early sections follows a pattern: a person who deliberately fails to comply with the plan is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine prescribed by the council, but a first offender may instead be given a written warning, with a fine on any repeat.

Developers carry specific duties. Anyone whose project needs an environmental impact assessment must consult the council during the EIA process, involve it in public consultations with traditional leaders and the community, give it the consultant's details and proof of EMA registration, and lodge both the EIA report and the approved report with the EMA certificate. Starting operations without lodging those documents, or the annual environmental management plan, is an offence. Anyone running a commercial natural resource extraction project, mining included, must lodge a rehabilitation plan and rehabilitate the site before abandonment or closure; failing to rehabilitate is an offence.

The by-laws run to 40 sections and also cover burning of vegetation and fire prevention, invasive alien species, wetland protection, the council's environment committee, sleighs and farming implements, tree cutting, forest produce, collection of gravel, stones, river sand and pit sand, brick making, water source protection, biodiversity, commercial timber logging, wildlife and indigenous plants, fencing, air pollution, solid and effluent waste, waste management plans and enterprises, refuse removal, receptacles, landfills, littering, hazardous substances and toxic chemicals, mining and mineral panning, and genetic resources.

An important limitation on this summary: the extracted text was cut off partway through section 12 of 40, so section 40 ("Offences and penalties") and the schedule of invasive alien species are not in the text that was read. The fine levels are therefore not reproduced here. Note also that where the early sections do describe penalties, they leave the amount to be "prescribed by council" rather than printing a figure — so a resident cannot learn the cost of an offence from the by-laws alone and must ask the council for its schedule of fines.