The Environmental Protection Authority is now accepting proposals to change the status of new organisms to ‘not new’.
This process will identify new organisms that have arrived in New Zealand after 29 July 1998, which may be considered to have their status changed in order to remove unnecessary legal restrictions.
More information about this process is on the EPA website Changing the status of a new organism.
Once the Authority has received proposals, it will consider whether: the new organism has formed a self-sustaining population in New Zealand, any person is attempting to manage, control or eradicate the new organism under any Act, and changing the status of the new organism is in accordance with the purpose and principles of .
While this is a good opportunity to try to get a status change for plant species which are not listed on the Plants Biosecurity Index but are widespread in New Zealand. The criteria for this process is for species which have arrived since HSNO came into force.
This is a bit of a shame, as we know of many plant species present here before HSNO came into force - we just can't find a piece of paper to that effect to prove it to the EPA and meet its evidence requirement.
Applying under this process suggests the plants have arrived here 'since HSNO came into force', with the implication they were brought into the country illegally.
NZ Plant Producers has exhausted all processes under the HSNO Act - this track is the last resort.