Northland Regional Council has adopted the Regional Policy Statement that has been four years in the making, entailed hundreds of meetings and attracted thousands of public submissions.
As recommended by the panel of independent commissioners after a long process of submitters' hearings and review, Northland's over-arching resource management document now contains a precautionary statement regarding the use of genetically engineered material in the environment. It does not address liability for GE accidents.
It calls for improved water quality but does not include mining-specific provisions, saying other frameworks - such as water quality - were adequate for assessing mining proposals.
On Tuesday, the council members present to adopt the document that chairman Craig Brown called "a milestone" acknowledged while they had reservations over some of its parts, in essence the sum of its whole was probably as good as it gets - that is, without going back to an expensive and time-consuming drawing board.
Graeme Ramsey described the GE component as "a badly balanced compromise".