National park stretches out
Our second biggest national park is getting an extension, about the size of Christchurch.
Awild and remote river gorge that was nearly dammed for power generation will be part of the largest piece of land ever added to an existing national park.
Nearly 65,000 hectares of land north of Westport will become part of the Kahurangi National Park, expanding the country’s secondlargest national park by 14 per cent, the Government announced yesterday.
The added area is slightly larger than Christchurch and about half the size of Auckland. The Mokihinui River area is a largely untouched native landscape of podocarp-beech forests, open tussock, and the pristine fast-flowing river. It is home to numerous threatened species, including whio, kea, ka¯ ka¯ , great spotted kiwi, several Powelliphanta snail sub-species and numerous plants. It also contains part of the Old Ghost Road, an 85-kilometre biking and walking trail that follows a historical goldminers’ track past decayed ghost towns and over rocky mountain ridges.
The river itself is the seventh-most significant in New Zealand for biodiversity values, according to a Department of Conservation (DOC) assessment.
Despite its importance for conservation, the Mokihinui area has long been an environmental battleground, and almost became the site of one of the country’s largest hydropower schemes.
Meridian Energy sought to dam the river in 2007, which would have resulted in an 85-metre-high dam and an artificial lake. It would have required flooding hundreds of hectares of native forest and all but destroying the river gorge.
The $250 million plan was initially given resource consent, but was met with widespread opposition, including by DOC, which appealed the consent in court.
Meridian Energy voluntarily dropped the plan in 2012.
It led to a groundswell of support for the area to be permanently protected from development.
Despite its high conservation values, the Mokihinui area was stewardship land, a legal status giving it the lowest level of protection afforded to public conservation land.
In announcing its addition to the national park, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage credited the work of those who had opposed the dam.
‘‘Today’s announcement is only possible because of that work and advocacy,’’ she said. The 65,000ha addition is about twice the size of Egmont National Park, and would expand Kahurangi National Park’s total area to 517,000ha.
Fiordland National Park remains the largest at 1.2 million hectares.
There have been plans to reclassify the land as a national park since around 2012, shortly after the dam application was withdrawn.
Environmental groups believed the river could still be developed because of the area’s stewardship status, and argued for greater protection.
Several groups asked the New Zealand Conservation Authority – a statutory group that advises DOC – to investigate adding it to the adjoining national park.
A few years later, the authority asked DOC to produce a detailed analysis of the conservation values at Mokihinui. That process was completed in 2016, and, in June 2017, the authority formally recommended the land be added to Kahurangi National Park. It will officially change classification on April 11.
‘‘National park status will ensure stronger protection of the Mokihinui area’s significant cultural, ecological, historic and recreational values,’’ Sage said. ‘‘Protecting these lands means generations to come will be able to enjoy these beautiful natural landscapes, ride along the Old Ghost
Road track alongside the Mokihinui River, and see and hear birds like whio and kaka.’’
The Mokihinui area has long been a poster child for the risks posed by stewardship classification. Stewardship status is a kind of purgatory for public conservation land; as former conservation minister Philip Woollaston described it, stewardship land is ‘‘a statutory holding pen’’.
It stems from the creation of DOC in 1987, in which vast areas of Crown land were reorganised and temporarily placed under DOC control.
The intent was for each parcel of land to have its conservation values assessed, before being either sold off or reclassified to a higher conservation status.
That never happened, leaving about 2.5 million hectares – around 10 per cent of New Zealand’s total land area – in limbo.
While some stewardship land had little to no conservation value, others – such as the Mokihinui – have high conservation values, befitting the highest level of protection.
Stewardship land has long appealed to developers because it has fewer protections than other types of conservation land.
In a 2013 report, then Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright urged authorities to speed up the process of reclassifying stewardship land.
While the Mokihinui has been reclassified, other areas with high conservation values remain in stewardship status.
Among them is the Waitaha, a raging river in South Westland and the proposed site of a hydropower scheme, and the Denniston Plateau, which has long been eyed for mining.