National Park investigation underway

Forest and Bird, Volume 23, Issue 1, 1 February 1992, Page 28

National Park investigation underway

Kevin Smith

HE CREATION of a new national park is a rare event and few opportunities remain in New Zealand for new parks. The north-west corner of the South Island contains an expansive tract of natural land that richly deserves national park status. The momentum for a national park here has been building for some time, at least as far back as the campaigns in the 1970s to stop foolish proposals for a Heaphy Road and to end the destructive logging of bird-rich forests in the Oparara basin north of Karamea. West Coast and Nelson conservationists kept the idea alive and have now convinced key politicians and the national conservation establishment that the time is night for a new national park. Mining interests and some diehard anti-park developers on the West Coast will oppose the park but their objections can be swept aside by nationwide support for the national park. The views of the developing nature tourism industry in places like Karamea will also be important. The New Zealand Conservation Authority has begun the formal process of investigating a new national park. A report on the proposal is being prepared by the Department of Conservation (DoC) and will probably be released for public comment in July this year. The area under investigation only includes land currently administered by DoC. Every national park that has been created in New Zealand had overwhelming public support, so please write a simple letter stating your views on the proposal when submissions are called for. Your letter will help create conservation history. Forest and Bird’s Conservation News will keep you posted.