Legal Responsibilities for Lifestyle Block Owners in New Zealand

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Understanding your obligations for animal welfare, biosecurity, and land management

Owning a lifestyle block comes with legal duties as well as day-to-day tasks. From animal welfare and biosecurity to land use rules, there are laws in place to protect your animals, the environment, and the wider community.

This guide introduces key areas and links to detailed articles in our Legal Responsibilities section. It is not legal advice, but it will help you know what rules apply and where to find official guidance.

Animal Welfare Obligations

Keeping livestock comes with responsibilities and you are expected to know what they are and abide by them. Failure to do so can result in fines or imprisonment.

See our Livestock & Pets section for species-specific welfare requirements (eg alpaca codes of welfare, goats code of welfare etc) and our What You Need to Know to Keep Livestock course for practical compliance tips.

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Biosecurity Responsibilities

Biosecurity is vital to NZ agriculture. There are many pests and diseases we don't have and need to keep out and other pests we're trying to eradicate or manage. Every one of us has a responsibility to do our bit.

Most important: The dangers of feeding food scraps to pigs

See our Cattle page for NAIT tagging and movement requirements.