Farming the conservation estate — a fight for common sense | EP 92

Many farmers say DOC’s grazing system has become so restrictive that it’s putting the very landscapes it aims to protect at risk. In this episode, West Coast farmer Simon Cameron and North Otago farmer James Hurst discuss the growing red tape around conservation grazing, the consequences of removing farmers from the land, and why they believe a common-sense reset is urgently needed. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Farmers have been grazing parts of New Zealand's conservation estate for generations, helping manage weeds, reduce fire risk, and maintain some of the country's most iconic hobby country landscapes. But in recent years, many say it's become hammer and hammer to keep doing that work. Federation Farmers has been pushing the government to formally recognise managed grazing as a conservation tool and to bring more consistency and common sense to the Department of Conservation's grazing licence system. On the podcast today, we're talking to two farmers dealing with these challenges firsthand. Simon Cameron farms in Hamas, and he's Federated Farmers Meat and Wool Vice Chair, as well as a member of our High Country leadership team. Joining him is James Hearst, who farms in our local North O'Tonnegan, and he serves as Federated Farmers Meat and Wool Chair in that province. Today we're talking about grazing licences, conservation land, and why these farmers say that managed grazing is critical to the future of the high country. Let's get into it. Hey guys, thanks very much for joining us on the podcast to talk about these grazing concessions. James, let's start with you. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your farming operation, please? Like where are you farming? What sort of country are you on and what are you running?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Yes, I've been farming since I left school and spent eight years farming in Amerriman in the high country before coming back to the um family farm on the Wataki Plains. Uh it's owned by my father, Russell. Uh we have about two and a half thousand hectares of irrigation. Uh it's pretty much all flats. Uh milking 3,100 cows through four sheds. Uh my two brothers are contract milking those. We have two and a half thousand merino weavers uh grazing uh irrigation races and uh walnut orchard, and we do a few hundred nurse cows rearing Frisian bulls. What kind of orchard did you say? Uh walnuts. Quite a diverse operation. Yeah, so we've got uh a young walnut orchard and some mature ones, and there'll be about 30 hectares once we finish that.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

And Simon, what about you? I know we we've had you on the podcast before, but for anyone who hasn't heard, tell us about where you're farming.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Uh yeah, so I grew up in Kaikora, actually, all places, but now down um farming in South Westland, down in Haas. Um we live on the north side of the Turnbull River. I'm a partner Courtney and I, and our two young children, we've got Pippa and Chloe. Um, yeah, and we've spread over a couple of river valleys down here between us and Courtney's family. We we farm the Okuro, Turnbull, Waitoto, uh Jackson Rivers, and as well as the mouth of the Arawada. Um so from the bridge down pretty much. We brought this neighbouring farm about three years in partnership with Courtney's family and all beef operation and yeah, no sheep.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

How sorry, how long have you been down there farming in Haast?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I came to Haast in 2016, I think it was, um, working on the helicopters, doing venison recovery for a local helicopter operator here, which I still do a bit of um here and and out over on the other side, central Otago and that. But you've been farming here since about we brought this place and twenty took over in twenty end of twenty, sorry mid-23, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Hey, so let's start with the basics, Simon, because not everybody listening to this will understand this whole system, what we're going to talk about. What exactly are grazing concessions?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

A dog grazing concession, I suppose there's a couple of things that most of them are grazing licenses. So a grazing concession would be would be more favourable. A lot of the issues come around grazing licenses. Grazing license has usually got a term of 10 years or less. You can apply to go to 15, but under the the current ruling um for a 15-year grazing licence, it has to be publicly notified, or anything over 10 years is publicly notified. Yeah, no rider renewal. You've you've got no um sort of rights to that land other than just to graze it, but um everyone else, you know, is public conservation land, so they you've got backrafters, fishermen, hunters, etc., all wrapped into one, which is great, but it just I think there needs to be a wee bit more of a facilitator's role in that.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Yeah, which is what we're going to get into. So what's the difference between a concession and a license?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

If you usually had a grazing concession, generally uh they'd be a bit longer term if you were lucky enough. They're very, very rare. And if you have got one, you won't get it renewed, it'll be transferred into a license pretty much under the current um scheme. There's I know of a couple that have got like a 30-year term. Under the current regime, I wouldn't see them being renewed as that, yeah. Just because of the way the rules are written.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

And would everybody with a grazing license, would they automatically you know, are they are they all high country farmers or not necessarily?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

No, not necessarily. No, I think there's a wide range of uses for them. You know, I wouldn't we probably don't consider ourselves high country farmers here, you know, because we're not really. We wouldn't be over 500 metres at any part of our operation, but we're very similar in the in the sense of the I guess some of the policies that we're up against. Um stock exclusion, for example, was one of those. Yeah, it was good to get the one to keep to touch. But yeah, there's look, there's a lot of high country farmers that probably have little parcels of dock land under a grazing license.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

James, how much of the land that you're farming on is public conservation land under a dock license or concession?

