From issue: Spring 2004

The iconic South Island high country could be divided into productive use and conservation land. But, discovers Sally Blundell, heritage values risk being lost in the process.

The ground is shifting. Those vast tracts of high country from the Nelson lakes district to the exposed schist ranges of Otago which are currently farmed as perpetual crown leases are in the process of being split along a major fault line called the South Island High Country Tenure Review (see box).

Tenure Review is carried out by the Commissioner of Crown Land, through Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) with the active involvement of the Department of Conservation (DoC) acting as the Commissioner's adviser on conservation values. It has been touted as a win for everyone. DoC gets to protect tracts of rare, endangered or representative lands with high natural and scenic values, home to many species of native birds, lizards and insects, as part of a network of South Island parks and reserves. And runholders can continue farming, diversify into viticulture, orcharding and eco-tourism, or sell or subdivide their freehold land. But it's a division that some doubt is possible to achieve.

Everyone agrees that tenure review offers a rare opportunity to assess the many values that exist in the shadow of the vast alpine range. But there are concerns that environmental significance and economic values can't be neatly separated. Some argue that lands of economic value may also be important for conservation, that we're seeing an unprecedented land grab that will see many of our iconic landscapes developed, sold and locked away by private interest.

Significant indigenous vegetation and outstanding landscapes are being freeholded, says Forest and Bird's Sue Maturin, particularly in the lowlands, which are under-represented in the country's network of parks and reserves. She is concerned, too, about the 12,000 hectares of newly gained conservation land that have been leased back for "light grazing". Such grazing, she says, prevents regeneration and restoration of the tussocks and shrubs.

Others argue that farming the prized merino sheep on smaller, unproductive blocks of land is not viable, and that runholders are able to manage their land sustainably. Some runholders are also questioning just how voluntary the process is, accusing the government of using scare tactics, such as possible rent increases, to pressure people into the process. They say DoC's acquisition of high country land would destroy the merino industry and the farmers' way of life, and that district plans under the Resource Management Act and covenants can easily protect natural values.

But district plans, says Maturin, don't have rules to protect outstanding natural landscape effectively. "Covenants are suitable only for small areas and for the protection of landscape values. But they don't allow public access. There’s no public accountability. No management regime."

The QEII National Trust, however, says covenants can play a part in the conservation of important sites. They are, says chief executive Margaret McKee, a versatile and very rigorous means of protection.

In the middle of the debate, the Department of Conservation argues, on the one hand, that it just isn't possible to reserve every tract of native plants or animals, and, on the other, that the once glorified high country lifestyle of horses and musterers is already giving way to dairy cows, new cultivation, Toyotas, helicopters and vineyards.

"It is very difficult to try and fix landscape in a permanent state based on an historical understanding of the high country," says Department of Conservation's manager of high country tenure review in Canterbury, Mike Clare.

But while the natural values of the landscape are hotly contested, Chris Jacomb, southern regional archaeologist for the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, says historical sites are in danger of being overlooked.

"I'm worried that heritage values might be overlooked. The purpose of the Conservation Act is 'to promote the conservation of New Zealand's natural and historic resources', but they don't get equal consideration in practice. This is a one-off opportunity to identify and provide for significant historic heritage in the high country. A process is in place where each property is being assessed, and it's really important that historical values are assessed as thoroughly as natural values. The Trust and Ngai Tahu are working with DoC and LINZ to ensure that historic values will be assessed and managed appropriately, and we are making good progress."

Jacomb says that many high country historic places, such as farmhouses and some outbuildings, are on freehold blocks, which are not automatically part of the review process. Unless a private owner takes the initiative, he says, the chance to assess these sites is lost.

The high country is home to gold mining history, forestry history and, most importantly because of its continuity, evidence of the musterer's lifestyle that has long been immortalised in poetry and art - old stockyards, sheep dips, archaeological remains of woolsheds, musterers' huts, old fence lines, rabbit fences dating back to the 1860s.There are also important Maori sites - ovens, hunting camps, rock art, moa hunting and burial sites.

