Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) has confirmed it intends to accept and abide by the recent decision of the Environment Court regarding zoning of the land in Wānaka known as Sticky Forest.

QLDC Chief Executive Mike Theelen said Council had engaged fully with the Court process to zone the land appropriately through its mandatory review of the Queenstown Lakes District Plan.

“Council’s objective throughout the process was to ensure that the zoning took into account complicated considerations regarding the block. These included the need to recognise and provide for the relationship between Māori, their culture and traditions and their ancestral lands and sites, as well as protecting the values of the Dublin Bay outstanding natural landscape that’s located both within and to the north of Sticky Forest,” he said.

“The Environment Court conducted an extensive process and received evidence from a range of experts on these matters. It has balanced these considerations and issued its decision on how the land should be zoned.”

“The decision includes a number of directions on steps required to finalise the district plan framework that applies to Sticky Forest, and Council is working with the parties to progress those steps,” said Mr Theelen.

Sticky Forest is currently held by the Crown, effectively on trust, pending transfer to a group of intended owners pursuant to the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998 and Ngāi Tahu Deed of Settlement 1997.

The intended owners are the descendants of specified Māori individuals of a Ngāi Tahu land settlement. These tīpuna (ancestors) did not receive a 670-hectare block at The Neck between Lake Hāwea and Lake Wānaka that was promised to them in 1895, under the South Island Landless Natives Act 1906, and Sticky Forest was provided as redress for this. The appellants are two of the intended owners.

The area has been used informally by people in recent years for recreational activities like mountain biking.

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