Decades of work behind Hakatere conservation park

When the 68,000 hectare Hakatere Conservation Park was announced by the Minister of Conservation in October, it marked the creation of New Zealand’s biggest public park in more than 20 years.

The Swinn River and Taylor Range in the recently opened Hakatere Conservation Park.
The park, inland from Ashburton and bounded by the Rakaia and Rangitata Rivers, is an amalgam of 19 separate conservation areas and its most recent addition, Hakatere Station. Centred in the Ashburton Lakes district, the area incorporates mountains, wetlands, tussocklands, braided rivers and lakes – a mecca for skiers (Mount Hutt skifield is part of the park), hunters, anglers, hikers and lovers of water sports.

The formal gazetting of the park was a significant milestone for LINZ’s work progressing the Government’s objectives for the high country. Developed in 2003, the objectives include to "secure public access to and enjoyment of high country land" and the complementary objective to "progressively establish a network of high country parks and reserves".

Hakatere Conservation Park didn’t happen overnight. In fact, explains Murray MacKenzie, Technical Lead (Pastoral) in LINZ’s Crown Property Management Group, the park grew incrementally in a process that was started decades ago by the former Lands and Survey Department.

"In the 1980s Lands and Survey, in association with the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority, moved to destock and surrender from pastoral leases areas unsuitable for grazing."

"In most cases public money was invested to retire the land, with grazing being phased out under short term pastoral occupation licences."

Murray says it was a number of years before surrendered areas could be transferred to the Department of Conservation (DOC) while the necessary surveying and due diligence transfer work was done.

"Formal gazettal as conservation areas has taken place progressively, and our department has worked closely with DOC throughout."

But these areas, which vary in size from little over 100 hectaresto several thousand hectares, are only part of the matrix that makes up Hakatere Conservation Park. Also included are parcels of conservation land from tenure reviews at Double Hill (4882 hectares) and Glenariffe (3270 hectares), a process also managed by LINZ.

And almost one-third of the park’s area is from two significant purchases by the Nature Heritage Fund: the 9998 hectare Clent Hills pastoral lease and, most recently, the 9100 hectare Hakatere pastoral lease.

Murray says the LINZ Crown Property Management Group and DOC worked collaboratively throughout all of these acquisitions and transfers, ensuring the necessary legalities were taken care of and lining up the processes that made significant contributions to the establishment of the park.

Although the park has been officially opened, LINZ’s work will continue because several more areas are earmarked to be added to the park in future.

Contact for further information: Murray Mackenzie, Crown Property Management Group, Land Information New Zealand, via customersupport@linz.govt.nz or 0800 ONLINE (0800 665463).