15th May 2009
The New Zealand Deerstalkers’ Association (NZDA) makes the following submission on the St James Conservation Area future management.
NZDA is the national association of deerstalkers and other big game hunters, with 50 branches and hunting member clubs throughout New Zealand. NZDA has 7500 members, and has been actively advocating for recreational deerstalking and hunting, running hunter training courses, trips, conferences etc since 1937. NZDA sets and maintains ethical standards for hunting.
A number of NZDA Branches and hunting clubs have an interest in hunting in St James. Branches include North Canterbury (Christchurch), Marlborough (Blenheim), Nelson, Wellington, Malvern, Motueka, West Coast (Greymouth) and Rakaia (Ashburton). Other branch members and independent recreational hunters will also be interested. There are an estimated 60,000 big game recreational hunters in New Zealand [Nugent, 1989].
NZDA’s views in summary on future management of the St James block are
1 Not a national park:
The St James area has been grazed for over 150 years, just as Molesworth has, and the fragile nature of the land has meant it has suffered significant damage, in terms of fire, overgrazing, scree and mountain erosion, especially in the drier east. It is primarily mountainland, mainly beech forest in the west, open grazed river flats in the centre, and lower mainly scree often eroding mountains in the east.
There are better more scenic mountain and forest lands already in national park or national reserve eg Nelson Lakes and Arthur’s Pass, Mt Cook national parks, Lewis Pass National Reserve.
The main mountain range, the Spenser Mountains are already partly in Nelson Lakes National Park, on their western side, outside St James. The Spenser Mountains are noted for their massive amounts of scree, eg Mt Una, Faerie Queen, Gloriana Peak. They are typical of most lower New Zealand mountains near the Main Divide in the South Island.
New Zealand already has 13 national parks, probably too many. Most (six) “protect montane native ecosystems along the Southern Alps, similar to St James, but much more impressive. The regime DOC enforces for national parks is restrictive of recreation, with significant sectors of the outdoor recreation public restricted and marginalised eg recreational hunters, mountain bikers, 4WD users, horse riders, trout and salmon fishers.
It is time to manage public conservation land for other primary uses than mindless preservation. Recreation and scenery is the main reason people go, not preservation. There are no specifically endangered native animals/birds in the area, or native plants. Even if some rare plants were found, they can be protected in a conservation park, eg by fencing off.
2 Recreational big game hunting:
There are some chamois and Red deer on the St James property. Recreational hunting should be
encouraged as the primary means of controlling deer and chamois. There will be no commercial helicopter recovery on St James until it is de-stocked of farmed livestock in June 2010. NZDA proposes that the property be made a recreational hunting area, to encourage recreational deerstalking and chamois hunting. NZDA’s understanding is that deer and chamois numbers are low. But the pastures available would provide feed for these animals. The area should not be open to heli-hunting, should the Minister permit concessions for this unethical and commercial rich man’s type of hunting.
3 Continued grazing:
Pastures are already in place. In the 1980s the farm park concept was promoted, to allow the urban public to relate to pastoral farming. The difficulty with St James is the difficulty of stock access and egress. However, the preservationist alternative, of allowing matagouri and other moa resistant native shrubs to re-vegetate across the grazed areas, will produce a recreational users’ nightmare, removing valued open space, reducing scenic views, and generally making walking or biking access through the property unpleasant. Recreational users go there for the open space and views, not to marvel at the matagouri and Spaniard.
Continued grazing would help manage this important issue, and would provide some of the browsing no longer provided by the abundant moas. It would also reduce the summer fire risk, which is expected to increase with global warming, east of the Main Divide.
4 A representative stakeholder planning reference group:
This was discussed at the Stakeholder Workshop at the beginning of December. A representative and alternate would be elected by each major stakeholder group The Group would develop a broad-ranging plan to allow as many recreational activities as possible, albeit constrained to reduce any potential damage to the environment. This is in contrast to the often constrained activities, eg only vehicle access for DOC, that has become characteristic of DOC’s approach to tenure review.
This stakeholder reference group should be set up in the near future. I trust these ideas will be able to be considered by yourself and DOC Canterbury.
5 Manage as a recreationally oriented conservation park:
The whole approach of tenure review, of which the whole property purchase is effectively a part, has been to form conservation parks eg Ahuriri CP is based on the Birchwood whole property purchase, and tenure review of Glen Avon, with the state forests and UCL extracted from the Birchwood lease during the formation of the NZ Forest Service, added in. St James is a larger and more tattered version of these rivers and landforms, and Ahuriri’s west to east progression but with lower mountains.
St James, as a conservation park, can provide for deerstalking and big game hunting (chamois, Red deer, pigs), canoeing and rafting, mountain-biking, trout and salmon fishing, gamebird hunting, permitted 4WD clubs and groups, horse riding, downhill (Amuri) skiing, things not really welcomed in national parks, if allowed at all. There are also tramping, walking, rock climbing, mountaineering, and cross-country skiing.
Conservation parks are specially protected areas under the Conservation Act, whose primary aim is to facilitate public recreation and enjoyment. They are the only land designation under the conservation Act that mentions recreation.
6 4WD public access provided:
The most controversial of these activities in DOC’s mind appears to be 4WD access. NZDA considers that there are a number of 4WD accessible public roads. DOC does not control these, so it is the Huirinui District Council’s job to do this. There is every reason why these should be publicly used.
7 Better public road access from the North:
NZDA does not support additional road access across the property, apart from the 4WD farm tracks already in use. However NZDA does seek better public road access from the north, ie especially through Rainbow pastoral lease and the Acheron-Molesworth roads, neither of which are fully open public roads.
The roads from Hanmer to the Tarndale boundary with the Rainbow and to the Acheron Bridge over the Clarence are public roads with no restriction (apart from being closed by the weather). The Rainbow Road from Six Mile Creek to the Molesworth boundary is not generally on the legal road alignment for much of the distance, some fords are difficult to cross (Six Mile Creek, Cooper’s Creek), and a $25 toll is charged both ways primarily as an access charge. Transpower is the agency that maintains the road through the Rainbow lease. But it has no interest in access for the public
Similarly the Molesworth-Acheron road is not managed as a public road, though it is supposedly on the legal road alignment for 95% of its distance through Molesworth. It is only open from just after Christmas to 30 April. In reality Landcorp have it closed for much of this time because of so-called “fire risk”.
Both these roads have been used as routes between Hanmer (and Christchurch), Blenheim and Nelson since the early days of European settlement. They are historic routes, and there is every reason why they should be public roads, just like the Clarence Road through Molesworth.
Then recreational hunters and other members of the public wishing to recreate in St James from Nelson, Marlborough, Wellington and points north, would have much more ready access than at present, just as the public from Canterbury already does.
© 2011 New Zealand Deerstalkers' Association