Kate Graeme was among protesters at the 'March For Nature' demonstration against the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill in June.
“Good things take time.”
That’s how Tauranga’s Kate Graeme sees her election as Forest and Bird’s first woman president in the 101-year history of the conservation organisation.
Graeme is taking on the role at what she describes as one of the most “critical times” for the conservation movement in New Zealand.
She joined the charity – which has more than 100,000 members – 30 years ago, but her involvement dates back even further. Her parents started working for Forest and Bird when she was about 10 years old.
“Conservation has always been an embedded value in me,” Graeme said.
The first female president of Forest and Bird, Kate Graeme joined the organisation 30 years ago.
Graeme said being elected president was a “privilege” and it had been “fantastic” to see the growth in awareness and valuing of New Zealand’s unique natural environment.
She said she viewed the Government’s proposed Fast-Track Approvals Bill as one of New Zealand’s biggest conservation challenges.
It would give three ministers – Chris Bishop, Shane Jones and Simeon Brown – power to make the final call on projects, even if the decision goes against the advice of expert panels. It could also override environmental protection requirements under legislation including the Conservation Act, the Wildlife Act, the Crown Minerals Act and the Resource Management Act.
The Government says the new one-stop-shop consenting regime is needed to cut red tape and long, expensive approval processes, and it is open to making changes to the bill.
Graeme said she believed potentially undermining environmental protections put in place over decades was “fundamentally flawed”with “public input and scientific advice” vital for decision-making regarding the environment.
Forest and Bird representatives had met with politicians to share concerns and the organisation had put through 14,000 submissions opposing the bill.
Graeme said she believed local plans and court decisions that ruled projects too environmentally destructive could be overturned.
Forest and Bird president Kate Graeme attended the March for Nature protest in Auckland.
Graeme said Tauranga only needed to look to its past to see how protecting natural infrastructure was an investment.
She said in the 1980s her parents, Basil and Ann Graeme, advocated against government moves to log 23,000 hectares of native Kaimai Mamaku forest into plantation forestry.
Ann and Basil Graeme received the Distinguished Life Member Award 2023 alongside Kate Graeme, Meg Graeme and Mark Hanger.
After public input, the Government safeguarded the land as a conservation park and she said it was now a piece of “incredibly valuable” infrastructure as it protected the Tauranga Harbour, the farmland, the orchards and the houses downstream of it.
The forest also acted as a water reservoir, and she said as climate change progressed it had become critical for farm irrigation and water supply.
In her view: “You only need to look at the East Cape and Cyclone Gabrielle to see the kind of impact [logging the forest] would have had on our harbour – it would be full of sediment.”
“We are not immune from dumb decision-making and having that community input can be a really positive thing and can stop us from making really silly and costly mistakes,” Graeme said.
Graeme said she was concerned areas classified as stewardship land such as the Ōtānewainuku Forest in Tauranga could be a “prime target” for exploitation under the bill.
The Ōtānewainuku Forest is home to kōkako and kiwi.
Stewardship land is a category of conservation land that was not yet assessed for additional protection, according to the Department of Conservation.
The Ōtānewainuku Forest was maintained and protected by the community and was home to kōkako and kiwi.
RMA Reform and Infrastructure Minister Bishop said the “one-stop shop approvals bill” would cut red tape and make it easier for New Zealand to build the infrastructure and major projects needed, including renewable energy projects and climate resilience infrastructure, to get the country moving again – and it would do this while protecting the environment.
Minister for Infrastructure and RMA Reform Chris Bishop. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
“The regime is built on the existing fast-track process, which was put in place by the previous Labour Government. If the Government selects a project to be fast-tracked, it will go to an expert panel of resource consent experts to attach environmental conditions and rules to the project,” he said.
“The bill is currently before the Environment Committee. We are open to sensible changes.”
Minister for Regional Development Shane Jones and Minister for Transport Simeon Brown were approached for comment.
Harriet Laughton is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty.
