From the Wet West to the Dry East

Forest and Bird, Volume 19, Issue 2, 1 May 1988, Page 20

From the Wet West

to the Dry East

by

Conservation Director

Gerry McSweeney,

proposed additions to Arthur's Pass National Park

o run down a Canterbury shingle scree is to almost defy gravity. Your giant steps down the moving mountain resemble Neil Armstrong's moonwalk. However, if you resist the temptation to run, and instead stop and look around, you discover life amongst the shattered greywacke; large black scree butterflies, cryptically coloured grasshoppers and scree plants. Grey, blue and purple leaved plants emerge from the screes, capped in summer with rosettes of fragrant white, yellow, pink and even black flowers. The penwiper, black scree cotula, yellow forget-me-not, fleshy lobelia, red willowherb, and Haast’s buttercup are but a few of these. On a distant ridge crest, what seems to be flocks of sheep are on closer viewing found to be massive immobile cushions of white Raoulia or vegetable sheep. Our eastern mountain screes host some of New Zealand's most distinctive plants. They are uniquely adapted with their long tap roots, succulent and hairy leaves and cushion forms to a life of extremes of temperature and moisture on a moving hillside of shattered stone. However, unfortunately they are less well adapted to introduced browsing mammals. For example, the fleshy penwiper plant — a member of the cabbage family — and Haast'’s buttercup are heavily grazed by sheep, chamois and hares. These plants are largely confined to the eastern South Island mountains yet remain largely outside national parks or reserves. It is a situation that mirrors the historical absence of lowland native forests — the merchantable forests — from our park system.

Grazing Leases Prevented Park Addition

Because most of the dry eastern mountains were already under pastoral lease tenure and grazed by sheep they were not included in the parks established along the wetter Southern Alps main divide where the specialised scree plants are largely absent. Today, emphasis on ecological representation in our national parks means we need to reappraise the present boundaries of our parks and identify opportunities for extension. In response to public pressure and with the support of catchment authorities, government officials and pastoral lessees, cautious steps are now being started to recognise the national park values of the eastern mountainlands and add to the parks areas retired from grazing. Each of our South Island main divide national parks is a candidate for such eastward extensions. East of Nelson Lakes National Park are the arid mountainlands of ‘the Rainbow and St James pastoral leases and Molesworth Station. Much of the Ben Ohau range alongside Mt Cook National Park is now destocked as are much of the upper Shotover-Richardson mountains east of Mt Aspiring National Park and the Livingstone mountains east of Fiordland. This article focuses on the 94,497-hectare Arthur's Pass National Park where a series of recent and proposed additions, both in the west (Deception-Taipo rivers) and in the east (Cox-Binser-Candlestick Range) offer the opportunity for a park covering the

complete ecological sequence from wet lowland rainforest to semi-desert shrublands and scree.

30 Years Coming

Arthur's Pass National Park was created in 1929, centred around the transalpine pass and peaks at the head of the Waimakariri River. However, as early as 1955, the Ar-

thur’s Pass National Park Board started moves to add to the National Park a major area — the Cox River — to the park. The wheels of bureaucracy move slowly. Finally, 30 years later in 1985 the public was formally invited to comment on this proposed 19,230 hectare Cox-Binser Saddle addition. Unfortunately the boundaries chosen for this addition were based primarily on ten-

» sCxayaeepeanmnae 4 ~ ox River from the Poulter Range, Arthur's Pass National 2 Park. The 19,230 hectare Cox-Mt Binser area will soon be added to the Arthur's Pass National Park once survey is completed. This important addition of red-silver-mountain beech forests and the possible future addition of drier tussock mountain land shortly to be surrendered from the Mt White pastoral lease will complete an important west-east wet to dry climate vegetation sequence within this National Park (see article on

page 20 inside).

ure considerations, not landforms or vegetation. In fact there has still been no specific vegetation survey of the proposed Cox-Binser addition. In its submission on the 1985 report, Forest and Bird gave support to the Cox-Binser addition. We felt it would protect within the national park a substantial area of forested mountainland and some areas of drier east-

ern mountain vegetation. However, we also noted there was an important opportunity to go a lot further in correcting the deficiency of eastern mountainlands within the park. We argued that another 8,000 hectares east of the Cox-Bin-ser addition should also be added to the park. We noted a range of distinctive botanical and landscape features that made this

8,000 hectare park addition desirable and we sought a botanical survey of the area to find out what it contained.

