Preserving the Snow Tussock Country

Forest and Bird, Issue 309, 1 August 2003, Page 24

Preserving the Snow

Tussock Country

NEVILLE PEAT

introduces Te Papanui, a new grasslands park in Otago.

n the curvaceous slopes of the Lammermoor Range, at the eastern edge of Central Otago, the snow tussocks grow densely and head-high in places. The gullies and spurs roll as smoothly as cloud formations in a nor wester, the colour of straw. For kilometres in any direction there is nothing but tussock grassland. Snow tussocks have never had a finer a showcase than here in Te Papanui Conservation Park. Te Papanui is Otago’s first non-forest conservation park and only the second grasslands park in the country, after Korowai-Torlesse in Canterbury. Unlike the craggy, scree landscapes of the Canterbury park, Te Papanui is softer and more open, with gullies falling away from a 1100 metres plateau area. On a good day the views across to the big, block mountains of Central Otago convey a roof-of-the-world feeling.

Narrow-leaved snow tussock Chionochloa rigida is dominant here, rippling in the westerly gales and at other times intercepting the moisture in fog and passing it down to countless streams. Cushionfield plants such as Phyllachne colensoi and Raoulia hectori, and blue tussock Poa colensoi, hold the highest ground. Snowbanks and seepages harbour diverse plant communities. Here you might find patches of gentians, the daisy Celmisia prorepens and the rarer aromatic herb Gingidia baxterae, a member of the aniseed family. Where there are spaces between tussocks look out for whipcord hebes, including Hebe subulata and H. poppelwellii, the straggling subshrub Gaultheria macrostigma, and the impressively large daisy Celmisia semicordata, with suncentred flowers attaining the size of saucers. Feature birds of the area are New Zealand

falcon/karearea, Australasian harrier/kahu and New Zealand pipit/pihoihoi. The invertebrate world is rather more diverse. Some 550 insect species, representing 13 orders, inhabit the Lammermoor area, an invertebrate richness both intriguing and fascinating. Between the tor-studded ‘tundra’ tops of the adjacent Rock and Pillar Range and the tussocky Lammermoor crests lies a veritable insect city, one of New Zealand’s richest invertebrate habitats. A number of the species are found nowhere else. The new park, 20,882 hectares in area, spreads from the Lammermoors into the slightly higher Lammerlaw Range to the west. About where the two ranges meet there is a compelling geographical feature — the headwaters of the Taieri River. As long as the Whanganui River, the Taieri starts as a network of seepages, stepped pools and finger bogs. Draining north, it

becomes a sizeable stream before it cuts down through gorges to the Styx Basin and Maniototo Plain. Is all this open — some would say, empty — rangeland worth exploring? You bet. The park is open to walkers, mountainbikers, cross-country skiers and 4-wheel-drive enthusiasts, although the last-mentioned group will not have access to the park in winter. From June to October, the main gate into the park will be locked to coincide with the winter closure of the Old Dunstan Road between the Strath Taieri and Maniototo areas. The main access to the park is off the Old Dunstan Road beyond Rocklands Station — the nineteenth-century route to the Central Otago goldfields. From Dunedin and Mosgiel, turn left off SH87 at Clarks Junction, cross Deep Stream and follow the signs. A farm track of reasonable standard — at least as far as the rocky promontory, Ailsa Craig (1132 metres) — climbs past Deep Creek towards the summit crest at Lammermoor Trig (1159 metres) then bends right along the crest towards the Lammerlaw Range. Beyond Ailsa Craig the track can be challenging. About five kilometres on from the trig, the track turns left off the summit crest and soon joins roads leading down towards the town of Lawrence in one direction or Lake Mahinerangi in another. You are traversing the head of the Waipori catchment as you leave the park area. Thus the park offers a memorable through-route that the Department of Conservation intends to manage. The 4wd people are required to stay on the formed track but trampers can wander at will in a high-country landscape described as a remote experience area. At this stage, with a park management plan yet to come, DoC is not planning to develop walking tracks

beyond the main 4wd route but numerous long- or short-walk options are available for experienced overlanders. No doubt one or two 4wd tourism concessions will develop from the creation of the park. Hunters seeking pigs or red deer are also likely to be attracted, and they will need permits to shoot in the area. The Government’s process for reviewing pastoral leasehold tenure spawned this park. It produced contiguous blocks of land of sufficient size to justify the creation of a conservation park. Te Papanui is made up of six parcels of land, the largest pieces coming from the Rocklands Station and Halwyn Station tenure reviews. The Dunedin City Council has a major stake in the new park. The city’s contribution of $695,000 towards the Rocklands tenure deal ensured immediate destocking of the bulk of the Deep Stream/Deep Creek catchment, which supplies about 60 percent of the city’s water. Water, habitat for native flora and fauna, and recreational opportunities — all these flow from the creation of Te Papanui Conservation Park. Add to those values a captivating landscape. DoC’s conservator for Otago, Jeff Connell, reached for some evocative words to describe Te Papanui when he spoke at the official opening of the park in May. ‘On foggy days, it is utterly silent ... the landscape is hidden, waiting. As the fog clears, the landscape stretches and unfolds. A subtle landscape, this, where fine textured grasslands, mossfields and snowbanks reveal every hummock and hollow, and edges are rolled in the low southern sun? The new park has its detractors, mostly from among the farming community. They worry that Te Papanui is the thin end of a wedge — the first of six proposed conservation parks in the Otago high country — that will swallow up vast areas of summer grazing country in the inland mountain ranges of Otago. They worry about what they call a wholesale ‘locking up’ of land. The conservation counter-argument portrays the park-creating process as the reverse of a lock-up. It argues that these new parks will facilitate public access and recreation as never before, and that, in Te Papanut’s case, a major city’s water supply will enjoy greater protection and security. Above all, Te Papanui offers a liberating space for body and soul. — NEVILLE PEAT is a Dunedin author whose work is profiled in this magazine on page 20. GILBERT VAN REENEN of Clean, Green Images recently exhibited his photographs of Te Papanui in Lawrence, see www.cleangreen.co.nz