Stewart Island/ Rakiura

Forest and Bird, Issue 292, 1 May 1999, Page 30

Stewart Island/

Rakiura

GORDON ELL.

GORDON ELL

a national park proposed

The time is right for a national park on Stewart Island, writes

tewart Island and its outliers stand on the subantarctic edge of New Zealand, a place set apart by nature and geography. It is still largely a wilderness: a place of rocky coasts or lonely sand beaches, where forested headlands encompass long sheltering harbours, and winding rivers are often the easiest paths through wetlands to the hills. At its remote heart is a series of granite mountains surrounded by forests that have never been felled. The spectacular views, the natural values, and wilderness, all cry out for recognition as a national park, and recent political initiatives now make this a prime possibility. The islands are a haven for rare and endangered species, including several subspecies of birds peculiar to the island, and many plants found nowhere else. About 93 percent of the main Stewart Island is owned by the Crown and the investigation for a national park would have to consider the natural and scenic values of a vast area. The criteria is simple: any park must ‘contain scenery of such distinctive quality, ecological systems, or natural features so beautiful, unique or scientifically important that their preservation is in the national interest’ A national park must also contain an area of at least 10,000 hectares. Crown holdings on Stewart Island total around 164,000 hectares.

Lying south from Invercargill, across stormy Foveaux Strait, Stewart Island/Rakiura has been little developed, though settled early on by Maori and European. Here it is still possible to catch a glimpse of what the pioneers faced in the old forests and wetlands of New Zealand. Settlement today is focussed around the township of Oban (population 400 or so) while the remainder of the island is in forest. In a few places the original forest has been modified, through failed farming efforts or small-scale milling, but most is too isolated to have suffered axe or firestick. The rugged nature of the landscape, the wet climate and the difficulty of extracting timber, mean Stewart Island is still largely intact as a wilderness. Unlike the mainland to the north, and contrary to the expectations of a visitor approaching cooler climes, Stewart Island has no ‘subantarctic’ beech forest. Instead, the fabric of its rainforest is redolent of warmer places. Huge podocarps rise in reserves close to the town. The coastal forest is usually a sheltering belt where windswept manuka mixes with hebes, the whipcords of dracophyllum, flaxes and leathery muttonbird scrub. Everywhere there are panoramas of the southern ocean, exposed beaches, infiltrating harbours. The light is different too, softer than in

the north, clear but with a touch of the gloaming that accompanies the move into higher latitudes. It gets dark early in winter but the late night sunsets of summer, the red-lit clouds and crackling aurora give memorable meaning to its Maori name — Rakiura, (isle of) glowing skies. T: township of Oban surrounds Halfmoon Bay, its houses and ‘cribs’ clinging to forested hillsides and spilling over into adjacent bays. The only roads on the island are those that link the settlement together. On the flat land behind the wharf there’s a pub, a backpackers lodge, community facilities, a Department of Conservation office, some small stores. Oban is the starting place for the island’s track system, established in the days when the Forest Service ran much of the island as a protected area. The 280 kilometres of