SPEAKER_03 5:48

Uh so we did have um 85 hectares that was it's all flat land next to the Wataki River that was um was leased. Uh we're now down to 32 hectares of that. And what about you, Simon?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure of the total hectare, but it's um our whole operation probably expands, so it does expand over some 120 to 150 kilometres of river there or thereabouts. Hectare-wise, challenging question. Pretty much got little parts of um little bits of freehold out the front, the main block being where we live, which is 900 hectares of freehold, and then yeah, these grazing licenses, they just expand up the val up the valley.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

How many different licenses?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Oh, I couldn't even tell you that. There's a lot. I'd have to pull out the thing and have a look at it. There's yeah, be over 15 or 20 anyway.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Oh right. So they and they can be coming up for a renewal on a rolling basis?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Mostly they're in sync, but that's um in fact most of the community, like most of South Westland's pretty well in the in sync to a degree, which was kind of a good thing. We set up a catchment group to sort of try and get everyone to go through the renewal process together, which has had a bit of strength, and and we're dealing with fees, you know, because we think the fees could probably be a bit more realistic given the circumstances of a grazing license here at the moment. So it's an ongoing conversation.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

James, from a farmer's perspective, what's the biggest problem with the system at the moment? You talked about how you'd lost um part of that land recently. Can you talk a bit about that and you know how it's affected you personally?

SPEAKER_03 7:29

About 16 years ago, there was um a whole block of 85 hectares. It was all gorse and willows, um, had no uh public benefit at all. So my granddad and I um we cleared all that gorse and willows, fenced it. Uh 32 hectares we put into border dike irrigation, you know, all at our own cost, fenced off the waterways and planted natives around all that. And then there's no right of renewal to the leases. We're running on sort of three-year lease terms, uh the hot longest we had was five years. And then they just came back and decided that they no longer wanted to lease it and they just want to let it become um wild native again, uh um biodiversity reasons. But uh when it's only engorse and willows there's not much biodiversity there. And like when we cleared it, the only public use it was getting was um illegal marijuana plots. So at least we're actually you know looking after it. And yeah, it's all good productive land. And the biggest problem is trying to get those leases renewed. And I have another farmer in North Otago that spent just under three years trying to renew his lease um for a piece that he dairy farms on. And he only got a five-year lease with no rider renewal after spending just under three years on it.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

How much do you reckon you spent on that bit of land?

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Just the boundary fence we put in, which we did a deer fence with rabbit netting to keep all the deer and pigs and poachers out. That was forty-eight grand. And then you got water troughs and other fencing, and then all you know, we had three diggers going for six months to clear all the gorse and willow trees. Plus, if you put it into border dykes, it's a lot more too. But so we probably did, you know, get a bit carried away with infrastructure considering the lease was quite short, but it was sort of in our minds that there was no reason for them to take it back and um not let it be farmed.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

When that licence was taken away from you, what did you do with all that infrastructure?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

They literally actually only just gave us a month's notice. It was last year, and so we went back and said, no, we're planning on wintering there, we need it for winter feed. Uh so they extended the dryland stuff to the end of winter. Um we've since removed all the internal fences and water troughs from that. And then they've given us one more year on the uh border dike um stuff, and so when we're finished there, we'll just have to remove the fences and um water troughs. But at this stage we're um refusing to take down the boundary fence because it um big deer netting fence that keeps out all the deer and pests, and you know, the last thing we want is to take that down and then let all the deer and pigs come back in.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

You seem pretty calm about it, but you must uh it m it must have been pretty infuriating when you got that news.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

To us it's uh in the sc scale of our farm, it is only a small area. Um but it's it it it's more just you're hitting your head against a brick wall and watching the land go to waste and it'll just you know, the stuff that we haven't grazed in the last year is now waste-high grass that hasn't been chewed off. If anyone drops a match out there, it's just gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Simon, what's going on here? Like what why can the people making these decisions not see how the land goes backwards when you remove farming from it?

SPEAKER_00 11:06

One of the biggest problems with Doc is it's becomes such a big, big organization. You know, I think they last time I looked they had some around somewhere around 3,000 staff marks. So the the amount of people that are actually making these decisions that would probably go and actually see what James has just described there would be minimal. You know, I've always said that the people on the ground that we deal with at our local offices that are actually out and about, you know, boots on the ground, they're really good to deal with and they they have a common interest with us. They want to see the place in um in its best state. You know, most, I'd say a hyper, you know, into 90% of the people that I've spoken to on the ground support grazing and and what we're doing. Also at the other end of the spectrum, at the very top of Doc, a lot of the people that we meet with in Wellington and the Minister now, um, you know, they're completely on board, they totally get it too. But there's this huge chunk of um staff in the middle. They don't get out and about, you know, they and the permissions team and and they have their own opinion on what should be done with the conservation estate. And I think that's where you see these challenges. You know, what James has just described there is just madness. And I think those are parcels of land that the department should be getting rid of. It's got no conservation value at whatsoever. It's obviously um handy and and useful to James's family and their farming operation. Sell it to them. Get rid of it. Like it's just a these parcels of land, especially little blocks like that, they're just a burden to the New Zealand taxpayer. Like, let's have let's we just desperately need some common sense back here, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

