Reprieve for Spirits Bay shrublands but why not cut the clearance subsidies?

Forest and Bird, Volume 16, Issue 1, 1 February 1985, Page 27

Reprieve for Spirits Bay shrublands but why not cut the clearance subsidies?

The 2,250. hectares of shrublands, regenerating forest and wetlands zoned for clearance in the Te Paki management plan are temporarily safe. This decision has just been announced by Lands and Survey, Auckland who are responsible for the Te Paki Farm Park in the far north. Over 350 people and organisations submitted comment on the plan and there was overwhelming criticism of the clearance proposal.

In response to public submissions, Lands and Survey have commissioned Auckland University botanists to carry out further studies in the Spirits Bay catchment. Results from these studies are not expected until mid-1985. In their earlier submissions both Botany Division DSIR and Wildlife Service identified a range of rare plants, animals and special plant associations in the catchment and sought preservation of the entire area. Farm development of Te Paki’s unique shrublands is only economic because of the very low interest rates (3.5-4.3 % pa) Lands and Survey pays on its land development loans. In Forest and Bird’s submission on the Te Paki plan we calculated that had Lands and Survey paid market interest rates (6-14%) on their Te Paki development loans over the last 10 years, Te Paki station would have made a loss of nearly $1 million over that period rather than its declared ‘‘profit’’ of $194,000. The November 1984 Budget will substantially lift interest rates for the private farming sector but not for Government agencies involved in natural land clearance. This anomaly should be removed. Thus Lands and Survey clearance activity proposed or underway at Te Paki, Hawkes Bay’s Waitere Kiwi block, the forested 3,000 hectare Mangaone block next to Urewera National Park and the 2,000 ha of beech forest at Perserverance, North Westland, could be assessed in terms of its real.economic and ecological costs and benefits.