Toha’s submission to NZ Government’s biodiversity credits consultation

Toha NZ submitted recently on the New Zealand Government's consultation on a biodiversity credits system. This was one of three consultations in 2023 with major implications for climate change and land use policy in Aotearoa. The other two were on New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme and its Permanent Forest Category.

We urgently need a coherent approach to these policy instruments to address the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and community wellbeing. Consequently, Toha treated these three submissions as an integrated whole. You can find the latter two submissions as an appendix to the first.

The submissions cover a lot of ground, but here are three key themes;

🌱  Urgency is critical. Our landscapes need regeneration action, as much as possible, as soon as possible.

 🌱 Policy should enable and empower landowners to make the right land-use decisions for future generations. It should work *with* mana motuhake, not against it.

 🌱 The desire for a more resilient future is growing by the day – we need to improve the design of our policy and market systems to unleash that potential.