You've said repeatedly that docs become increasingly restrictive over time. For how long has that been going on for that they've big you know, been tightening up the controls and what changes have you seen personally over the years?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I can't go all the way back, but I I think it'd be fair enough to say that from Doc's inception in 1987, it's been a pretty continual glide pass from there, you know, that they've just continued to ramp it up. You know, I'd quite often use the example of like Molesworth that was initially set up in the 40s as a uh a land and water restoration project because it was literally just shingle rabbits and rabbit shit and a little bit of scenery. And um Bill Chisholm, he'd he laid them laid the foundations and started building the frames, and his son-in-law um carried it on, Don Reed, you know, and they did a fantastic job. They and they managed it all the way through and got back to to carrying, you know, wintering 10,000 cattle was a it was a great unit, and it um it wiped its own face. Doc took over in 2005, and and you know, they've just been continually restrictive of it all the way through. And I think we're gonna see more of that now. This is getting a wee bit off subject, but it's this anti-grazing, you know, farming's bad um sort of rhetoric that is damaging to us in the real big teller on a on a especially South Island wide scale is ten the process called tenure review. You know, over the last 30 odd years, we've watched a lot of land be retired from high country farmers because it was so spectacular and it was, you know, it was a picture, it was um every part of it was a was its own postcard, really. And um and now you look at those parcels that have been retired. And I've actually challenged the department, go out there, find their piece of land that was retired through tenure review that looks better now than what it did when the farmer had it. And it's been crickets every time. Yeah, I've been asking that question for three years. No one's ever provided me an example where that land looks better. And there's a lot of examples, you don't have to go far to find them where it's black and white, where it looks terrible. I mean, that constant restrictive nature and the farming is bad is is challenging. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Explain what how that's played out for you personally with your grazing licenses um over time. Like what sort of roadblocks have you faced? Like, if you can really spell that out for us.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I guess for us personally, we're we're probably in a fortunate state at the moment where all ours are um, you know, we're we're getting through the renewals and and ours are there, but I'm very mindful of the fact that, you know, it's only just it's not that I don't have to go far to find examples of guys that are in the exact same situation as us and the same farming system as us, and they're having parcels recommended for decline. Or, you know, the neighbour, he's he's had uh 740 hectare parcel of land taken off him. And for what reason? Because they couldn't fence a section of bush. Well, you know, I'm sorry, it's just the cattle don't eat bush, they eat grass. They live out in the valley floor. They might walk into the into the scrub for a bit of shelter or shade or whatever, but that's we're quite lucky in that regard, I guess. But yeah, it's certainly yeah, you get a bit hot under the collar when you when you get going about it, because it's um you know, this these parts of the land they've been grazed for 150 years mostly. The biodiversity and the conservation values exist because of it, not in spite of James.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

What you've been through, are there do you know a lot of farmers experien you know who have experienced the same thing? Simon's talking about guys over there on the west coast. What about you?

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yeah, and you know some are up in arms and want to fight it, and then others that have finally managed to get their lease, just sort of they're happy they got their lease and just want to sit quietly and not upset upset the nest, sort of thing. But yeah, there's heaps of cases of people that uh just watching this land next to them, you know, become a fire hazard, all the deer running across the fence and you know, not being looked after. But then there's other cases where people have managed to get a grazing on it, um, normally after a fire or something's happened.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

You guys aren't talking about this just because you want to, you know, sort of increase your operation, make more money, right? Like there's a there's a definite like conservation focus here and a stewardship focus, right? Like actually looking after that land.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Totally. Yep. The financial gains in this are minimal. That realistically, 99% of what we're talking about, we're talking about summer grazing. You know, a lot of the stuff that, for example, was retired through a tenure review, that's only good for summer grazing. So it's only can be really grazed through the summer months. You know, but we're certainly not talking about intensive farming operations and and all the rest of it. There's uh ever going, as James has highlighted too, the the weed and pest problems that come from these parcels of land onto freehold land that, you know, doc's already complaining that they don't have enough money to do their national programs. Well yeah. We've seen a little shift in that just around wild and pines, which we shout out there to the team getting a pretty major win there. And um credit to a lot of other parties involvement in that too. But yeah, I mean, you don't have to go far to find these issues.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

You're saying that the the dark guys, the dark people on the ground that you're dealing with mostly understand it and are supportive. And same with the likes of Minister Portucker, but then you've got this big group of bureaucrats in the middle who don't get it. What's going on there? Uh is it the restrictive nature of what's going on, is that being driven by evidence and science, or is it by ideology?

