Southland Local Government Summit

This session gave a practical overview of what Environment Southland does, why its work matters at a regional scale, and what needs to be carefully understood through any future local government reform process.

The session focused on Environment Southland’s responsibilities, services, assets and investments.

Speakers included Deputy Chair Phil Morrison, Councillor Jon Pemberton, Chair of the Integrated Catchment Management Committee, Councillor Lyndal Ludlow, Chair of the Strategy and Policy Committee, and Chair Jeremy McPhail.

The session started from the point that Southland is a large, sparsely populated region with major natural systems and regional-scale challenges. Southland has a long coastline, four major river systems, internationally significant wetlands, and strong links between land, water, coast, the economy and community resilience. Those features shape the role of a regional council and explain why many of Environment Southland’s responsibilities need to be viewed at a regional scale.

Deputy Chair Morrison outlined the range of functions recognised across New Zealand’s regional and unitary councils, including environmental management, regulation and planning, flood resilience and natural hazards, biosecurity, transport planning, maritime safety, civil defence partnerships, science and regional advocacy. In Southland, some of these functions are delivered differently, including civil defence as a shared service through Emergency Management Southland and public transport being transferred to Invercargill City Council.

Regional councils often deal with issues that do not stop at territorial boundaries. Deputy Chair Morrison described the way the regional council sector works together where there is collective benefit as“hunting as a pack”. This includes areas such as regional transport planning, biosecurity, environmental monitoring, climate impacts and natural hazards, where collaboration across councils helps build capability, share evidence and present a stronger regional sector view.

Deputy Chair Morrison described Environment Southland’s broad statutory role. This includes environmental management across land, freshwater, air, coast, biodiversity and biosecurity; regulation and planning through regional policy statements, regional plans, consents, compliance and enforcement; flood resilience and natural hazards work; and emergency, maritime and transport roles.

He also explained how Environment Southland groups its work under three broad areas: Healthy Environment, Resilient Communities and Thriving Region. These reflect the Council’s focus on protecting and enhancing the environment, supporting community resilience and wellbeing, and strengthening arrangements that allow people and the environment to flourish.

A strong theme was that some council services are visible, while others sit behind the scenes but are essential to good outcomes. Visible services include resource consents, the 24/7 pollution hotline and incident response, compliance monitoring and enforcement, flood warning information, river level and rainfall data, infrastructure maintenance, harbourmaster and navigation safety work, land management advice, Enviroschools and community engagement.

Behind the scenes, Environment Southland delivers science, monitoring, environmental data, regional policy and plan development, flood modelling and asset planning, biosecurity and pest management frameworks, and regional advocacy on national reform. These less visible services are often what allow the more visible services to happen well.

Biosecurity is a good example. It is one of the least visible but most important council services. Its success is measured by what does not happen - weeds that do not spread, pests that do not establish, diseases that do not arrive, and environmental and economic damage that is avoided.

Much of the work occurs behind the scenes through surveillance, pest management, landowner support and regional coordination, but the benefits are felt across the whole region.

Councillor Pemberton focused on flood resilience and biosecurity. He described flood infrastructure as Environment Southland’s key infrastructure. This is not simply “river works”, but a major regional asset network that requires increasingly sophisticated planning, design and management.

The flood infrastructure network includes more than 500 kilometres of flood banks, a drainage network spanning 1,400 kilometres, spillways, dams, tidal gates and pump stations. Collectively, these assets are valued at more than $460 million. Their purpose is to significantly reduce the impact of flooding on people, property, productive land, businesses and critical infrastructure such as arterial roads, the airport and telecommunications.

The session also highlighted the practical work behind flood resilience, including flood bank inspections and maintenance, rainfall and river monitoring, hydrology and modelling support during flood events, flood duty officers, catchment liaison committees, and public-facing river watch and flood alerts. The scale of this responsibility is increasing as infrastructure ages, weather events become more severe, and funding, insurance and renewal pressures grow.

On biosecurity, Councillor Pemberton noted the updated Environment Southland Biosecurity Strategy 2025-30, marine biosecurity work in Fiordland, Rakiura and Foveaux Strait, support for pest plant and pest animal management, the longstanding Possum Control Areas programme, wilding tree control, and the successful response to velvetleaf in Southland in 2016.

Councillor Ludlow covered planning, regulation, consents, compliance and science. She explained that regulatory work is about enabling activity while protecting environmental outcomes. This work is facing significant change through government planning and resource management reforms, including possible changes to compliance monitoring and enforcement, and more activities becoming permitted.

A key point was that permitted does not mean unmonitored. If more activities become permitted, there may still be a need for compliance monitoring to ensure environmental outcomes are being achieved.

Councillor Ludlow also explained that policy and planning sit at the front end of regulatory work. The Regional Policy Statement provides direction across the region, including for territorial authorities, while regional plans act as the “rule books” for managing natural and physical resources and protecting indigenous biodiversity. These plans provide the framework for consents and compliance.

The scale of this work is significant. In 2024–25, Environment Southland processed 691 consents across coastal, discharge, land-use and water activities. Around 95 percent of consent applications were processed on a non-notified basis, and the consents team has met statutory timeframes for the past three years. The organisation also received 880 pollution or environmental incident notifications and had four successful prosecutions in 2024–25.

Councillor Ludlow then outlined the importance of science. Environment Southland holds long-term environmental data across air, land, freshwater and coast. This evidence helps the Council understand trends, identify emerging risks, and support policy, consenting, compliance, flood resilience, biosecurity, biodiversity, climate adaptation and community decision-making.

She also noted that the collective scientific capability of the regional council sector is comparable in scale to a Crown Research Institute. This matters because natural systems do not follow council boundaries. Water, biodiversity, biosecurity threats, air, coastal processes and natural hazards all operate across communities and council areas.

Another important message was the role of mātauranga Māori alongside western science, and the value of long-standing relationships with Te Tiriti partners. Whatever shape local government reform takes, those relationships, knowledge and trust remain important to good decision-making for Murihiku Southland.

Councillor Morrrison also covered regional leadership and relationships. This includes work with iwi, communities, other councils and organisations on long-term regional strategies, climate change planning, regional advocacy and regional transport planning. Examples included the Regional Climate Change Working Group, regional climate work with councils and Te Ao Mārama, submissions on central government reform, and regional transport planning with Otago.

Chair McPhail outlined Environment Southland’s funding, expenditure, assets and investments.

Rates are the Council’s largest funding source but make up only 57 percent of income. Other funding sources include South Port dividends, capital grants, investment income, rental income, levies and contributions, and fees and charges.

The Council is the majority shareholder in South Port New Zealand Limited, holding 66.48 percent of the company worth approximately $150 million. South Port dividends help offset rates, and the port is also a strategic regional asset.

Other assets and investments include floodplain land valued at around $60 million, a share portfolio currently worth about $41 million, cash of around $5 million, and the office building, estimated at $4 million.

The share portfolio contains reserves tagged for specific purposes, including flood and disaster related purposes such as repairs to flood infrastructure following an event. The Council also holds significant non-financial assets in its people, specialist capability, long-term environmental data and flood infrastructure network.

Chair McPhail also noted Environment Southland’s favourable debt position. Until very recently, the Council had no long-term debt. It borrowed $7 million from the Local Government Funding Authority in 2024-25 for flood resilience work.