Environmental activist organisation Greenpeace has waded in to support Fish and Game Southland (F&G), after it was threatened with a boycott by Southland Federated Farmers (SFF).

FFS has blamed F&G for their part in an appeal - original won in the Environmental Court and subsquently upheld in both the High Court and Court of Appeal, which could potentially see farmers having to apply for a resource consent to continue to operate.

Southland Fish and Game manager Zane Moss said the Court had concluded Southland rivers were significantly degraded by diffuse discharges, and the rules in the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan weren't sufficiently robust to ensure that it didn't continue. "Environment Southland should put effective rules in place around the riskiest practices so all farmers are not required to seek consents".

MP calls for calm after Southland Federated Farmers threaten to boycott Fish & Game

Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Will Appelbe said freshwater in Aotearoa had been in decline for decades and Fish & Game Southland had acted in the interest of all New Zealanders by challenging Environment Southland’s anti-nature legislation.

"Federated Farmers seem to think they have a right to pollute the water, and now that it has been proven in the courts that they do not, they’re throwing their toys out of the cot."

"The intensive dairy industry has been allowed to pollute people’s water for too long and we’re seeing the consequences of that with unswimmable lakes and rivers and elevated levels of nitrate in drinking water," says Appelbe.

"Christopher Luxon’s Government is pushing ahead with reckless plans to rollback freshwater protections and their list of damaging Fast Track Projects."

"We all need to resist Luxon’s war on nature, and Fish & Game Southland should be praised for doing so," he said.

Environment Southland CE Wilma Falconer said her council (who had led the legal appeals) had effectively exhausted their options through the courts so were now taking the matter up with the government.

Invercargill MP, and Environment Minister Penny Simmonds said it was the government's intention to address the situation through Resource Management Act amendments over the coming months.

"This is not what the RMA is about and we cannot have farmers left to deal with these unworkable rules," Simmonds said.