bold, beautiful Buller

Forest and Bird, Issue 302, 1 November 2001, Page 22

bold, beautiful Buller

Text by

GORDON ELL

CRAIG POTTON

GORDON ELL

A water conservation order to protect the wild river

he Buller begins delicately in fragile streams high in the "w=. Nelson Lakes and Kahurangi aational parks. It descends steeply, gathering strength from rivers which drain the ranges of the Southern Alps and Paparoa. By the time it enters its tidal reaches above Westport, the Buller has become New Zealand’s third largest river. Now, after 15 years of legal processes, many of its headwaters and the main stream itself, join a select few of our wild rivers to be protected by a water |

conservation order. This means certain rivers and lakes must be preserved forever in their natural state. Other reaches are simply protected, for their natural beauty, or for recreation. Anglers, kayakers and rafting enthusiasts have joined with conservationists in celebration. The water conservation order should halt the development of hydro-electric generation on the main river and its lakes. Among fully ‘preserved’ waters are Lakes Constance, Rotorua and Rotoiti, their alpine tributaries, and the Ohikanui River, for their ‘outstanding values’.

The case for the water conservation order began in the 1980s, with what is now Nelson-Marlborough Fish and Game as prime movers. Among those supporting the order for Forest and Bird was Craig Potton who took this photo essay, and provided evidence about the aesthetic significance of the river. The Buller is no ordinary place: its deep gorges fill with seasonal mists. In winter, hoar frosts turn the beech and podocarp forests along its southern walls into a monochrome landscape, hung with icicles. The river surges and boils around jumbled rocks. Its bottom can only be imagined. The rugged nature of the country was

Thomas Brunner, who was trapped in. the gorges of the Buller for 14 weeks, during his epic 550-day round-trip from Nelson to Paringa in Westland. At Murchison where the Matiri and the Matakitaki join it on the Four River Plain, the Buller is temporarily broader, running over boulders which grind and rumble, bouncing along in its flood. Its course here is unstable; having washed away the earlier town, the Buller moved away, then more recently returned to cut into the terraces of the present town. While the scars of the massive 1929 earthquake are now softening, the frequent earthquakes and massive slumps are a reminder that the Buller is better left alone.

The water conservation order is published with extensive schedules, defining rivers and reaches of rivers, which are respectively ‘preserved’ or ‘protected’. (Our map is only indicative, because of constraints in rendering scale.) Curiously, the rushing Gowan — arguably New Zealand’s best-stocked flyfishing river — is protected for its usefulness for kayaking, not fishing. So some risk remains from those advocating power development there. Lower reaches of the Matiri and the Matakitaki, and the Inangahua, have been excluded altogether, because of conflicting claims from other interests. The good news is the extension of protected status to the full length of the Buller, and its sources in the Owen and Maruia catchments down to Te Kahu, 12 kilometres from the sea. The attempt to protect the tidal waters of what is believed to be New Zealand’s largest whitebait fishery were defeated by port interests at Westport. When those who had fought for the river gathered to celebrate at the outlet of Lake Rotoiti, a Maori elder invited those present to each throw in a pebble, so it might run unimpeded to the sea.

is deputy president of Forest and

Bird.

was brought up on the Buller.