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I think there's there's evidence and science, and they will be looking at that, but their interpretation of it versus real-world scenario is two different things. You know, I think everybody intends to do well. I don't think that these people are intending to just deliberately cause people angst and frustration, I guess, within their operations, but they'd probably genuinely believe in what they're doing. However, like I always come back to the fact if you if you go right back, say early 1900s to mid-1900s through to 90s and to now, it's a real clear picture because there was, you know, we had really, really bad rabid infestations, um, deer uh population was out of control. You move forward into the 50s, 60s, and we got the pastoral lease system sorted. In 1948, that came in. From 48 through to the 90s, that land was, you know, we've never given the pastoral leasees the credit that they deserve for what they did from overrun barren land that was blowing away in the wind to rest to the restoration that sort of unfolded from there all with a bit of top dressing and oversowing and and housing a few merinos, etc., right up to the nineties, where the place just looked the picture. And then from the nineties through to now, we've retired it through tenure review, and it's it's only taken twenty or thirty years to absolutely turn to custody in, and we're right back square one, we've gone full circle. And so my point is actually stop looking at the book that the lecturer gave you at university and actually have a little bit more of a look at what's happened over the last, you know, 100-120 years here in this country.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

James, how closely do you work or have you worked with doc staff on the ground?

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Sort of depends what staff you get. Um like some of the ones that turn up on the ground are great and you know they've got heaps of common sense. But like a good example of the ones in the office that just don't have a clue, like our first lease agreement um obviously had that we were to control the gorse, but then it had clauses in there that we weren't allowed to clear, burn, or spray. And so it doesn't give you any option to do the first of clearing the gorse. And so they're just that out of touch, some of them, that it um makes it very frustrating to have to deal with them.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Is it a challenge to actually get them out there on the land and see this stuff in in person?

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Yeah, well, for the likes of us, when it's only a small wee parcel that's tucked away in the river, you know, trying to get someone all the way down um on ground to have a look at which it is really hard. And then you don't know who's going to turn up either.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

What's your sense, James, uh, around what's driving this increasing restriction? Is it do you think there's a lot of ideology and sort of perceptions around or misperceptions around farming?

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yeah, uh sort of you're getting one opinion from the government where they're saying that they wanted to open this land up, but then you sort of get the different opinion from the staff and their opinions of not wanting to um have grazing in it.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Simon Dox pointed out that as of March 2026, there were 460 active grazing concessions covering nearly 350,000 hectares. And only about 1% of applications have been fully declined. So to someone listening at home, that might not sound too bad, right? Where's the disconnect here? What's the the real issue that farmers are facing?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Because they decline these applications before you even Actually, can put an application in, or they won't even accept an application. They'll just fire it back to you and say no. So it doesn't actually go in for processing. Trust me, I've had several of them. So that that's it's all well and good saying that only 1% of the ones that actually go through the system get declined. But largely, like if you were to go down to your local dock office and say, hey, I want to farm, I want to um apply for a grazing license on this area here, it's whether it be 50 hectares or a thousand hectares or whatever, might be 10,000 hectares. Chances are they'll just say, no, you can't do that. That's special, da-da-da-da-da. It's got this conservation value, no, you can't do it. And so that turns 99% of the people away. And then you get, or say, 90% of the people away, and you get the 10% who persist a bit further, actually actually do go in, find the paperwork themselves on the internet, fill the application in, um, and and submit it. Like I've had them turn around and just fired back to me and said, no, we're we're not processing this. And on several occasions I've I've gone, I've applied for it, you legally have to process it. And now for a grazing license that's been grazed for 150 years, you submit it and you hear nothing for months, but within 24 hours, they say, yep, no, we've looked at this, we've processed it, declined, $3,000 bill.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

What does that kind of uncertainty mean for you guys when you're farming? I mean, how are you how are you supposed to farm with any confidence or invest in fencing tracks, pest control, or other improvements when you don't even know if you're going to get your license renewed?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

I think from province to province it's a wee bit different, right? But grazing licenses are quite they're larger areas here in South Westland and they're a lot more common than probably here more so than anywhere else around the country. A lot of other people, say in Otaga or whatever, you'd find more commonly like what James is talking about, smaller parcels that are scattered down the Waitaki River or somewhere around them. And for us over here, I guess we've gone not too bad because we've we've literally gotten this time around for the renewals, we've gotten everyone together and we're we've um we've dealt with it as a team. And I I feel like we've done a lot better in that in regards to that this time. So the uncertainty probably isn't so bad, but it's it's you know, you get through it this round, it's that knowing that in ten years' time you've got to go through it again. And there's a fair bit of uncertainty comes into that. Do you know what I mean? And if you don't have that certainty, there's you're not going to invest the same amount of money in weed and pest control. You know, we're we would happily spend a lot more money on pest control ourselves. If one, it was easy enough to do, because even you try to do that and they can be challenging with that anyway, just the processing times get back to you. But two, the big one, like you say, that it's only a 10-year grazing licence. So, you know, if you're going to go invest all this money, you're not actually going to make it back. And so you but unfortunately it's incentivizing in a lot of ways, it incentivizes people to go the other way and just run your cattle, whatever it can handle, or your sheep, and just just take from it and and not give it anything.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah, so you touched on something interesting there about the restrictions around pest management. And James, you talked about restrictions around what you could do with gorse control. So can you guys talk a bit about what some of those uh restrictions are in terms of the day-to-day farming on these bits of land? Because mostly we've just been talking about actually getting the license and and being able to renew it. But day to day, what roadblocks do you face?

