East Harbour Regional Park Draft Management Plan

25th September 2006

Summary: NZDA makes this submission in support of recreational hunters – big game and wildfowl hunters, and ask that the Plan be changed accordingly to allow their type of recreation, including food harvesting for the table.

NZDA opposes this draft Plan with its major exclusion or containment of many popular recreational activities, including recreational hunting. The Draft Plan sees the Park primarily as a preservation area, not a recreational one. This is unacceptable, in terms of the Local Government Act. Recreational big game and wildfowl hunting are traditional recreational activities in here since the earliest human habitations. NZDA strongly supports these traditional recreational activities continuing in the East Harbour Park. The Plan is only half the Plan it should be.

The purpose of Greater Wellington (GW) Parks is primarily to provide for the outdoor recreational activities of the Region’s population. Recreational hunting is an important recreational activity in the region, and as well provides food for the table, an important human right of all countries.

NZDA asks that the GW Council agree that this important recreational activity be allowed in the Park, and that the draft Plan be changed accordingly. Recreational hunters should have first opportunity to control the hunter-gatherer recreational resource in the Park. Only if they cannot exercise adequate control should ratepayers be required to pay for professional killers to do the work.

NZDA requests to be heard in support of this submission.

Detailed Comments:

1. NZDA:

NZDA is the national body of recreational deerstalkers and other big game hunters. We have 53 branches and hunting member clubs throughout New Zealand. We have 7200 members, and have been actively advocating for recreational deerstalking and hunting, running hunter training courses, trips, conferences etc since 1937. We maintain ethical standards for hunting.

We write this submission in support of our five Wellington Region based deerstalker Branches – Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti and Wairarapa, and other recreational hunters in the Region. These branches may be making their own submissions. Many members of deerstalker branches also hunt wild pigs, and engage in gamebird shooting.

2. No Recreation Section:

NZDA notes with dismay that there is no “Recreation” section in the draft Plan eg Policies, pages 11-14. The Plan is a Preservation Plan more interested in re-creating New Zealand as it was before humans arrived, than catering for the recreational needs of the regional community. This seems to us to be misappropriation of regional rates. To us the primary purpose of regional parks must be providing recreational opportunities. We are disappointed that the Regional Council does not see recreational activity, apart from a limited foot based subset of it, as relevant.

Recreation is hidden away in “Sustaining Opportunities and use” (Page 28). There are policies on Access, Use and occupation (Commercialisation), and on Park Facilities. The heading “General Recreation Policies” only covers foot access (3.15), and then only a limited range of walking opportunities (3.16). Many other acceptable recreations are partly or fully excluded, eg hunting.

NZDA notes that “hunting” and “camping” are prohibited in Zone 1 (Northern forest), Zone 2 (Gollans Valley Remote Area) Zone 3 (Pencarrow Lakes). We note that: mountain-biking is prohibited in 2 of the 4 zones; horse riding and fires are prohibited throughout the Park; and that camping and dogs are prohibited in 3 of the 4 zones.

No wonder New Zealand is in the midst of an obesity epidemic.

The plan is clearly an anti recreation plan, being overwhelmingly for walkers without a dog or firearm, and definitely not on wheels. This is in spite of the fact that most of the recreation excluded is sustainable eg dogs have been around assisting man as long as man has farmed (20,000 years), hunting has been a sustainable human activity dating back to when caves were houses. The draft Plan is discriminatory, and a massive waste of rates. The Parks Department has been captured by that small clique of our society, the native preservationists.

3. Recreational Hunting:

Though there is not much recreational hunting in the Park, NZDA asks that recreational hunting be allowed. Even the highly preservationist Department of Conservation has as part of its general policy “recreational hunting of wild animals (ie deer, wild pigs, goats, possums etc) should be encouraged - -“

It is ironic that GW’s regional parks should have adopted an even more anti-recreation focus that the notoriously preservationist Department of Conservation. We urge GW that this Plan encourages recreational hunting similarly.

4. Vision and Sustainability:

The Plan’s Vision (page 7) talks about the “life supporting capacity” of ecosystems being sustained. Hunter gathering in moderation is an essential part of sustainability for humans. It is also important in terms of harvesting wild food for the table for poorer communities.

NZDA is disappointed Greater Wellington has opted out of educating and encouraging such wise harvesting use? The Council’s desire to have a “sustainable region” seems only PR Greenspin with no real substance.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has frequently made the point that current management in New Zealand is often not sustainable, and that sustainability and preservation are broadly incompatible. GW should take up this challenge, not hide from it.

PS NZ Deerstalkers’ Association also broadly supports the COLFO submission on the draft Plan.

Hugh Barr, National Advocate