Call for Tongariro conservation comment

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 558, 18 October 1994, Page 1

Call for Tongariro conservation comment

A ten year strategy for conservation management in the Tongariro Taupo Conservancy will be released for public comment on Monday 18 October 1994. The two volume Conservation Management Strategy (CMS) sets out the management direction for the conservancy until 2005 and beyond. The department's planning staff are keen to get as much public input to the plan as possible. Compared with other conservancies in New Zealand, Tongariro Taupo has a small permanent population base. However, thousands of New Zealand and overseas visitors come to the area each year and enjoy its broad range of recreational opportunities and striking scenery. The Conservancy includes Tongariro National Park, the Kaimanawa Forest park, Tongariro and Erua Forest and the Taupo Basin. It is because so many people visit the area from elsewhere in New Zealand that Conservancy staff want to consult with as wide an audience as possible. Public meetings will be held locally in October and staff will travel to Wellington and possible Auckland in early November. "The draft CMS is only the starting point," said Conservancy Planner Greg Carlyon. "What the public has to say about it will help us mould the finished document. "People who visit this area should be

concerned with the content of the CMS because it could well affect their future recreation or business plans." The document has some fairly hardhitting vision statements including reducing the impact of human use on land administered by the department and restricting further construction of overnight accommodation in conservation areas. But as well as setting the management direction for the Conservancy, the CMS is a valuable resource in its own right. It contains a detailed land inventory, lists of threatened and introduced plant and animal species, vegetation, historic sites, topography and geology, climate and vegetation, as well as policies on specific activities from mountain biking to beekeeping. "We hope we've achieved our goal of | making the document as 'user-friendly' as possible," said Mr Carlyon. "We want people to use the CMS and to let us know what they think. What we don't want is to have the document gather dust on a shelf or be used as a door step." Copies of the plan are available from the Department Conservation, Private Bag, Turangi. The public have until 23 December 1994 to submit their comments on the CMS. Once finalised, the CMS will become the working document for Department managers and will guide annual business planning.