More on Mangapurua

Ruapehu Bulletin, 8 September 1992, Page 4

More on Mangapurua

• In reply to Mr Simmond's letter reMangapurua matters (see Bulletin, 25 August) • Mr Simmonds, your job is out there in our precious sub tropical bushland catching possums which are rapidly destroying it. • The availability of management plans in our neck of the woods has always been as rare a thing as the first edition of the Magna Carta and accordingly public submission to them even rarer. • The 1980 Crown Land report on the Mangatiti/ Mangapurua Valleys is difficult to reconcile with the current DoC management plans. • The breakneck speed of DoC's conversion of Crown Land to conservation land to National park status does not escape the writers'

attention- next step privatisation ?? • On the twelve mile section of public road from Slippery Creek (Quinns) to the Mangapurua Landing, the only 'physical barriers' to the mounted landowners, mounted hunters and recreationalists, mounted sons and daughters of the pioneer soldier settlers is the Dept of Conservation. • Correct Mr Simmonds, your department did shoot 13 cattle in the valley- the remnants of 1100 head which grazed the area from Bennetts homestead to the Ruatiti Divide. These, in conjunction with grazing sheep have access to the gully tracks and ridgelines either side of a well consolidated road. • Subsequent to your letter you spoke on radio, in the midst of it all remarked on a Dept. .bridge which you intimate had been vandalised by a mounted hunter. No self respecting horseman would ever use or abuse your bridges so obviously designed to exclude them, however, if it is so, then the 'vandalised bridge count' in Mangapurua is now: two to DoC and one to person or persons unknown. We refer to the oldest bridge in the valley- the hardwood bridge at Teddy Johnson's re-decked in 1978 by Mowat of the undersigned with 6x4 tanalised pine. A tourist attraction in its own right, it was ruthlessly mutilated eighteen months ago in a vain effort to stop mounted access in the valley, and this on a public road! Debris from this effort still impedes water flow in the steam below. We refer secondly to the most substantial bushmans bridge across Bettermans creek erected to ease the burden for many packhorses laden with live captured goats from the valley, but a few short years ago this bridge of course met the same fate, - incompatible

with DoC's plans. • As taxpayers, it horrifies us to dwell on a "bridge count" for longer it takes to write but we certainly hope your Dept. does remember that with your 'present' policy of controlled access that there is no law worse than bad law. • Remember, the lands of Tarihira Keriti Taurerewa-Taiaroa Hipango, West and many others within the confines of this park. These may be best summed up in the words of the Kaumatua, Niko Tangaroa, at a recent meeting of the river operators with DoC and the Whanganui River Maori Trust Board; "Remember", said Niko to a willingly noddingly acknowledging Canadian Conservator of land, "Remember that respect for land in private ownership within the park and legal access thereto is of paramount importance forever, forever and a day". • Without bearing the least ill will to any race on God's earth it is still very necessary to say that if your Dept. thinks that the mounted owners, hunters and recreationalists are to hop off their horses on an illegally closed road for a supposed influx of visitors from the streets of Tokyo and Berlin then your Dept has another big think coming. • Finally, remember Mr Simmonds, that if your future policy does not include immediate reestablishment of the legality of the Mangapurua Road giving unrestricted access (a horse's back being the prime requisite) to the land of the Tupuna then all we can say is; Try to stop us you may but in the words of the song "You might as well go chasing after moonbeams." Mowat Family, Taiaroe Family, West Family To: "An Old Ratepayer" - we do publish letters with pen-names, but they must also be signed with your name, address, and phone number - Editor.