You need a biodiversity conservation licence granted under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act) to pick or cultivate protected plant species for cut flowers and foliage for commercial purposes.
No matter what licence you’re applying for, you’ll need to read and be sure you can comply with the conditions of your licence. It is an offence under the BC Act to breach a condition of a licence.
Licence requirements
Protected plant species that require a licence to be picked or cultivated as cut flowers or foliage are listed in Part 1 of Schedule 6 of the BC Act.
The species listed in Part 1 of Schedule 6 are divided into 4 groups. These groups have different licensing, tagging and monitoring requirements.
Detailed information about licensing requirements for the commercial cut flower industry is included in the Cut-flower Sustainable Management Plan 2018–2022 (CFMP).
Get the right licence
The type of licence you need to harvest or cultivate protected plants for cut flowers and foliage for commercial purposes depends upon where and what you intend to harvest. Answer these two questions to help work out which type of licence you need.