Neil Clifton, Ranger Record: West Coast Reserves and Central Southern Alps Operations (1982-1985)

On completion of the Central Southern Alps planning work I was advised that there were two ranger vacancies available - Senior Ranger Tuatapere and Senior Ranger Hokitika, both of which were reserves ranger positions.  With two young children and family on the West Coast and in Wellington, we chose Hokitika. 

Prior to my arrival, there had been two reserves rangers based on Hokitika, but Tony Perret had taken up a position in Otago some 18 months previously and at the time of my arrival, Graeme Champness took up a newly established position at Punakaiki where a ranger base had been established  in recognition of the growing conservation interest in that area - which was to become Paparoa National Park.

The Department of Lands and Survey Land District Office where I was based, was located in Seddon House, a substantial Edwardian style, two storied brick building built in 1910 primarily for use by the Department but also housing the courts.  A large statue of Dick Seddon stood in front.  It reminded me of a colonial outpost from which the early surveyors and field officers would conduct their field trips, exploring the economic potential of Westland.  When I worked there, it still held many important historical records including original survey handbooks with handwritten notes and drawings from the early exploration period including notebooks of Charlie Douglas.

The reserves work on the West Coast was very different to the ranger work I had previously experienced at Tongariro National Park. The reserves managed out of Hokitika and the newly established Punakaiki base stretched from the northern boundary of Westland National Park through central Westland to the northern boundary of the Westland land district, just north of Punakaiki.  They covered the range of reserve classifications managed under the Reserves Act 1977 - scenic, recreation, wildlife, nature, historic and domain reserves and other classifications reflecting past history such as ferry reserves and cattle resting reserves.

A lot of the day to day work relating to visitor facilities was focused around lake reserves such as Brunner, Kaniere, Mahinapua, historic reserves such as Brunner Mine Site and Ross Walkway, and the magnificent roadside reserves which bound the West Coast state highway from Karamea to Haast. 

This work was carried out by a small hardworking team of reserve assistants lead by a very capable and loyal senior reserves ranger Paul (Tanker) Davidson who at that time was also a front row forward in the West Coast rugby team.

At that time both the Department of Lands and Survey and NZ Forest Service, reflecting their role as multiple use agencies, still had a strong focus on crown land conversion for traditional productive use - in the case of NZ Forest Service indigenous forest logging and pine forest establishment and in Lands and Survey’s case, on conversion of large blocks of Crown Land into viable farm units.  Another major player involved in land conversion was the Westland Catchment Board which made government subsidies available for wetland drainage of private land.

A primary focus of the Hokitika District office was supporting this farm development work through the Land Survey and Field Office divisions. The Reserves Division was a small part of the office function with the senior reserves ranger reporting to the Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands (ACCL). Trevor Bryant was the ACCL over the bulk of my time as a senior reserves ranger.  He was a great boss and I learnt a lot from him about crown land administration. His response to my queries often began with “what you’ve got to understand is this…” which would be followed by a detailed explanation of the history of a policy’s development and how it worked in practice. 

The reserve ranger role was a wide one. In addition to day to day reserves management the senior ranger position was the only environmental position in the office and advised or reported on anything which required an environmental perspective.  Compared to my previous ranger role in Tongariro National Park, it was pretty much ‘a lone Ranger’ role.

Apart from the day to day reserves management, there was a lot of work relating to wider use of Crown Land e.g. reporting on grazing and mining applications and involvement in land use studies.  There was also a lot of liaison with other agencies - NZ Forest Service, Westland Catchment Board, Westland and Grey District Councils, Acclimatisation Societies and Wildlife Service, Historic Places Trust and local tourism promotion bodies.

At this stage local purpose reserves, hall boards and domains had not been transferred to council administration. Each hall board was required to submit an annual report. Often reports weren’t filed for years and follow-up inspections would sometimes show that the community hall had been abandoned and fallen into disrepair or been taken over for some other use such as a commercial sphagnum moss operation.

Our reserve work programmes were bolstered by temporary employment programmes (TEP) for local people whose wages were subsidised along with materials for track construction. The subsidies that were available incentivised the construction of new tracks and we built a number of new tracks particularly in the Hokitika and Lake Brunner areas. It was very much a case of ‘if we build them, the tourists will come’. If Paul Davidson and I thought a new track was a good idea we did it. 

