Greenpeace is hitting out at the Government’s plan to scrap and rewrite the Resource Management Act (RMA), calling it a hostile takeover of nature.

"The government’s proposed reforms are based on the dangerous idea that if you own a piece of land, you should be able to do what you like with it - even if that means polluting rivers, cutting down forests, or pumping nitrates into drinking water," says Greenpeace spokesperson Gen Toop.

"This isn’t reform - it’s environmental vandalism."

In its announcement, the Government has signalled that it plans to premise the country’s legal environmental protection framework on private property rights.

"Treating nature as private property ignores the reality that rivers, forests, and wildlife don’t stop at the boundary line. As we’ve seen in Canterbury, the nitrate pollution from intensive dairy farms doesn’t stay on the farm. It can travel underground and contaminate people’s drinking water many kilometres away," says Toop.

"Alongside the Fast Track Approvals Act and the Treaty Principles Bill, this is part of the Luxon Government’s war on nature designed to tear apart environmental protections so that corporations can exploit and pollute the environment with no guardrails."

"This Government can’t even manage getting lunches to school kids - we certainly can’t trust them to rewrite the rules on something as complex and critical as environmental protection."

Greenpeace is calling for the Government to halt the RMA reforms and instead strengthen laws that protect nature and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

© Scoop Media