Is getting tourists to Milford Sound more quickly about creating a better visitor experience or turning a quick buck? Josh Gale investigates
Department of Conservation Director-General Alistair Morrison received an unusual piece of mail in April last year. Inside the envelope was one of the Conservation Awards DOC confers on volunteers who have done outstanding conservation work. Only it was torn in half. Earlier that year, DOC had given the award to 70-year-old Rosalie Snoyink for volunteer predator control work. Snoyink lives in Canterbury and was proud to receive official recognition for her work. But, when Morrison decided to give private developers freehold title to a sub-alpine valley supposedly protected by the Nature Heritage Fund (NHF) for all New Zealanders in perpetuity, Snoyink’s attitude towards her award changed. “It somehow made the voluntary work I was doing seem pointless,” Snoyink says. “Why work hard to restore and protect one area when a priceless valley, unique because of its [near] pristine state, could be so easily sold to the highest bidder? “Tearing up my award and posting it to Al Morrison was the strongest way I could think of to convey my feelings about the sale.” The valley in question is Crystal Valley, a 198ha basin in the Craigieburn Range. In 2004, The Nature Heritage Fund (NHF) purchased the land, which adjoins the Porters Ski Area, because of its “outstanding conservation values”. Last October, in a feature article looking at DOC’s new business-friendly ideology – underpinned by its new tagline ‘conservation for prosperity’ – Wilderness reported how DOC overrode the NHF and gave Crystal Valley freehold to Blackfish Ltd which at the time also owned neighbouring Porter’s Ski Area. In return, DOC received from Blackfish Ltd a 70ha block of coastal lowland forest on Banks Peninsula that critics of the land swap said was already protected by virtue of its topography and the local council’s district plan. Shortly after DOC’s decision to grant freehold title, Blackfish, an Australian-owned company, was sold to PSA Capital which is 60 per cent owned by Russian investors and 40 per cent by Australian interests. PSA Capital wants to carry out a $500m redevelopment of the Porter’s Ski Area, including building a ski resort with a village, 3,400 bed accommodation, access roads and an underground car park. At the time of the Crystal Valley deal, Forest and Bird’s Nicola Toki told Wilderness that if DOC’s new business-friendly approach – driven by Alistair Morrison – meant more deals like that one, then she was deeply concerned. Less than a year later, two new development proposals on the conservation estate are making headlines and creating far greater public outcry than the Crystal Valley deal: the Milford-Dart Tunnel and the Fiordland Link Monorail. Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson has notified her intention to approve these proposals, angering legions of citizens like Snoyink across the country, especially in the South Island. In early August, three representatives of Glenorchy, a community of about 250 people, presented Deputy Prime Minister Bill English with a petition of 25,000 signatures against the Milford-Dart Tunnel. Collective resistance groups Save Fiordland and Stop the Tunnel have formed in response to these proposals and plan to fight them until the bitter end. Aotearoa is Not for Sale called the two proposals “asset sales by stealth” and new Federated Mountain Club (FMC) president Robin McNeil called them “an attack on the core of democracy” and says FMC has given an undertaking to provide a substantial financial contribution to fight the proposals because they override recently established national park management plans. McNeil says if either application is granted a concession, FMC will join other groups in seeking a judicial review which he is confident they would win. In June, Save Fiordland began fundraising for what it expects will be ugly court battles with each of the companies behind these proposals. Save Fiordland spokesperson Daphne Taylor told Wilderness no one expects either development to be built by the proposers. One of the directors of Milford Dart Ltd (MDL) and its parent company Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground Ltd is project manager and former Resource Management Act lawyer Michael Sleigh. Other directors and shareholders include prominent Christchurch businessman George Gould, Tom Elworthy and Sir Tipene O’Regan. They want to mine an 11.3km single lane tunnel beneath the Humboldt and Ailsa mountains with access roads near the start of the Routeburn Track in Mt Aspiring National Park and in the Hollyford Valley in Fiordland National Park. [caption id="attachment_20353" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]