Through this period there was a lot of competition between the Department of Lands and Survey and NZ Forest Service. However I found I was able to collaborate with my NZ Forest Service counterpart,  Bruce Watson, and we worked together on a number of projects including developing walking opportunities the vicinity of Greymouth.

In 1983 a further ranger position was established at Hokitika and this was filled by Joy Comrie - a graduate of the Lincoln Park Ranger course.  Joy did a very good job establishing herself in what was then a pretty traditional workplace environment and oversaw the day to day reserves work in the central Westland reserves. 

Over this period there was increasing public debate on the management of indigenous forest.  NZ Forest Service involvement in logging of Crown Land provided employment in local mills and an important role of the Department of Lands and Survey was the creation of state farms which often resulted in clearing of cut-over forest land and scrublands. In summer months there were often huge burn-offs preparing logged-over land for planting pine trees or pasture. However, environmental sensitivities were bringing about some changes, as the forest service was moving away from clear felling into selective logging techniques and farm clearance programmes endeavoured to protect remnant patches of standing forest and riparian margins. I was often called on to identify forest remnants for retention before burning or scrub clearing operations for areas identified for farm development.

Opposition to these activities was leading to a growing conservation movement across wider NZ which in particular targeted the management of Crown Lands on the West Coast.  Areas such as Okarito, Waikukupa, west bank of the Maruia, Fox River and Karamea became prominent as Forest and Bird and Native Forest Action Council advocacy and membership grew.

Antagonism on the west coast to this outside interference meant there was very little local support for conservation by ‘coasters’. One person who I admired for his commitment and resilience was Kevin Smith. Kevin and his family lived in Harihari which was the location of a NZ Forest Service office and large indigenous timber mill. He was one of the very few people living on the Coast at this time who would publicly support conservation issues and was well known as a regular correspondent in Letters to the Editor in the Grey Star.  Aware that his income was limited, I offered him some work writing reserve management plans and recall being questioned by some senior departmental staff who were concerned about the department’s employment of Kevin. Our next door neighbour advised me to ‘be careful’ after I invited him home for a meal.

The conservation movement was very influential in leading land use change and there were many significant additions to today’s conservation lands which  resulted from this period of advocacy.  In 1979 the Native Forest Action Council had published a proposal for a national park for the Paparoa Ranges which eventually lead to the NZ Conservation Authority asking the department to conduct an investigation.  In my reserves ranger role, I was assigned the job of writing the recreation investigation but also got involved in work relating to future park boundaries.  This was complicated by the indigenous logging potential of the Fox River catchment and the existence of large  limestone deposits earmarked as future supplies for the Cape Foulwind Cement Factory - a major Buller industry at the time.

When I was appointed to the role of Senior Reserves Ranger, I was advised that operational management of the West Coast Southern Alps plan would be part of the role.  After a period of 18 months or so after arrival in Hokitika, the department took no action as initiating the plans meant operational funding, staff resourcing and also advising the NZ Forest Service who were still managing the hut and track network, that the department would be taking over this work. 

The implications for the department taking on this job as signaled in the plans was significant.  The Whitcombe-Browning Management Area alone had 55 NZ Forest Service designed huts and bivvies and 31 bridges, walking wires and cages. Many of the bridges had spans of over 50 metres. However the department was spurred into action with the appointment of Bob Austin as Commissioner of Crown Lands, who shortly after arrival, advised the West Coast Conservator of Forests that the department would be now managing these lands.   

Taking on this work, alongside the existing reserves operations was a big undertaking.  The work was funded from the field division’s crown land budget.  The key person leading this work on the ground was Ted Brennan, a reserves assistant who had a very good knowledge of the area having grown up in Ross. He managed a work programme of seasonal workers operating out of the Hokitika reserves workshop.  Seasonal staff were accommodated in newly built staff accommodation at Kaniere township. 

The work was challenging, requiring the recutting of many overgrown routes and the repair of run-down huts and bivvies in some of NZ’s highest rainfall catchments.