Loving our National Parks to death

Forest and Bird, Volume 17, Issue 3, 1 August 1986, Unnumbered Page

Loving our National Parks to death

The sacred ancestral peaks of the Tuwharetoa people were gifted to the nation for its first national park in 1887. Wreathed around in Maori folklore, Tongariro National Park is an area of great contrast: fire and ice, forest and tussock, volcano and glacier. Photographer and writer Craig Potton here reports on contrasts of a different sort: between those who believe that development in a national park is a good thing and those who warn against it.

Nx year New Zealanders celebrate 100 years of Tongariro National Park. Much of the pre-publicity of these celebrations must make all conservationists fear for Tongariro and other national parks during the next century. Some government ministers, concessionaires and others in the tourist industry are making a great hullabaloo about increasing tourism as a soft way of boosting an always flagging economy and furthering peoples’ enjoyment of the parks. It is not just the numbers of tourists (which will soon reach one million a year at Tongariro) but the impact

of some services that gives real cause for concern. Today concessionaires are plugging relentlessly at the park’s administrators to "open up" the park to larger ski areas, heliskiing, gondolas, better on-site accommodation and generally more development in the name of customer comfort and thrills. It is notable that existing skifields have a high impact on park philosophy and activity. Some rangers do not range much in winter. Their main job becomes one of servicing the skifields. At Whakapapa skifield it costs the park,

therefore the taxpayer, a considerable subsidy annually to service the skiing operation, which is not recovered from parking, concession fees and other charges. There is nothing new in calls for ‘‘improvement’’. Neither is a healthy fear of them a new phenomena. In 1886 a US Congress report on Yellowstone stipulated that ‘the park should so far as possible be spared the vandalism of improvement"’. What makes today’s situation so frightful is that although Congress perceived the threat of over development (which it seems many park administrators in New Zealand fail to comprehend) it still failed to stop it. Yellowstone is now besieged by roads crammed with motorcars, on-site accommodation, other facilities and a volume of people that everyone would agree is simply loving the United States largest park to death. Another American park, Grand Canyon National Park, reverberates

to the sound of 274 helicopter and small plane flights a day which destroy hikers’ peace and serenity. During the 1972 Yellowstone centennial celebrations the US Park Services called together a citizen commission to formulate a broad set of management priorities for the next one hundred years. This centennial task force gave highest priority to removing concessions and private vehicles from within the park boundaries. The United States director of national parks is at present supporting moves in Federal Government to exclude airplane and helicopter flights from Grand Canyon. It has taken Americans one hundred years to learn what its Congress already instinctively knew: namely that ‘‘improvements’’ degrade the national park ideal. Yet dominant voices in New Zealand park management seem to be blithely following down the same circuitous path as

their American counterparts. At a meeting of locals at Taumaranui in the summer of 1985, the chairman of Tongariro park board, Mr Roger Holyoake, listed possible developments which were blocked because of the present development plan. These included heliskiing, a gondola on Whakapapa and even night skiing. He was reported in a local paper as saying ‘‘such schemes would involve an enormous spinoff for our area but we haven't got a management plan". While Mr Holyoake was encouraging helicopter concessionaires the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park was threatening to take legal action against helicopters landing on park islands: ‘‘Mr Mossman (chief ranger) said that there had been many complaints about the disturbance helicopters caused. Most people came to the park to enjoy the serenity of its islands and reserves. A helicopter carrying four passengers can affect a lot of peo-

ple. I see it as a benefit for a few against a cost for many " (New Zealand Herald). Certainly the serenity of the many was shattered long ago at Mt Cook National Park where ski planes buzz the Tasman Glacier, their sound reverberating against the mountain walls. It is worse in Westland National Park where a superb wander up the Fox Glacier past the huge ice pinnacles and ice caves and across the magnificent herbfields around Chancellor Hut is shattered on most fine days by a virtually continuous noise that would drive a modern worker to ear muff protection. What emerges from these contemporary examples is that New Zealand lacks a clear philosophy of values for its national park management. If Tongariro holds out against any further major development within its boundaries it may appear, along with Hauraki, to be shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. But the situation is redeemable. Concessions can be removed to outside park boundaries. Further roading in national parks can be seen as inappropriate. The flying-over and landing of planes and helicopters can be restricted to very specific areas, or denied altogether. However, to convince the tourists, the public and themselves that such wonderful fun conveniences are very destructive to park values, the park administrators will need to develop a philosophy that recognises the full range of human and other values which they are protecting in national parks. They will need to dig seriously into the writings of Thoreau and others who loved spaces where people could find a natural world free of con-

sumer comfort and impact. A world where time and space is measured out by natural rhythms and where people see, hear, taste and smell only what they can never create. National parks and reserves are among few places left where this experience can be protected in law and management. If in our bid for the international tourist dollar we turn national parks into fun parlours we destroy the important human experiences and values that national parks can Offer. Conservationists have long extolled the value of national parks. Now they must insist the new Department of Conservation develops a philosophy that preserves and manages them for their pristine state. 5

Tongariro National Park has advertised for submissions on its intention to review the Tongariro National Park Management Plan. All interested people may send their thoughts and feelings to the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Lands and Survey, Private Bag, Wellington.