Takerei Norton from Ngai Tahu agrees that tenure review offers a valuable one-off opportunity to identify historical sites, and that, although there has been an improved emphasis on the protection of historical sites in the past few years, there is still a great amount of work required. Ngai Tahu is assisting LINZ and DoC in the protection of historical values by researching place names, trails and archaeological sites associated with the high country. Some Maori archaeological sites have been identified during the tenure review process, and Ngai Tahu is working with LINZ and the lessees to provide appropriate protection mechanisms, such as Conservation Covenants.

In many cases, says Ruth Littlewood, heritage planner at the Historic Places Trust in Otago, “the Trust considers the assessment of historic values has been inadequate, especially to identify the less obvious archaeological sites".

While an on-the-ground survey of historic sites for the purpose of tenure review is supposed to be carried out by DoC, in some places there has been only a desktop survey. DoC depends completely on existing databases, any previous reports and on the knowledge of the DoC officers putting together the Conservation Resources Report for LINZ. Nor can the Trust undertake a survey, says Littlewood. "We need to go in under the aegis of LINZ/DoC or by the grace and favour of the runholder."

The successful preservation of historical sites, however, often falls outside the conservation-productivity dichotomy. Some historic sites can benefit from light grazing, says Littlewood, while others, such as a shepherd's hut, are much more likely to be maintained if they are used. Other areas would suffer considerably under freeholding.

"Take Otago," she says."It has a huge range of mining sites, and protecting every one isn't realistic - they don't all add to people's general knowledge. But there are special sorts of tailings, or part of a whole series of mining races, or old trails - if these are on freehold land, next time you turn around, the property might be cut up into little blocks, people might not be able to access it or the whole thing might be obliterated under someone's turnip paddock or planted out in pine trees."

Yet it is these historic sites, set within landscapes that incorporate history and culture as much as natural assets and economic opportunity, that challenge the idea that the high country can be neatly split between productive use and conservation land. The high country still echoes with the mythologies of the high country pastoral pioneers, a lifestyle that has been captured by artists Colin Wheeler and Peter McIntyre, and writers from Samuel Butler to James K. Baxter. It is part of this nation's heritage, a history of nor'westers, woolsheds, cribs and camp ovens which is still a vital part of the South Island story.

Professor of landscape architecture at Lincoln University Simon Swaffield says there is a growing recognition of the cultural values associated with heritage landscapes.

In the high country, he says, there is more than biological values or particular relics at stake.

"There is the broader aspect of cultural landscape. If you are looking at a landscape and asking what is valuable, you have to look at the landscape itself.

"The whole meaning of the high country is its history of pastoralism - that's what gives it its character. The iconic quality of the landscape lies in pastoral management processes. The historical landscape is only there because people bred and reared sheep. Take that away and the land will change."

Swaffield argues that splitting conservation and productive lands is a separatist approach that has been evident since early settlement. Yet trying to simplify complex issues by separating them spatially doesn't solve the problem. Such division, he says, will only force farmers to intensify production as a way to survive.

"Surely," he says,” there’s a sensible way of maintaining historic, cultural and conservation values. Other countries manage to do it - it ain't rocket science. It just requires a mindset to work with the environment, to work collaboratively. While some sites are so sensitive that they cannot maintain multiple use, if you extend that over the land, you've lost the diversity of our historical landscape. It is not about consolidating ownership for farmers or control by DoC."

Swaffield says that, to enjoy multiple lands in the same landscape, the terms of leases could be changed to give more protection to the sustainable use of the land that protects its values, allows for public use and lets it remain in productive use, so protecting the very culture that has helped shape the land over the past one and a half centuries. By revisiting the nature of the lease, or by revisiting the nature of conservation management on Crown-owned land, that large middle ground of multiple use land management can help to maintain a certain social infrastructure in the high country, and achieve better conservation, recreational and protection outcomes.

