Preserve our parks’ values
With New Zealand’s national parks facing increasing pressure from growing visitor numbers, it’s time something was done, argues Nicky Snoyink, Canterbury West Coast Regional Manager for Forest & Bird.
As tourism numbers grow, New Zealand’s national parks are coming under siege. Car parks are bulging, helicopters are buzzing, and developers are taking note. If we’re serious about keeping these places safe for the native species that live there forever, as the law requires us to, then we need to draw a line in the sand.
A good place to start is with two draft documents currently up for public consultation. These management plans are the guiding documents on what you can and cannot do in a national park.
Westland Tai Poutini and Aoraki/Mt Cook National Parks take in our highest mountain peaks and range right down to the coastal lowlands in Westland. This huge range of habitats is home to numerous threatened native species, from jewelled gecko and kakı¯/black stilt to the nationally critical ko¯ tuku/white heron and New Zealand’s rarest kiwi.
Collectively, the parks already see more than a million visitors a year. Numbers are increasing rapidly. So why do both draft plans favour development over protection?
In Westland, a proposed ‘‘amenity area’’ would allow a future gondola development up the side of Franz Josef Glacier/ Ka¯ Roimata o Hine Hukatere. Some might suggest that this is a fair trade-off if helicopter flights were reduced. But they are not. The draft plan increases flights, and inexplicably switches from specific landing sites in the alpine area to an entire landing ‘‘zone’’.
The gondola would involve destruction of an unspecified amount of native plants and trees. An amenity area means that national park values only apply if they don’t get in the way of development. In a practical sense, that means removing this area from the national park. No areas are proposed as additions to the park, despite numerous obvious contenders among the conservation land in the surrounding Te Wa¯ hipounamu World Heritage Area.
While the draft plan offers landscape-scale pest control for nature preservation, its milestones set a very low bar – seeking only to eradicate goats, and focusing only on new pest incursions. It also proposes allowing dogs onto some national park tracks, something which is as unworkable as it is illegal, as well as risky for ground-nesting birds such as penguins.
Across the main divide, the Aoraki/Mt Cook plan has some good points. It essentially acknowledges that the park is already full of visitors, and proposes a park and ride scheme. But the devil will be in the detail, to ensure the problem is not just shifted elsewhere. There are several additions proposed for the park, including two braided rivers – ecosystems of international significance which, nationally, are poorly protected.
However, the Aoraki plan also tries to ‘‘balance’’ increased commercial tourism development against preservation. This is wrong. There will always be more people in the world and more pressure for development. But our national parks are limited.
Both plans blur the line between traditional recreation and commercial tourism use. Under our Conservation Act, recreation should be fostered and tourism is allowed as long as it is compatible with the park’s preservation purpose. Increased tourism pushes national parks to a tipping point.
As Kerry Marshall, past chair of the New Zealand Conservation Authority (2005), said: ‘‘The bottom line, of course, is that national parks are preserved and maintained in perpetuity. We must be ever vigilant to ensure that this basic tenet is not massaged or eroded.’’
In the 1980 National Parks Act, national parks were declared ‘‘areas of New Zealand that contain scenery of such distinctive quality and natural features so beautiful . . . that their preservation is in the national interest’’.
At Forest & Bird, we believe it is now in the national interest that many people submit on the draft park plans, due on February 4. We’ll be telling the Department of Conservation that we need to think 100 years into the future, and to maintain the values our national parks hold.
‘‘There will always be more people in the world and more pressure for development. But our national parks are limited.’’