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Well, for likes of the one that we had that uh with irrigation on it, um, obviously we had it in border dike and that's got to be phased out. And so we were trying to work with Doc to um uh with our water license to put some infrastructure on there. Um, and they wouldn't allow us to put pivots on, so um, that's fine. That's quite a big investment for us to put on a leased land. But even like a travelling irrigator and that for us to invest in pumps and that with no certainty, um, you know, we've got the water consent to put water on it. Um, but yeah, it's just can't justify investing in infrastructure and for a small lesson.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah, what about you, Simon?

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I guess for us it's probably also it's a bit of a tricky question in a sense, like it is restrictive, uh, and it says in our grazing licenses, you know, that you have to maintain the weeds and pests, they inspect the valley. If they find something wrong, they tell you you've got to go and do it. Um we have actually been lucky in this last sort of few years, we've experienced it being not too bad in the sense that with the catchment group and um and obviously local feds, we've had not too many sort of roadblocks here in terms of being able to go and spray gross in in bits and pieces. I have had the odd um challenging uh or challenge with it, but nationally, you you know, you look nationwide, and there's a lot of guys that have done a lot of work in weed and pest control and are still being punished by the department and other, you know, and have lost, you know, in some cases, 400 hectares of grazing. And it just you as farmers, I think the the key thing is that we're always wanting the best for the land. Like if you don't look after the land, it doesn't look after you, and it's a lose-lose. So for it for in order to to you to benefit from it, the land has to benefit. And and if they're not going to encourage that and allow these people to do it, or they when uh say a farmer does invest in it, but then they go and punish them by taking another chunk of land off them, you know, you it just continues to push the whole thing in the wrong direction and and everything sort of goes backwards. Um but you know, you do hear horror stories of you know guys seeking permission to to um to spray weeds or control pests, you know, like even if you're gonna go in here and and do possums, you you've got to get a um you know, you've got to get a permit from local dock office to go and do it. And to be fair, they will give it to you. But I think that's where it comes into that facilitator role too, because uh for five weeks of the year, four or five weeks of the year, all the land that we have, or 90% of the land that we have a grazing license over is ballotted for raw blocks. And you have parties of you know up to four or six guys go into some 75 hunting blocks, and they all think that they're in there and there's no one else going to be there, and and it's they own the show for the week and they'll shoot anything that moves. Um, but some are completely opposite, they don't shoot any dear, um, but they get upset when they see a pet grafter or a fisherman or or us in there mustering our cattle out. So there's a the communication thing's a bit broken, you know, and people are often disappointed. I've been long time advocating that if the people that go into the any part of the for any reason, the land that we graze our cattle on, if they have to talk to me, I can tell them, hey, yeah, there's some pat grafters coming through on Wednesday, there's some fishermen going in on doing this, there's hunters there for the week, and we might be in getting our cattle out on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the weather. If everybody knows what's going on, they're happy. When no, but when everyone's surprised, everyone's unhappy. And which is a shame. I want people to come here and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

You recently said that you've had a guts full of the restrictions, you know, across, you know, the wider group of farmers who are grazing, you know, under these licenses. But you said that walking away isn't an option for you. What why not?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

The frustration is, um, for a bit of context for the listeners, is that I've had so many phone calls and messages from around the country from people that have heard these interviews and and read articles and they've reached out to me. And there's just so many scenarios where people are battling with the department, you know, and in a lot of cases, you know, having their grazing licenses taken off them because it's, quote, in the public interest, when I don't think the public's ever been consulted or ever complained on it. That frustrates me because these people that and their families, they've been on the land in some cases for for over 150 years, and they've looked after it this whole time. And you you're always feeling like people are just at you and trying to kick you out of doing what you're doing, and when you're doing a bloody good job and looking after it. Walking away isn't an option because um for me personally, it's the people that have been here before us, and they've enabled, um, they've given us the opportunity to to live where we live, farm where we farm, and and the lifestyle that we lead. And you know, we welcome everyone to come and enjoy it. But yeah, walking away isn't an option for the likes of those people that have been here before us and given us that opportunity. But you know, it's um the land deserves it and the people for us deserve it to to carry on. I know I want my kids to be able to enjoy what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

