EIANZ published the first and second editions of its ‘Ecological Impact Assessment: Guidelines for use in New Zealand: terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems’, in 2015 and 2018 respectively. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide a consistent framework for the assessment of effects of resource use and management on ecosystems and their values in Aotearoa New Zealand. These guidelines have proved to be highly utilised with a large uptake amongst practitioners.

Since their publication some aspects of impact assessment practice and natural resource management have progressed. Recent hearing decisions, expert commentary, and feedback from practitioner experience has led EIANZ to consider that the time is right for another look at what improvements can be made to the guidelines. This is particularly timely with pending changes to Aotearoa New Zealand’s environmental use and management legislation.

EIANZ intends to update the guidelines through a series of modules or addenda, each one related to a specific topic, that will replace or be added to the guidelines and will be available online at EIANZ.

The first addendum, ‘Assigning Ecological Value to Marine Benthic Habitats’, introduces marine ecosystems to the EcIA, a notable omission from the guidelines published earlier, which dealt only with terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. This module largely follows the form of values assessment for terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems by providing a hierarchy of ecosystem characteristics set against a hierarchy of ecological values ranging from Negligible to Very High values.