track include the Rakiura Track, a circuit of 36 kilometres and one of the Ten Great Walks promoted by the tourist industry and Department of Conservation. It often follows a board walk built to stop trampers getting bogged in the notorious mud, while protecting the forest. Many tourists take a boat from Oban to Ulva Island which, free of pests, has a huge bird population. Curious kaka come down to examine the visitor; Stewart Island weka pick their way along the tideline looking for marine morsels. Sheltered by the arms of Paterson Inlet the island is forested in mature rimu, kamahi and rata. From their branches, the calls of native birds meld into a chorus, exciting imaginings of how the New Zealand forests must once have sounded. The plant and animal life of Stewart Island is rich and diverse, with species varying through narrow bands of altitudinal range, and some eight identified ecosystems. They include rare and endangered plants, some not found elsewhere, and threatened birds, including several sub-species peculiar to the island. The podocarp-hardwood forests dominate, and are home to many birds including the threatened Stewart Island weka, yellowcrowned parakeet, Stewart Island brown kiwi, South Island kaka, Stewart Island robin, banded rail and Cook’s petrel. The coastal shrublands shelter Fiordland crested penguin, weka, kiwi, fernbird, robin, and banded rail. The alpine and subalpine tussock grasslands of Mount Anglem/Hananui, Mount Rakeahua and the Tin Range have been likened to tundras. Herb bogs and cushionfields lie about water-logged and ponded areas, within the tussock zone. Many of the plants found here occur nowhere else. The four types of native grassland found on Stewart Island shelter more plants peculiar to the island. Grasslands are not extensive but they contain local forms of alpine speargrass and mountain buttercup, besides the coastal Cook’s scurvy grass which Captain Cook fed to his crew to prevent disease. These coasts are also frequented by Stewart Island shag, Fiordland-crested and yellow-eyed penguins, New Zealand sea lion and fur seals. The freshwater ecosystems are notable too, because whole catchments are still largely intact. The island has 11 species of native freshwater fish and, with the exception of migratory quinnat salmon which are farmed in the sea, there are no introduced freshwater fish. The undisturbed freshwater systems are valued scientifically and intrinsically as features long gone from other parts of New Zealand where introduced fish, such as trout, have modified river catchments.

Besides holidaying ‘crib’ owners, more than 30,000 tourists visit the island annually. Creation of a national park would swell these numbers as the island joins the ‘must-see’ list for those who come to New Zealand to see its best places. Growing tourism has led the Department of Conservation to consider new sites for visitor camps, and it may involve the Southland District Council in regulating camping. Many popular sites are on private land but, within its reserves, the Department of Conservation is looking to provide basic facilities, such as toilets, clean running water and washing facilities. That all costs money. Growing numbers of kayakers too are using the shores of Stewart Island as campsites. Kayakers’ camps may conflict with the night-time territories of Stewart Island kiwi which hunt along the tideline. The chance of seeing a kiwi in the wild is one of the reasons eco-tourists holiday on Stewart Island. To protect the majority of kiwi populations, spotlighting expeditions are now permitted at only three places. One of the reasons for the comparatively rich birdlife on Stewart Island is the absence of mustelids; particularly the introduced ferrets and stoats which have put some mainland birds in danger of extinction. There are

wild cats though, their depradations prompting the removal of kakapo to offshore islands. Rats are another pest being eradicated from some islands off the shores of Stewart Island, to aid bird recovery programmes. Possums and deer are problems in the forests. White-tailed deer, in particular, favour sub-canopy hardwood trees, making some plant species increasingly rare. Above them, possums eat the forest canopy, opening the trees below to the salt-laden winds and causing considerable "die-back’, particularly around the coast. This combination of deer and possums arrests regeneration. The Department of Conservation believes that hunting is removing only some 15 percent of the deer per year, about the same amount as their annual reproduction. An objective of the conservation management strategy is to reduce deer densities to zero. Policies of ‘moderate reduction’ of deer are not enough to save the island’s vegetation from serious damage. To save the forest, deer have to go, regardless of the status of the land. Wild cats, dogs and goats are also destroyed when possible on conservation land. Around Halfmoon Bay this has created tensions about the future of keeping pets, but such fears are groundless. Oban stands outside the Crown boundaries so pets are quite safe there.