Surrendered From Grazing

The land in question is to be surrendered in 1992 from the huge 49,800-hectare Mt White Station under the terms of a Catchment Board high country retirement scheme. In 1985 the owners of Mt White signed a run management plan which involves the destocking of 12,361 hectares of severely eroded mountainlands. More than 8000 hectares of that land behind retirement fences is to be surrendered from the lease and revert to full Crown (DoC) contorl and 4242 hectares will be destocked but remain within the title of the lease. "see ove

Survey Long Overdue

From the time of writing our submissions in 1985, the chaos of environmental restructuring intervened. It took us nearly two years to return and organise a botanical survey to explore the 8,000 hectares adjoining the Cox-Binser area to find out what special or distinctive plants, animals and land forms were there. In the interim the National Parks Authority recommended the Cox-Binser addition. This was approved by Government in 1986 and only awaits survey to be added to the national park. Finally, in December 1987, Society president Alan Mark and I went into the CoxCandlestick region with Arthur's Pass National Park ranger Mike Harding and Canterbury branch committee member and DoC staffer Amanda Baird. For a week we clambered up to 1800m altitude over most of the ridges and valleys within the area and measured more than 50 vegetation plots. Subsequently we also surveyed Mt Binser and parts of the Cox Valley ranges to see how different this vegetation was from the 8,000 hectares on the Mt White Station. The survey of the 8,000 hectares showed substantial vegetation differences from the existing national park and its Cox-Binser addition. The surveyed area lies largely within the Cass ecological district which is outside the Park boundaries. The Cass district has a much drier climate than the national park. It includes the arid Cass-Castle Hill intermontane basins. Short tussock, dry shrublands, pockets of mountain beech forest and distinctive scree vegetation are a feature of the district.

These features were all well represented within the 8,000 hectare survey area on Mt White Station and would add significantly to ecological representation in the Park. However, we also found a number of rare plants and plants at their limits of distribution. Major changes occur in snow tussock distribution. The predominantly NelsonMarlborough carpet snowgrass Chionochloa australis reaches its southern limit here on Gray Hill and east to the Puketeraki range. Within the study area it is competing with other snow tussock grasslands along a classic invasion front. There is a major transition in alpine scree and herbfield plants. A succulent scree willowherb (Epilobium crassum) and Haast’s buttercup are found within the survey block but no further west in the existing or expanded National Park (Burrows 1986). The Nelson-Marlborough tree daisy Traversia baccharoides, abundant in shrub communities in the block, is also

at its southern geographic limit here and east to the Okuku Pass. There are extensive populations of the endangered whipcord Hebe armstrongii. Mistletoe is unusually abundant on the mountain beech forests of the survey area.

Plans For An Enlarged Park

Under the run retirement plan, the 8,000 hectare Candlestick-Gray Hill area will become stewardship land within DoC in 1992. There is a strong case for this area to be considered as a park addition. It meets park criteria for ecological representativeness, distinctive and special features. It has a scenic grandeur characteristic of the dry intermontane basins. The area also provides semi-wilderness opportunities for trampers without the severe climate further west. Remote from the main road and rail that dominates so much of the park, the CoxCandlestick needs no new tracks or huts. Wide bush-edged river valleys are both the accessways and the camping sites. Addition to the national park should also allay the fears of high country lessees like Mt White manager Ray Marshall that surrendered lands will no longer have a caretaker. Control to prevent spread of the small pockets of gorse and broom within the block will be of highest priority should the area come into the national park. Public use of the area will also be supervised and managed by park staff. Visitors would be encouraged to observe the usual high country courtesies in notifying Mr Marshall were they visiting the area. Arthur's Pass National Park may well be a trendsetter in a programme of ecologicallybased park additions which will have a powerful impact in our next century of national parks. yf Acknowledgements: All of us on the Forest and Bird survey sincerely appreciate the kind co-operation of Chief Ranger Peter Simpson, the staff of Arthur's Pass National Park, Mr Ray Marshall Manager of Mt White Station and Dr Colin Burrows, Canterbury University. References: Burrows, C J 1986. Botany of Arthur's Pass National Park, South Island NZ. History of botanical studies and checklist of the vascular flora. NZ Journal of Botany 24:9-68 Lands and Survey 1985. Cox River-Binser Saddle Area-resource study. North Canterbury Catchment Board 1985. Mt White Station Soil and Water Conservation Plan.

* Footnote: In 1985 Forest and Bird sparked off a major controversy over the Mt White run plan. Initially the Catchment Board had proposed to destock the 12,361 hectares of the lease but not require its surrender from the lease, hence contravening the 1984 Labour party election policy which argued that when taxpayer money was used to retire mountainland from grazing, that land should revert from leasehold tenure to full Crown control and be available for recreation use. After much public debate, Works Minister Fraser Colman finally consented to an amended run plan involving surrender of much (8119 ha) of the retired land. This decision was a trendsetter and soon after the Government announced its 1985 Destocking and Surrender policy for the South Island High Country. This ae the identification and surrender of severely eroded land from pastoral leases. Unfortunately this important policy has not yet been activated by officials charged with lease administration. In exchange for losing the grazing over a quarter of their lease, the Mt White Station owners receive a government subsidy of $209,700 towards an 8-year retirement plan costing $305,150. The plan involves retirement fences, windbreaks and cultivation, oversowing and topdressing of the lower parts of the station which will allow it to carry on a smaller area an equivalent or greater number of stock to those previously run over the whole property.