Netherlands Holdings director Roelof Wobben is alleged to have cleared 2.5ha of protected kanuka woodland on his dairy runoff just north of Eyrewell Forest to create room for irrigators.
National Trust chairman James Guild said the trust felt it had no option but to take Netherland Holdings to court.
“Action of this magnitude is unprecedented in the 36-year history of the National Trust,” Guild said.
A High Court injunction was granted in Christchurch on Friday ordering Wobben to comply with the covenant registered on the title.
He bought the land, south of Cust, in December last year from Landcorp, which set up the covenants in 2004.
Trust chief executive Mike Jebson said Wobben told him he knew the kanuka was covenanted before he carried out the work.
The covenant, which is a contract between the landowner and the trust, had been breached and the trust was seeking remedies, Jebson said.
The primary objective of the trust’s civil court action was to require the landowner to restore what had been damaged, he said.
This was likely to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, because it was a difficult part of the country in which to carry out restoration, he said.
The landowner had already accepted he had to do something to work with the trust, Jebson said.
The longer it was left before remedial work was done the less chance there would be to restore the blocks effectively.
Guild said the trust’s message was clear.
“The deliberate destruction of an area protected with the trust is utterly unacceptable, and we can and will take action to enforce open-space covenants.”
The kanuka woodlands were in two separate covenants totaling 3.3ha.
Fences were taken down, kanuka and shrubs destroyed, earthworks carried out, irrigation pipes for a lateral irrigator installed, and a farm track formed, the trust said.
The second covenant area, with only half the vegetation remaining, also had fences realigned to make way for a centre-pivot irrigator.
In addition a stockpile of manure was leaching nutrients into the remaining covenant, causing damage, Jebson said.
“Despite strenuous efforts from the trust to resolve the issue through discussion, an agreement to protect and reinstate the covenants to their original state could not be reached,” he said.
Guild said the case was detrimental to the environment and to the reputation of New Zealand’s agricultural sector.
“This behaviour beggars belief,” he said.