Oban rom it F is A possible them; to fly to the remote west of the island at Mason Bay, and land below the high-tide mark of a lonely ocean beach. The flight across the island reveals a fascinating landscape of waterpenetrated land, sinuous rivers winding back through extensive wetlands. The forested hills are gradually bared as they approach their granite domes, some rising to 900 metres and more. The alpine herbfields of the Tin Range in the south are the breeding ground of a southern race of the New Zealand or red-breasted dotterel. The endangered bird numbers only 120 or so. Unlike the northern race which breeds on the coastal sands where it feeds, this dotterel roosts and nests near the mountain tops and ‘commutes’ down to the beach. From Mason Bay there is a distant view of Codfish Island/Whenua Hou, a refuge for kakapo. Until these birds were discovered in the Tin Range wilderness and relocated, it was thought that only three of the species survived (in the Sinbad Valley of Milford Sound, Fiordland). Rats are now being removed from Whenua Hou, and the kakapo temporarily placed on Pearl Island where they have recently bred. Brown kiwi patrol the sandhills of Mason Bay, often feeding in daytime. The giant sandhills roll back for a kilometre or so, their native pingao sand-binders increasing in area as introduced marram is cleared from this isolated coast. Among the dunes are rare plants such as the coastal spurge Euphorbia glauca. Mason Bay was grazed into the 1980s but is now totally protected. The surrounding forest is regenerating but the appeal of the place in scenic terms is already outstanding. ll islands have a special feel about their local populations also take a special view of their relationship with mainlanders. On Stewart Island, traditions stretch back a long way. Living on what was once a stronghold of Ngai Tahu Maori, some people have grown up in a very long tradition of harvesting and fishing. Early European sealers and whalers settled here with Maori wives in the very early 1800s. Many later became fishermen or timberworkers. Not surprisingly, the frontier tradition and outlook still survives. The idea of a national park, with its suggestion of broader perspectives, is likely to raise some the Ryan’s Creek airstrip near

hackles if residents are not consulted. A lot of people on Stewart Island still work in extractive industries, notably fishing, and fish farming and the associated pack houses. Commercial salmon farms have been established in Big Glory Bay near Oban, and a pioneer paua industry produces baby molluscs for fattening in mainland factories. The clean waters around the island are a major resource and interest for these aquaculturists. (By definition, national parks do not include coastal waters.) The coastal seas of Stewart Island are littered with rock stacks and small islands, about 170 in all. Several are extremely valuable from a wildlife management point of view, some being the last resorts of rare and endangered species, such as kakapo on Whenua Hou, and the South Island saddleback. Around 60 percent of the offshore islands are less than five hectares, and only 10 percent are more than 40 hectares. The Department of Conservation distinguishes between ‘forest islands’ such as publicly owned Ulva Island in Paterson Inlet, and ‘seabird islands, several of which are significantly free of pests while still the subject to traditional ‘muttonbird’ harvests. Many of these islands are Maori owned. Any proposal for a national park would be limited to the Crown estate, however, and not include such places. Maori interests are further entrenched with the recent settlement of the Ngai Tahu claim. Not only was the ownership of the Crown Titi Islands vested in Ngai Tahu; their roles as advisers with special interests in the management of the wider Crown estate is also formally recognised in the agreement, particularly on Whenua Hou, which now has a special advisory committee and is not included in the park proposal. Maori place names, such as Rakiura for Stewart Island, have been restored alongside the English ones. Even where no Maori land is involved, Ngai Tahu interests in the management of

their special species and heritage on Stewart Island generally require particular consultation, by law. On the other hand, the land claims have been settled, making investigation of a national park more practical than in other areas of New Zealand, where Crown reserves have been claimed by Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi process. or the visitor, it is easy to assume the extensive wilderness and its outstanding natural values would automatically qualify the island as a national park. There are, however, other considerations, particularly the views of those who live there. Local fishing industries using the coasts and estuaries could have an interest, though marine areas are generally not affected by national parks. So would hunters, tourist operators and Maori. The Southland District Council has expressed interest in the ‘sustainable management of the island as part of its territorial area. The consultation phase of creating national parks is about considering the varying viewpoints. At Easter, the Minister of Conservation, Dr Nick Smith, announced he wanted a recommendation to create a Stewart Island national park, before Christmas. The Southland Conservation Board has advocated such a move, while the New Zealand Conservation Authority — which has statutory responsibility for such investigations — was already gathering information from the Department of Conservation about interested groups which might want to be consulted. Forest and Bird has embraced the national park proposal for Stewart Island. Its natural values are superb, its scenery outstanding: the island surely must meet national park criteria. The time is right for a national park on Rakiura.

is the Forest and Bird

nominee on the New Zealand Conservation Authority.