8.9 Environmental Management Systems and the RMA
A number of regional councils are working with agriculture and forestry organisations and companies on the potential of self-regulation under the RMA through the use of environmental management systems. This approach is based on accrediting, and then periodically auditing, the production system for compliance with standards and conditions of interest to the council. This type of approach is considered one that reduces the level of regulatory control on land user's activities, while also giving the regulator the confidence that the environmental outcomes they seek will be achieved.
A recent Ministry for the Environment study looked at regional council and unitary authority policy approaches to land disturbance and vegetation removal activities (Morriss and Workman 1998). It noted that this approach (self regulation through EMS) has merit beyond the forestry industry. Firms in this sector have developed the idea further than in the agricultural or horticultural sectors, as the incentive to reduce the burden of regulatory control is greater in the forestry sector.
However, a number of councils are supporting, in one way or another, the development of environmental farm plans. In some cases, as with Environment Bay of Plenty, the plans are linked to funding of soil conservation works. These programmes are not formal environmental management systems, but have the potential to develop toward that end with some innovative thinking and collaboration with farmer groups.
A key policy issue for all these examples is how to enable EMS' or farm plans to be accredited under the RMA in a way that reduces the need for consents by land users, but continues to provide the certainty needed by councils both environmentally and legally. This will require robust standard conditions for permitted activities. Some council staff believe they will need to be more robust than is currently the case. This issue has been raised in the Ministry for the Environment report and is one that councils are considering.
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