Neil Clifton, Ranger Record: Joint Centre for Environmental Studies and Central Southern Alps Land Management Strategy (1979-1981)

In late 1978 I was one of a small number of people from the wider Department of Lands and Survey to undertake an MSc course in Resource Management that was being run jointly from Canterbury and Lincoln Universities.  This was part of a wider State Services Commission programme to improve resource management skills across the government departments.  The timing coincided with the specifically designed Park Ranger Diploma course for rangers run at Lincoln. Choosing to do the MSc meant I wasn’t able to do the Park Ranger Diploma course that my ranger colleagues went on. I missed out on the camaraderie of the block courses that other rangers experienced, but I realised in later years how beneficial the resource management course was in other ways.

At first I found it hard to adjust to study again after being totally focused on field operational work at Tongariro but I found that being an older student and bringing practical work experience to the course enabled me to get a lot more out of it than my earlier BSc. 

In the final year of the course I was advised that rather than returning immediately to operational ranger duties, I was to convene a small team based in Christchurch on a one year assignment to draw up management plans for unalienated crown land along the Southern Alps.

At that time unalienated crown land was administered by the Department through the Land Settlement Board under the Land Settlement Act (1948) and a newly developed High Country Policy (1980).  These crown lands covered a huge area of high altitude country outside of the national parks from Arthur’s Pass south to Mt Cook/Westland National Parks, most of the Landsborough and Clarke catchments and another large area in the head of the Ahaura catchment. All up, they comprised over three hundred thousand hectares.  It was essentially ‘left over land’ not suitable for ‘productive’ use that the Land Settlement Board had a role in settling in the post war era.

 In the 1950s and 1960s large parts of this unalienated crown land had extensive hut and track systems established by the NZ Forest Service for the purposes of wild animal control but with the advent of helicopter wild animal control operations most of the hut and track systems, although still being managed by the NZ Forest Service, were beginning to fall into decline and take on a growing recreational use.  The department which administered the Land Settlement Policy, was coming under pressure to play a more active role in managing these areas for recreational use.  The need for active management of these areas and protection of their wilderness values was strongly promoted by Federated Mountain Clubs in their 1979 document Outdoor Recreation on the West Coast - A Conservation Plan.

The brief for the work I was to lead was pretty minimal. The intention was - I’d work from Christchurch with a planner and field officer to complete plans, after which my future ranger placement would be discussed.  The first area to be focussed on was the Central Southern Alps, an area of 201,000 hectares, from the southern boundary of Arthur’s Pass National Park to the boundary of Mt Cook/Westland National Parks. 

I was pretty daunted by the task. Initially I did some field trips in some of the major West Coast catchments and experienced how run down some of the infrastructure had become. I remember getting the best overall appreciation of the extent of the area on an Air New Zealand flight from Hokitika to Christchurch in clear weather where I could see the main spine of the Southern Alps broadening out into the permanent snow fields to the south. 

I recall there was some apprehension within the department about a ranger leading this work over crown land which traditionally fell within the ambit of the crown land field officer and planning divisions.

The planning team of Dave Alexander (planner), Ken Taylor (field officer) and myself got on well and each brought our own skills. Dave Alexander took the lead on the overarching Central Southern Alps Crown land Strategy while Ken Taylor and I took the lead on four individual management plans sitting under the strategy (Whitcombe-Browning, Adams, Wilberforce and Rakaia Crown Land Management Plans).

The Central Southern Alps strategy and plan, essentially asserted and ‘modernised’ the department’s role in managing these crown land areas giving primacy to water and soil conservation while recognising their recreational values and providing a policy framework for other use (grazing, mining, hydro). In particular the West coast plans made policy commitments by the department in relation to the ongoing maintenance of existing extensive hut and track facilities in the Taipo, Styx/Arahura, Kokatahi, Toaroha, Whitcombe, Waitaha, Wanganui and Whataroa catchments and recognised wilderness values In what was to become the Adams Wilderness Area. 

Following completion of the Central Southern Alps Strategy and underlying plans the team disbanded and I started work on the Hooker-Landsborough, an area of 107,000 hectares immediately south of Westland National Park. (Image 1 refers). Then, as now this area was highly regarded for its untracked wilderness recreation opportunities.  Unlike the Central Southern Alps unalienated crown land which contained the headwaters of many east and west coast rivers, the Hooker-Landsborough area comprised the complete catchments of the Landsborough and Clarke rivers, with the Landsborough running 60 kilometres parallel to the main divide from the boundary of Westland National Park to its the confluence with the Haast River. A particular feature of the area was the absence of recreational infrastructure (except for a hut at Creswick Flat and a number of grass airstrips formed during a period of fixed wing aircraft deer recovery).

Federated Mountain Clubs had proposed a wilderness area centred on Mt Hooker and the Upper Clarke and Landsborough catchments. The main management issues at the time were increasing air access use to the upper Landsborough and Mark’s Flat areas which were central to the wilderness proposal and increasing popularity of the area as a multi day rafting experience with air access and semi-permanent campsites.

I undertook two extensive field trips into the area. The first was with Paul McGahan (Ranger, Makarora) [Image 3 refers] where we walked the length of the Landsborough and the second with Ray Bellringer (Ranger, Mt Cook) [Image 4 refers] where we crossed from the Landsborough along the Solution Range to Mark’s Flat and Otoko Pass.

The Hooker-Landsborough Plan when written was similar in format to the Central Southern Alps plans giving primacy to water and soil values. It established the wilderness area promoted by Federated Mountain Clubs and formalised rafting access and campsites. Unlike the Central Southern Alps plans, there was a delay between the field work and plan publication (1984) as the plan writing was to be done alongside my future operational role as a reserves ranger on the West Coast.

Looking back at the Hooker-Landsborough Plan today, it is striking how little knowledge there was at the time on wildlife values in the area, which is today a key location for the protection of at risk species.  Similarly, there was no real appreciation at the time of the risks to flora and fauna of an expanding tahr population in the head of the Landsborough.

The final unalienated crown land area that was identified for a management plan was the head of the Ahaura catchment including its tributaries, the Trent and Tutaekuri rivers which were bounded to the south by NZ Forest Service administered Lake Sumner Forest Park.  The field work for this was carried out by myself, Merv Nicolle and Kevin Smith when we traversed the area starting from the Lewis Pass Highway, crossing Amuri Pass and walking out to the Haupiri road end on the West Coast.  This plan however, was never completed as it was overtaken by duties as operational manager of Central Westland reserves and the Whitcombe-Browning Crown Land Management Plan.