Controversial plans for Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park restarted
Tuesday, 23 June 2020
The Department of Conservation (DOC) has revived a controversial review of management plans for Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park.
DOC pressed pause on the process in February last year, at the request of Ngāi Tahu.
It came after a landmark Supreme Court ruling in favour of Auckland's Ngāi Tai hapū, who had argued the Crown breached Treaty of Waitangi principles by granting tourism concessions on the Hauraki Gulf islands of Motutapu and Rangitoto.
The plans set down the guidelines for how the park and its epic landscapes, waterways, protected species and all human activity will be managed for the coming decade.
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But the proposals – as well as a draft management plan for Westland Tai Poutini National Park – brought a storm of controversy.
The plan for Westland Tai Poutini National Park – which includes the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers – is still on ice. Over the last year, the region has been hit by a series of devastating storms which twice cut off the main highway.
The storm events – and a separate legal challenge over the Paparoa National Park draft management plan – slowed progress.
DOC and the iwi agreed to separate the two review processes.
Westland Tai Poutini and Aoraki/Mt Cook National Parks sit astride the Main Divide and stretch from our highest mountain peaks right down to the rugged, driftwood-strewn, beaches of Westland.
Along with Mount Aspiring and Fiordland national parks, they form part of Te Wahipounamu (The Place of Greenstone) South Westland, a 2.6 million hectare UNESCO World Heritage site. And they are a sanctuary for threatened native species, like kiwi, jewelled gecko and white heron.
Many critics feared an aggressive expansion of the tourism industry was happening at the expense of conservation and protection of cherished landscapes.
More than five million visitors were predicted to arrive in New Zealand by 2024 – although the Covid-19 pandemic has now decimated international tourism.
Local frustrations over traffic, road access, parking, overcrowding, visitor driving, rubbish disposal and freedom camping surfaced.
There was widespread opposition to plans to increase the footprint of Mt Cook village, a tourist centre which mainly houses hotels and staff accommodation.
Currently, aircraft landings in the parks are limited. The original plans proposed ditching that practice for larger landing zones. That would allow for 73,000 landings in Aoraki/Mt Cook park alone, critics argued.
Climbers and trampers also objected to landings in the neves of the glaciers and at high altitude around revered climbing spots in the Spencer, Balfour and La Perouse, where no landings are currently allowed.
Other contentious ideas in the plan include allowing recreational dog walking at four tracks: the Tatare Tunnels, Callery Gorge Walk, Canavans Knob Walk and the Neils Creek Track.
Hang gliders were angry at plans to put restrictions around the glaciers, and fishers and hunters objected to a proposed ban on personal motorised boating in some areas.
There was also alarm at a lack of focus on climate change mitigation.
Around 85 per cent of the wider West Coast region is under Department of Conservation management.
The 40-year-old National Parks Act, and the 1987 Conservation Act govern management of the parks.
DOC received 1361 submissions on the Westland Tai Poutini plan, and 889 for Aoraki/Mt Cook.
The consultation process closed in early February 2019. But on the same day, DOC announced it had halted both drafts, at the request of Ngāi Tahu.
It came after the Supreme Court decision in favour of Ngāi Tai hapū, who argued the Crown breached Treaty of Waitangi principles by granting tourism concessions on the Gulf islands of Motutapu and Rangitoto.
Ngāi Tai’s lawyers argued as mana whenua they should have exclusive tourism rights on their ancestral land, and a right to veto commercial operations.
DOC had granted concessions for guided walks and tractor/trailer tours, which breached section 4 of the Conservation Act.
That’s a powerful clause which can require DOC to give effect to the principles of the Treaty. It should enable iwi to reconnect to their ancestral lands by taking up opportunities on the conservation estate. And it can require them to decline concessions by other operators.
According to documents released to Stuff under the Official Information Act, DOC and Ngāi Tahu representatives met in June, July and December 2019.
At a hui with Ngāi Tahu on February 25, a decision to restart the draft management plan review was confirmed.
Notes from a meeting held between DOC and the NZ Alpine Club suggest that after re-drafting, submitters would be re-notified, allowed to give feedback and hearings held to air those submissions.
Natasha Hayward, DOC director of planning, permissions and land, said: “No changes to the draft plans have been made at this time.”
Forest & Bird's Nicky Snoyink said the conservation group was pleased the review had restarted. She hoped submitters would have a chance to be heard on any redraft.
“It's really important that it's a good process and follows the letter of the law for national parks and protects and preserves the natural values. That's the priority we'd want to see happening in national parks.”
Snoyink had argued the proposed plan tried to 'balance' increased commercial tourism development against preservation and blurred the line between traditional recreation and commercial tourism use.