7 April 2009 – Wellington
Forest & Bird media release for immediate use

Forest & Bird slates high country report

Forest & Bird is very disappointed that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report on high-country tenure review is out of touch with recent developments, riddled with inaccuracies and poorly argued.

“This is the poorest report to come out of the Commissioner’s office that I can recall,” Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says.

In just one of the contradictions in the report, the Commissioner points out the considerable environmental damage farmers are causing through the dramatic intensification of lowland areas, but assumes that farmers will act as good conservation managers of threatened habitats.

The report criticises high-country tenure review for not delivering adequate protection for threatened lowland environments, but then goes on to suggest the solution to this is to return to privatising even bigger chunks of the publicly owned high country. The report also recommends creating an advisory High Country Commission that would have no teeth and would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Among the report’s mistakes, it says (on page 65) that completing tenure review along current lines will result in more public conservation land, which will lead to “long-term degradation of water quality in nationally important lakes and rivers”. This is clearly incorrect.

The report says we should rely on farmers’ goodwill and QEII covenants to protect biodiversity. Forest & Bird does not believe QEII covenants offer the best protection. “Covenants look fine on paper but there are few ways to enforce them,” Kevin Hackwell says. “Farmers often allow stock to graze their covenanted land and do not provide for public access.”

The report takes a very narrow view of how land can be used productively and it fails to appreciate the love New Zealanders and overseas visitors have for conservation parks, which they visit in their thousands.

There is enormous economic and recreational benefit in publicly owned conservation parks with open, free access to all. These parks and the new public conservation lands have created many new tourism opportunities and revitalised rural communities. These areas also have high economic value as a carbon sink, for water catchment and water and soil conservation.

Ungrazed tussock grasslands are a carbon treasure chest. A total of 4 per cent of New Zealand’s vegetative carbon is in our present tussock grasslands, which equals about 80 per cent of all the carbon in our pine forests.

DOC is funded to manage the weeds and pests they inherit from high-country leasees through tenure review. “While some farmers are doing a good job, DOC is doing a better job getting rid of wilding pines,” Kevin Hackwell says.
Forest & Bird is happy for high-country land to stay in pastoral lease and for the Crown to be a responsible landlord. It should encourage leaseholders towards good environmental management.

The report says tenure reviews have improved considerably, with greater public accountability and attention to threatened environments. The proposed “middle way” is not the answer to problems with tenure review. Less land – not more – should be going to private ownership. The Commissioner’s recommendations if implemented will jeopardise the future of tenure review and the future of publicly owned conservation land in the high country.

ENDS

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