Should national parks be locked up or liberated for public use?
Friday, 26 April 2019
It's as easy to get lost in the West Coast's impenetrable forests as it is in the details of the region's myriad conservation plans.
Arguments over nuances of arcane policy tend not to ignite widespread, fiery passions among New Zealanders. Yet just such a situation is unfolding on the West Coast over changes which may strike at the heart of what our national parks mean to us.
At the centre of the imbroglio is the question of whether mountain biking, helicopter flights and organised sporting and other competitive events are appropriate in a national park.
The Department of Conservation has got itself in a bind over New Zealand's newest Great Walk and the rules that determine what can be done on it where it crosses into the Paparoa National Park.
**READ MORE:
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* New West Coast Great Walk - the Paparoa Track - a thank you and an opportunity**
The 65-kilometre long Paparoa Track is the first Great Walk to be gazetted for 25 years. It runs from Blackball to Punakaiki and features a 9km-long memorial track to the Pike River mine, where 29 men were killed in November 2010.
Due to open in December, the track, which cost about $11 million to develop, is being promoted as the first Great Walk to allow year-round mountain biking.
Trouble is, that could be illegal. That's because the Coast's current umbrella plan, the Conservation Management Strategy, rigidly prohibits mountain bikes and helicopters in the Paparoa National Park.
To ensure consistency of use on both sides of the park boundary, DOC wants to amend the strategy to include mountain biking, helicopter landings and large sporting events. But that decision has polarised the community, with operators of tourism ventures concerned at the months it may take for the changes to take effect, and environmental groups worried at the effect of noise and 'stampeding' groups of people on fragile ecosystems.
Similar inconsistencies exist further north in Buller, where mountain bikers have been allowed on the Old Ghost Road and the Heaphy Track for a number of years, despite that also being forbidden in the strategy.
Forest & Bird and Federated Mountain Clubs say the strategy should have been changed first, before making alterations to the Paparoa National Park Management Plan – not vice versa.
The two groups have written to DOC, accusing it of a serious error of law and of putting 'the cart before the horse'. One option they were considering was seeking a judicial review of the national park plan, approved in 2017.
Interestingly, two years earlier, National's then acting conservation minister Nick Smith stated in a Cabinet paper on funding the track that a change to the conservation strategy would be needed.
It certainly seems DOC was given due warning it needed to get its ducks in a row. It is possible, however, that this oversight is a consequence of the cutbacks made to the department by the National government. Also, given the understandable desire of the families of the 29 victims of the mine accident to create the Great Walk as a memorial, it is also possible the process was pushed along faster than normal.
It is essential a balance be struck to protect the priceless assets of a national park – its flora and fauna, its serenity, its views. But what is the point of a national park with a padlock on it?
Within reason, and with appropriate safeguards, we should do everything we can to open up the national park and Great Walk experience to as many as possible.