New senior ranger at Whakapapa brings overseas experience

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 24, 5 November 1985, Page 4

New senior ranger at Whakapapa brings overseas experience

Neil Clifton, new senior ranger at Tongariro National Park Headquarters in charge of the Whakapapa area of the park, has recently returned from a ranger exchange visit overseas. He was away for seven months, . including four months at the Peak District National Park, between Manchester and Sheffield, which he found to be very different to Tongariro. "There are 17 million people living in a 50 kilometre radius around the Peak District and it is privately owned," he said. "It is not a wilderness but a mainly agricultural landscape in which history, such as old buildings, stone walls and woods, are all preserved." "I was impressed by the human history in the landscape. You can see bronzeage burial mounds, Roman ruins and Norman churches, which are all within the same landscape." "When national parks were created in England in 1960, areas where old lifestyles and traditions were still obvious were designated as part of the parks," said Mr Clifton. He found that a ranger's role in the Peak District was different to that of a ranger here. "All the land is privately owned and with.such a high use, the ranger's role is to ensure the public don't cause too much disruption to the land and to advise them on

rights of way and the country code." Another interesting aspect of the park was that all streams are owned by private individuals, who are not always the landowners. "So to go fishing, you either have to own the stream or belong to a syndicate that owns it!" There are about 1.0 such parks in England and all are administered through local planning authorities. Mr Clifton also visited national parks in West Germany. "There they are multi-use forests which are set aside

for wood production and nature conservation," he said. Mr Clifton was impressed by the efficient way the Germans ran their national parks, and he said they* really valued their forests. "There is concern in Germany and all of Europe about forests dying from acid rain. It is estimated that half of Germany's forests will be lost by the year 2000." He was amazed at the high rate of atmospheric pollution. "Even on a fine day the skies in Britain and Europe were a gray colour, and that is one thing we should really value in New Zealand — the clear blue skies when it is fine." In New Zealand, the wind blows away any pollution which our small population makes, he said. "But in Europe, the pollution is just blown to another country!" Mr Clifton began as a ranger at Tongariro in 1976 and spent three years there. His last position in New Zealand was senior ranger at Hokitika, on the West Coast.