James, some people hear the words public conservation land and automatically think farming shouldn't be happening there at all. What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Nowhere else in the world um excludes herbivores from nature. If it's untouched and unmanaged, it just you know, it gets out of control and just becomes you know, it's the strongest pest or strongest weed takes over. Um we're not talking about clearing native bush or anything like that. This is you know, high country of tussocks and grasses and you know, wasted land of course, and um, yeah, it's more about looking after the land than uh anything.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Simon, so Federated Farmers wrote to about five MPs just recently asking that managed grazing be formally recognised as an essential conservation tool. Can you explain exactly how grazing helps with things like weeds and biodiversity and fire risk?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah, there's a couple of parts in that. First thing is that obviously grazing, um, for example, weathers at the right time of the year will go and selectively pick out wilding pine seedlings just as they're coming through. And that's crucial because if they get them really early on and they go and pick them off, they have a good chance of either one actually killing that seedling. But even if they don't kill it, they actually they do do a great job of suppressing it. And as we try and get on top of the problem with wilding pines, it's just another tool in the toolbox that's slowing the spread down. Like a wilding contorter can spread, start spreading its own seed in as little as three, three and a half years. Um, the second part of that I would say is that if there's managed grazing on an area of land, that means there's people with boots on the ground, you know, they're they're walking along behind the mob of sheep or a mob of cattle on foot or on the horse, and they see there's a gorse bush or a broombush or a wilding pine, they notice it's you know, there's a wheat patch there, we need to come and get on with that. And you can you they that you see it so much you know, a lot earlier on, and you can deal with it immediately. And like I said earlier, it's um everyone cares for the land. If you're not caring for it, it's not going to care for you. So there's just there's a whole lot of benefits in that. Um, and just having boots on the ground. And we're not really being paid to be there. Whereas, you know, the other option is we have to fork out up to $830 million a year of taxpayers' money to the Department of Conservation to try and manage 8.6 million hectares. I think this is a key point of this is that there's there's 8.6 million hectares that needs managing. It's a hell of a workforce you get an employee to do that at a direct cost to the taxpayer. And there's not a lot of funds there at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

One bit of land, a large bit of land that you've referenced a few times as St. James, as an example of land that's gone backwards since grazing was removed. What are the lessons that policymakers should take from a place like St. James?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

I should go on and have a look at it with somebody who's familiar with that land with some photos of what it looked like when it was retired, and go and have a look at it now. I mean, the wilding pines, broom and gorse, you name it, it's there. It's spreading. It's um it's a massive fire risk. At the end of the day, it was a an actively farmed um area of land and and uh left unchecked. You know, the grass just grows up and dies off and just sits there as a fire risk. Combine that with wilding pines. You know, like I've said this several times. New Zealand hasn't seen a proper wildfire yet. And when we do, it's going to be devastating to watch. We just don't have the infrastructure here to deal with one. I keep saying this, and I just I really, really hope we can turn these things around because the fire risk on the conservation estate is huge. I mean, look at the Central North Island last year. You know, that's that's a classic example. Personally, I think though, lucky that there's there's no one in that area or buildings in that area, and it was even relatively somewhat of slower-moving type of fire. If you get a big hot northwest in Otago or Marlborough, and there's plenty of plenty of fuel in front of it, look out. You just won't get near it with the helicopters that we've got in this country.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Let's get down to brass stacks then. What needs to change? So, Simon, if you could change three things about the concession uh the the grazing license system today, what would they be?

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Public notification, term of tenure, and um and the ability to be to have your application actually assessed on its merits. You know, because there's been a lot of scenarios where you you submit a an application to graze, say, retired land even, or even to be fair, even in a renewal, and you could submit that with a respected um ecologist report, and they they s they will not assess it on that. They get their own ecologists to do a report and they assess it on that, and it's biased, if you ask me. So I'd like to see those things, three things shift. I think with the amendment bill coming, we will see a bit of that. But I think that the Department of Conservation, to answer your question, is you know, that it's they should be in charge of conservation. They shouldn't be administrating land that should be grazed. You know, so if it can be grazed, give it back to Linz and put it in a pastoral lease. That's what the pastoral lease was set up for. And from, like I've said earlier in this interview, from 1948 through to the 90s, we've seen one of the greatest restoration projects in the high country that this country's ever seen. So we know it works. Just let people who know what they're doing get back to looking after the land.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Just backtrack a bit, those three things. So the third one was about, you know, assessing applications on their merit, but the first two you kind of skipped through. So the public notification one, just explain what that means. Because some people might not know what that is.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

If you apply for a grazing license and you apply for a term of over 10 years, then it goes to public notification. If you apply for a period of 10 years or less, it doesn't have to be publicly notified. And the problem with public, and that might sound a wee bit shifty, but like, oh, what are you trying to hide that you don't want to publicly see? Well, if it goes to public notification, it gets opened up to likes of um federated mountain climbers, Forest and Bird, and Walking Access New Zealand and and all these people, they don't live here. They actually, I've never seen a member of any of those groups where I am. But there's, you know, you might get 12,000 signatures from them from Auckland and Wellington and Christchurch or Dunedin, all against what you do. And that's how, you know, 740 hectares up the road here was was taken off the local um farm here because it's that was the case. We meant public notification got destroyed. And um yeah, we were just outnumbered when, you know, and I look at it now and it's just you know, there's the department, the New Zealand taxpayer has to pay for a helicopter to come down and spray all the weeds on it. Whereas if it was farmed, the farmer would do it.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Your point is that public notification shouldn't even be factored, and they shouldn't even be part of this process. Yeah. And what was the second point you made?

