The law relating to archaeological sites, historic places and buildings in New Zealand

Abstract

The problem of protection and management of archaeological resources is international. States tend to enact legislative regimes protecting such places usually for other reasons than protecting an international heritage at municipal levels. In New Zealand, the central regulatory body is the Historic Places Trust, originally a statutorily-created national trust which now carries out many of the functions of a typical antiquities department. The ease of legislative change has masked a continuing lack of governmental commitment, and the national climate of opinion is generally one of indifference. The rapid technical and theoretical progress of archaeology is threatened by an accelerated rate of site disappearance, and the experience of the United States and Britain is paralleled in New Zealand. Legislative efforts to protect sites fall into two broad categories of regulatory and managerial legislative regimes. The most difficult problem remains that of site significance. The Historic Places Trust relies on the concept of scientific significance in administering what is essentially a regulatory system. The legislation is deficient in failing to deal with the problem of compensating injuriously affected landowners. Overall management is dispersed over a number of public authorities, and the environmental impact reporting system which should play a fundamental role in the First Amendment, and by devising techniques which afford protection without imposing costs. Of particular interest are tranferable development rights, which a few local authorities in New Zealand are experimenting with. Transferable development rights have the key advantage of throwing costs back onto the building development process, but there are a number of difficulties. Other possibilities are environmental impact reports, and widening the range of rating and taxation exemptions.