Significant Natural Areas

A SNA is an area that has significant indigenous vegetation or habitat of indigenous fauna. A SNA may include remnant native bush or native forests, wetlands, frost flats, lakes and rivers, or geothermal vegetation. SNAs may also have other values such as a landscape area of particular scenic interest.

Councils are legally required under the Resource Management Act 1991 to identify and provide for the protection of areas of SNAs.

The desktop assessment produced a set of draft SNAs by qualified ecologists from Wildlands Consultants. The team from Wildlands looked at aerial photographs, used their knowledge of the Taupo Districts ecosystems and applied the criteria from the regional policy statement to determine whether an area was a SNA.

The next stage is to confirm this information through a site visit with landowners who have requested one. The purpose of the site visit will be to confirm whether the areas identified as SNAs in the desktop study are mapped correctly and meet the criteria in the regional policy statement. The current District Plan has around 300 Significant Natural Areas identified.

The Waikato Regional Policy Statement criteria has been used to determine the Significant Natural Areas in the Taupo District, even for the parts of our district which are in the Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay and Manawatu-Whanganui regions.

The Waikato Regional Policy Statement can be found on the Waikato Regional Council website.

Under our current District Plan you can remove small areas of indigenous vegetation from within SNA’s. To remove larger areas, or areas of high ecological value, you may need to apply for a resource consent. The current District Plan provides some additional development rights to landowners who protect SNAs.

These District Plan provisions are currently under review, so we’d also like to get to know what your views are on these provisions, as well as check we have identified the areas correctly.