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Tenure. The tenure should be longer, you know, like ten. If the maximums you're allowed to apply for is fifteen years, well, that's still not long enough either. You know, in a in a lot of cases now. For example, if I was to take on St. James, I wouldn't take it on for a term of less than 30 years. Because the amount of money you'd need to spend to start trying to get on top of the weed problem there, you just you simply you just spend your life losing money. Yeah. So you need you need a decent term so that you can actually have a decent budget and it needs to match your mortgage, really. And uh you can go there and do the job properly. And we're not, you know, you would have noticed at no point in this conversation with either of us have we said about excluding the public from this land. It's just if we want to actually look after it and it and it worked for all parties, then you need a facilitator there that has a decent um term to be on the ground and and make a change and and facilitate all these people coming and going. And, you know, again, not stopping anyone coming, I encourage them to come, but I also encourage them to talk to the person who's in who's on there every day, the farmer, professional steward of land, and um communicate with them.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

James, what do you think a successful partnership model between farmers and doc looks like?

SPEAKER_03 39:29

It's really just where a farmer can help um manage the land and look after it for them so that we're saving them cost. And you know, as as Simon said, and I've said it, you know, if we can make enough of it by grazing it to um pay for some weed spray and pest management, um, you know, it's uh it's none of these lands are going to make heaps of money, but it'll make enough to look after itself. Yeah, and then just working in together to look after it.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Seems like there's a lack of trust here in farmers A to actually look after the land and like trust that farmers actually care about stewarding the land.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Well, we have been slated, you know, not just in this in regards to this subject, but we have been slated in the media for a couple of decades now, and it's um it's unfortunate really because I I refer to farmers as a professional steward of land, and in every scenario that I've seen of um, you know, especially sheep and beef farmers in in the high country and hill country, they do an outstanding job of looking after it. And the QE2 Covenant thing, that's a great example of how a lot of people have looked after a lot of biodiversity, and it comes back to that conversation, you know, is the biodiversity does it and the conservation values, do they exist because of the grazing or in spite of? And and I think they and exist because of, not in spite of. I also say quite often that, you know, if I could have every single Kiwi who you know calls New Zealand home currently, what's there, five, five and a half million of us, if I could personally take them on a tour and show them and explain it to them, I would, but um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Unfortunately, you done harsh. That's one of the one of the harder places to get people to, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they don't have a bus that big either.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

James, are we seeing any signs that the government is starting to listen? You know, Simon was talking there about some some good sort of momentum there with the minister. Um, what what exactly are we seeing shift?

SPEAKER_03 41:30

Well, I've seen the big shift towards the pine trees in the last couple days. Um, you know, that's been a great one. Um, and I think the government is starting to listen that this land does need manage better, and there's just no money in the budget for managing the whole lot. And so um, but I just think the the dock staff themselves are in a disconnect with the government and aren't getting the same message.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Completely agree with James. And I think in talking to both sides, you know, the the real strength of feds is that we are welcome on both sides of the house in Wellington and and we've you know we've got an open door um to all of the relevant ministers' um offices and and we've spent a lot of time in there not bashing our fists on the table. I mean, we've done that occasionally when we need to, but um, we actually, you know, you get in there and you have these conversations with them, and and I'm you know, I'm I'm hopeful that the bipartisan approach is is becoming more and more possible as time goes on, but we need to keep these conversations going. Um the government of the day, I think they certainly get it. I think there's a fair few um on the other side that are starting to get it, but there's a couple of key ones there that have got they've got a wee ways to go yet. We're gonna have to spend a bit more time with them to to show them a few examples and and explain things a bit more to them. But um, you know, there's certainly, you know, they're all respectable people and uh they are certainly listening to us. And they at the end of the day, the the key thing there is that they're still willing to talk to us about it.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Have you had the chance to chat with a guy like Steve Abel?

