27 November 2025
OIAD-1833
Nigel Gray
Tēnā koe Nigel
Thank you for your email of 13 November 2025 making the following request under the
Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA):
My question then is that given farmers and horticulturalists have been given excessive
legislation to reduce herd numbers, etc to regulate "climate change", what laws apply
and what actions do or will you take to regulate tankers producing cloud, ships or
planes producing cloud that is influencing NZ weather. By the way I would appreciate
greatly a direct no-nonsense answer rather than dancing around my question wording;
I think you know what I am asking here and how much this may affect outcomes when
NZ is faced with farmers turning farms to forests because they cannot comply with all
the legislation in place. So simply; what is the deal here? Can you help or will I have a
protracted battle to expose the truth that at least in part NZ weather is being caused by
ships producing cloud?
Thank you also for your email of 16 November 2025 making the following request under the
Act of EPA:
Could you please tell me if you have given permission for this ship to alter weather in
New Zealand and on what legal basis this ship is permitted to do so if this is the case?
On 18 November 2025, EPA transferred both of your requests to the Ministry for the
Environment (the Ministry) for response.
The Ministry does not hold any information or evidence to support the idea that the New
Zealand Government or any vessel in New Zealand waters is engaging in weather
modification. We have no reason to believe that such information is held by any other
government organisation.
The Ministry has not developed or published any legislation, including regulations, on
weather modification, and does not exercise any oversight over any projects related to any
such activities.
As such, I am refusing your requests under section 18(e) of the Act as the information
requested does not exist.
Under the Act, the Ministry is not obligated to form an opinion or create information where it
does not already exist. As your first request refers to hypothetical changes to legislation or
policy that are not being considered, I am unable to answer your specific questions in this
request.
PO Box 10362, Wellington 6143 | Freephone 0800 499 700 | environment.govt.nz
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You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Office of the Ombudsman of
my decisions relating to this request, in accordance with section 28(3) of the Act. The
relevant details can be found a
t: www.ombudsman.parliament.nz. Please note that due to the public interest in our work, the Ministry publishes responses to
requests for official information shortly after the response has been sent on our website at:
https://environment.govt.nz/about-us/official-information-act-requests/. If you have any
queries about this, please feel free to contact our Ministerial Services team at:
[email address]. Nāku noa, nā
Sophie Heighway
Manager – Policy Evidence
Ministry for the Environment | Manatū Mō Te Taiao
PO Box 10362, Wellington 6143 | Freephone 0800 499 700 | environment.govt.nz
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