Over the last year we have all been subject to a determined campaign by Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee and his MED officials to rip into our cherished protected conservation lands in a desperate effort in their minds to unlock and release what they think is some sort of economic bonanza. They seem unable to recognise the enormous spiritual, physical well being and financial benefits we all gain from our marvellous New Zealand network of National Parks, Reserves and Conservation lands. These define so much of our character and the image that New Zealand presents to the rest of the world.
I work every day with international tourists to New Zealand and see the enormous appreciation they have for NZ's protected lands as a natural paradise. The tourism industry brings us $7 billion a year rivalling the dairy industry. Moreover it generates a diversity of jobs, particularly for women, in small communities throughout the country.
There is a group of people, particularly in the Economic Development Ministry, that fails to recognise the value of these tourism and conservation jobs centered around protecting nature. Instead they put on a pedestal the mining and construction industry involved in building roads, dams and irrigation schemes. They see taming nature as the road to riches. Part of it also seems their desire to ape Australia.
As part of their crusade, there were successful efforts last year by Minister Brownlee and MED to excise conservation lands of the Manuherikia Valley floor from the Oteake Conservation Park in the heart of Central Otago tussock lands. Their rationale is that this 400 hectares of conservation land might one day support a lignite mine.
His officials are now pouring over New Zealand's protected National Park and Reserve lands and have identified many areas that will be excluded from their Conservation Act protection from mining. These areas are to announced in the next week. Again coal deposits, including the dirty high sulphur coal of Fletcher Creek Ecological Reserve on the eastern Paparoa Range, are now to be opened to mining.
One of Mr Brownlee's more whacky recent ideas was his support on TV1 News 5 weeks ago for a campaign by Scenic Circle Hotel owner Earl Hageman to champion a new Haast Hollyford road through the World Heritage protected wilderness of Southern South Westland.
In response to outrage by wilderness lovers, Mr Brownlee and his officials have backed down on the Haast Hollyford road.
NZ Herald March 9 carried this story:
A proposal to build a road connecting Haast to the Milford Sound area has been indefinitely put on the back-burner.
The Haast-Hollyford road proposal for the South Island's West Coast, considered a potential tourism booster, has been considered by many governments dating back to the start of last century, and while Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee has recently shown support for it, he has confirmed there is little prospect of the development getting off the ground any time soon.
The cost of the road has been put at over $300 million, and a recent ministry report on it suggests the benefits to tourism from such a development did not currently weigh up to make it worthy.
"In the current economic environment, while it's prudent to invest in infrastructure, the analysis done by officials to date indicates the Haast to Hollyford route would be a low priority," Mr Brownlee said today.
- NZPA