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, spoken to Steve Abel several times and um, you know, he's uh I don't know if I should say this or not. He might he might ring me up and tell me off. But hey, look, I've said to him, I said, look, wilding pines, for example, are a huge issue, and some strategic managed grazing would help massively in terms of winning this battle. And he said he agreed, you know, in the right place. But you know, he gets it. Um again, we're not talking about intensive and highly intensive farming. We're talking about, you know, strategic summer grazing with merino sheep or you know, if small number of cows spread over large area and a valley floor kind of thing, you know, and yeah. So guys like Steve Abel on that side are key to this going forward, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Hey, you you mentioned something before which I just wanted to pick up on. It sounded like you were saying that all of this uh land currently sort of being grazed under grazing licenses should be passed over to Linz. Is that is that pretty much what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yeah, I mean that would be the golden ticket if we could put it back to a partial lease. And you know, partial lease, you've got 33 years, um, the petrol rider renewal, um, you've got 11 year rent reviews, etc. Um, it's yeah it's a bit more realistic. You still don't own it. The Crown still owns it, but it's um, you know, you've got certainty, just a consistent agreement. I mean, at the end of the day, the short message of that is that the Department of Conservation should be looking after conservation land, that that should be their priority. They've got way too much on their plate. You know, as much as it's easy to sit here and say that middle layer of DOC are are performing very, very poorly, at the end of the day they've got 8.6 million hectares to try and manage with 800 and or it's probably less than that. And I think there's a budget announcement coming out here shortly. So I'm looking forward to seeing what's in there for Doc. But um I'm not gonna lie, I think you'd get better conservation outcomes if you if you cut their budget back to 450 million to be fair. Actually get them back to doing what they're supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yeah like one of the things you touched on before is the Conservation Act amendment bill um which should be before the House by the election. Talk about what kind of opportunity that presents to sort out some of these problems and the role that federated farmers will will play in that.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

All of these problems we've certainly got a unique opportunity to feed into all of them and um and really lead that discussion with a common sense approach, I guess. I very much welcome the opportunity to do it and and um congratulate the minister on on stepping forward with that amendment bill. There's a lot in there from the tenure to the public notification um how it's all framed. You know, one of the big challenges is that you have like a conservation management strategy in every province. They've only got a shelf life of 10 years. I don't think there's any of them that are probably current. They're often 10 years overdue before they actually get renewed and it's a confusing overcomplicated system that was you know hasn't hasn't really had any major overhaul since 1987 when Doc was formed.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

So it's time that it got modernized um technology's come a long way and and we've learnt a lot since then so I think there's a lot in there and feds will play a key part in submitting and um and being that chain of communication between the affected parties and the department and and submitting appropriately when you look at the situation and the possibility of positive change coming do you feel like you're sort of glass half full or glass half empty we how optimistic are you?

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Yeah no look you've got to be glass half full yeah if you're looking at glass half empty and anything in life then you're wasting your time if you ask me you've got to no matter how dark the day is you've got to see the light at the end of the tunnel somewhere and yeah I'm hopeful. You know look we've got a new um director general um and Peter Crisp at the Department of Conservation and I haven't met him yet but I've heard a lot of good things. I was actually just chatting with the PM about that the other day he seems like a great guy. He's um got a great reputation and and plenty of experience. So I think all of these things I think we're shifting in the right direction but um you could question how how well Feds is performing and on a subject like this. You know, like I say the Department of Conservation has has peaked at about an $830 million organisation employing over 3,000 staff. So to to try and sort all these issues out or challenges that's a that's a monumental ask. But I think we're actually seeing real change and and it's not it's not an argument it's a conversation and actually getting people to understand one another. And um you know we have a few robust debates sure um but the bottom line is is that it's this is why I respect the senior leadership team at Doc so much because they are willing to continuously meet with us and and hear from us and and understand both sides and I I think we're getting there slowly yeah if we lose high country farmers from these landscapes or or any farmers from these landscapes what's the risk here?

SPEAKER_03 48:19

What do New Zealanders and the country stand to lose I I reckon they'll lose access to it eventually themselves too um you know it'll become that riddled and with pests that there'll be that much 1080 going on that you won't be able to go hunting. There'll be that much fire loading that you won't be able to go camping or hiking for the fire risk and that they have to you know just lock the gates to keep people out of it. You want to go for those walks up like the R area and all you do is get callies in their legs all day because of the bloody thistles.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

And that's before it gets taken over by wilding pines you know that again it's great to see the um the announcement here the other day from government over 109 million over three years and then developing and adapting a a national weed and pest management plan. Well you know that's great but you're gonna have to get real like you can't just keep throwing money at this to try and solve the problem. It's gonna take a bit more common sense and like I keep saying you can uh you can just throw billions of dollars at all these things and and never really win the battle we could bring back a few merinos and a few here's and and graze it and you know the country will be better off. It's just no more tools in the box. So yeah I think James James covered it perfectly. Bit of a no-brainer eh no-brainer to us but it's um questionable to others I I still encourage everyone else to get out there and and just I guess do a bit more homework on the on what we're actually talking about and actually understanding where we're coming from because yeah it's easy to drive down the countryside and look at a a few of these issues but not actually see them at all you know to just glass past and just think well that's just the scenery but you know wilding pines 10 years you won't even be able to see Mount Cook.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Hey guys thank you so much for stepping us through the issue not just the problems but also what the solutions are really really appreciate that and I'll be keeping a close eye on things how things develop over the rest of the year yeah for sure thanks very much for having us yeah thank you for having us for tuning in to today's episode if you've enjoyed it and you'd like to hear more subscribe to the Federated Farmers Podcast on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts so that you get notified when our new episodes drop and if you have any feedback or podcast suggestions we'd love to hear from you. Please drop us a line podcast at fedfarm dot org.nz That's podcast at fedfarm.org.nz