Speech: Opening of Ahuriri Conservation Park

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It has been just over a year since we last gathered together here in this amazing landscape. I'm delighted to welcome you back today, to announce the creation of the Ahuriri Conservation Park.

This new park gives the public permanent ownership of and access to over 49,000 hectares of spectacular and rugged mountain country, valuable and vulnerable wetlands, rolling tussock lands and beech forest.

It encompasses the upper Ahuriri Valley, the East Branch of the Ahuriri, Quailburn, Snowy Gorge Creek, top of the Dingle Burn, Canyon Creek, Hodgkinson Creek and Watson Stream areas.

It is a home to the critically endangered Black Stilt or Kaki, and a place where all New Zealanders can take advantage of the extraordinary range of recreational opportunities the landscape offers: fishing, climbing, horse riding, walking, and mountain biking, to name but a few.

The genesis of this park began when the Government decided to buy Birchwood Station last year in what was the Nature Heritage Fund's largest single purchase.

I took the request for funds for that purchase to Cabinet and my argument was simple: this area was too special to risk ending up on the open market. Its conservation values were enormous, and so too were its recreation values.

More importantly, areas of this type are a key part of each New Zealanders birthright. Many people have an affinity with the high country, whether they live here or not, and images of this landscape are an integral part of the impression New Zealand projects overseas.

I believe, and the government agrees, that it is absolutely vital that parts of the high country are protected and remain in public ownership. Only then can we be absolutely confident that special places like the Ahuriri will remain special, particularly as land-use and ownership in the high country changes and diversifies.

I also believe that the parts of the high country that do remain protected and in public ownership must be assembled in such a way that they are a coherent, ecological, social and economic asset to the people that live here.

The Ahuriri Conservation Park is just such an example.

Birchwood Station forms about half of the new park but the other half has been woven together from land returned to the Crown through the tenure review of Crown pastoral leases, and land managed by the Department of Conservation.

The joining together of all these patches of land means they are no longer managed in isolation under different philosophies for different purposes but unified together under a single overarching framework, which prioritises biodiversity preservation and public access.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who have been involved in the process of assembling this park, and acknowledge the former managers of the land that now forms part of it: the lessees of Birchwood, Quailburn, Ben Avon, the Nature Heritage Fund, DOC, LINZ, Forest & Bird and Federated Mountain Clubs. Thank you.

I have been delighted by the public response to this park. Community support has been huge, and people have taken up the opportunity to come visit.

Locals believe public use of the Birchwood Road has roughly tripled over the last little while. Over the holiday season, 50 cars a day have been heading into the Ahuriri Valley. Bed nights at the Ahuriri Base Hut have doubled, and enquiries at nearby visitor centres are mounting all the time.

The astonishing beauty of this area is now being recognised around the world. In the short time DOC has been responsible for it, we have been contacted by atleast half a dozen organisations wanting to film in the park. We are talking about interest from a whole spectrum of companies from international car makers to a Danish ice cream company.

This interest will only grow, particularly as more and more people find out about the remarkable beauty and drama of the place. My expectation is that the people of Omarama and surrounding areas will feel a direct benefit from this public interest.

Certainly, the timing seems to be right. Tourism is booming around here. The visitor centre in Omarama had a 46 per cent increase in visitors in January, and tourism numbers to the MacKenzie district are expected to reach 1.2m a year by 2010. This park will add to the profile of the area, and its tourism infrastructure.

I'm giving a commitment today that DOC will continue to invest in the park, and manage it for all users.

To date, we have upgraded the access road. We have built toilets and introduced signage, and we have realeased 17 of the critically endangered kaki (black stilt) into the wetlands near the Birchwood homestead.

In future, we intend to release more kaki, provide more interpretation of some of the natural and historic areas in the park, and further expand some of the recreation facilities.

We have closed the top part of the Ahuriri Valley to 4WDs, some what controversially, in recognition of the environmental impact 4WDs can have, and the fact that many members of the public want somewhere they can go without being disturbed by large vehicles.

But we have secured access to 11kms of the valley for 4WD users in recognition of the fact that they are a valid user group, and deserve a playground too.

Management is about balance, and the decisions that have been taken here to date have achieved a balance between the needs of the environment and the competing demands of recreation groups. I will be keeping a close eye on future decisions to ensure they retain that balance.

As many of you will be aware, Ahuriri is just a beginning.

The government intends to gradually establish more parks for the public throughout the high country alongside farmland and the private holdings of international celebrities who are drawn here.

We believe the transition that is occurring in land ownership and land use with tenure review, presents a unique opportunity to integrate conservation areas into the fabric of the high country in such away that recognises the longstanding public interest in this landscape, an interest that has never been extinguished.

We are not talking about a take over of the high country by conservation as some seem to fear, we are simply talking about a meaningful presence.

In aspiring to this we are aspiring to a conservation goal that most other nations around the world have not achieved – the meaningful protection of natural grasslands, and the unique life they contain.

Internationally, grassland environments are severely threatened because they have been the first places settled and developed.

Here in the high country, we have the opportunity to protect some of the most evocative tussock grasslands on the planet, and to do so in a way that will deliver a wide variety of benefits for the people of New Zealand for generations to come.

Thank you.