Environment guardian upholds tenure review

PETER MEECHAM/The Press

MARGINAL VALUE: High country land may not be suited for farming, but does not necessarily need to become part of the conservation estate, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says.

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The controversial tenure review of South Island high-country farms has received a cautious green tick from the country's top independent environmental guardian.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) Jan Wright says the review process which has drawn battle lines across the South Island, caused racial tension and even led to physical threats should continue as long as settlements are in the public interest.

However, she believes there is little value in protecting any more high-country tussock grasslands, saying it is wrong to assume that what is of marginal use for farming must instead have conservation values.

The South Island high country stretches across nearly a quarter of New Zealand, covering more than 6 million hectares.

The PCE report on environmental stewardship and tenure review was launched in Christchurch, and tabled in Parliament yesterday.

Federated Farmers was broadly supportive of the findings.

However, Forest and Bird slammed the report, saying it was out of touch, "riddled with inaccuracies and poorly argued".

"This is the poorest report to come out of the commissioner's office that I can recall," Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell said.

Agriculture Minister David Carter said the report rightly challenged the philosophy that land must be solely for conservation or farming, and instead proposed a middle path where land was managed for both.

"We also support the questioning by the commissioner of the ongoing expansion of the DOC (Department of Conservation) estate," Carter said.

Wright said tussock lands were already well protected.

DOC had 22 high-country conservation parks planned from taking over pastoral leases.

"Twenty parks in the rain shadow of the Southern Alps is simply not a good use of limited conservation resources," she said.

"DOC just taking all the land that the farmers don't want is not a good expenditure for conservation resources."

Wright said she was also more concerned about the risk of deteriorating water quality in iconic high-country lakes, such as Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki, than the effects of lakeshore subdivisions.

"What would happen to our tourism if they started to go green and murky? It is so totally irreversible. I'm less concerned about putting buildings beside lakes because you can pull them down."

Wright recommended the establishment of a fixed-term High Country Commission, possibly based at Lincoln University, to advise and provide direction on all aspects of tenure review and on general high-country issues.

At a cost of about $1 million a year it would be considerably cheaper than the $47m that taxpayers had already paid out on tenure review, she said.

A full-scale assault on wilding pines, gorse and broom was also suggested. Eradication was labour intensive and would provide much-needed employment opportunities.

Tenure review had polarised opinion and had led to verbal attacks, calls for professional sanctions and physical threats, she said.

"Farmers report being abused by members of the public. Ngai Tahu report racial tension, abuse, threats to significant Maori sites and denial of tangata whenua access to sites in tenure review."

Federated Farmers high country chairman Donald Aubrey was keen to see the Government pick up on some of the recommendations.

"The commissioner suggested, for example, that supposed problems to do with high-country waterways and particularly lakes were due to intensive farming practices," he said

"From my perspective, water quality in the high country generally is excellent, but that is not to say farming families aren't keen to ensure that the quality of water is at least maintained, if not improved."

Hackwell said the report was contradictory. The PCE pointed out the environmental damage by farmers due to land-use intensification at low levels, yet also assumed farmers would act as good conservation managers.

Forest and Bird did not believe QE II National Trust covenants were the best way to protect biodiversity.

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