It is time, says Swaffield, to pause, have a cup of tea, and look again.

Historic Places Trust policy adviser Aidan Challis says there is a conflict between private development opportunity and the public interest, which ignores the wider issues of our heritage landscapes. And, according to the High Country Landscape Group, part of the NZ Institute of Landscape Architects, tenure review is consistently failing to protect landscape. Areas of significant natural landscape value, says convenor Di Lucas, are going largely unrecognised.

"There is inadequate recognition or understanding of landscape as a large-scale entity comprising not only natural elements but natural patterns, processes and character. The fragmentation that is proposed in a lot of these reports is awful - little patches of nature and patches of super-development."

Lucas says the cultural heritage of the high country, the contextual significance of landscape, is being overshadowed by analysis of the individual elements.

The issue of South Island high country land tenure, says Challis, while hugely significant for the South Island landscape, also needs to be seen in a New Zealand-wide context. It is a landscape that is used generically to market New Zealand, that captures some essential New Zealandness.

To preserve this landscape, says Challis, it is important to consider all the cultural values inherent in New Zealand's pastoral tradition.

Internationally, the understanding of heritage landscapes continues to gather momentum.

If New Zealanders wish to continue to see, in Baxter's words,” the red gold cirrus / Over snow-mountain shine," there may indeed need to be a pause in the tenure review process, a chance to step back, consider that extraordinary landscape, and decide exactly what it is about that upland road that we want to preserve.

How tenure review works

There are 304 pastoral leases in the South Island. Leases give holders grazing rights for the land in perpetuity and can be bought and sold or inherited. Lessees have the right to exclude the public from their land but, unlike owners of freehold land, they need the approval of the landlord, who is the Commissioner of Crown Land, for activities - such as forestry, burning tussock or bulldozing roads - which may damage the soil or conservation values. The lessee typically pays a low rent - about two per cent of land value.

Tenure review is a voluntary process, intended to give the leaseholder freehold title over a large part of the land, enabling it to be used like any other freehold land. Where all the land is proposed for conservation, the lessee is bought out. The process also aims to restore land with high natural and historic values to Crown control, making it conservation land with much improved public access.

STEP 1: Lessee invites Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) to review the tenure of the lease. LINZ consults DoC and employs a contractor to carry out the processing. Any decisions are made by LINZ. (Four months approx.)

STEP 2: DoC inspects the land, consults interested parties and prepares a report, recommending what should revert to Crown control as conservation land. LINZ contractor consults lessee, DoC, Fish & Game and Maori and prepares Preliminary Proposal. When LINZ and lessee agree on this, it is advertised for written submissions from the public. The Preliminary Proposal divides land into freehold and conservation areas and public access routes over the freehold. (20 months approx.)

STEP 3 LINZ consults DoC and lessee over any issues raised in the submissions and prepares a Substantive Proposal. The lessee decides whether or not to accept the proposal. (12 months approx.)

STEP 4 Survey, exchange of land and money. Lessee gets freehold title. (12 months approx).

More information: on LINZ website

How tenure review works

There are 304 pastoral leases in the South Island. Leases give holders grazing rights for the land in perpetuity and can be bought and sold or inherited. Lessees have the right to exclude the public from their land but, unlike owners of freehold land, they need the approval of the landlord, who is the Commissioner of Crown Land, for activities - such as forestry, burning tussock or bulldozing roads - which may damage the soil or conservation values. The lessee typically pays a low rent - about two per cent of land value.

Tenure review is a voluntary process, intended to give the leaseholder freehold title over a large part of the land, enabling it to be used like any other freehold land. Where all the land is proposed for conservation, the lessee is bought out. The process also aims to restore land with high natural and historic values to Crown control, making it conservation land with much improved public access.

Step 1 : Lessee invites Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) to review the tenure of the lease. LINZ consults DoC and employs a contractor to carry out the processing. Any decisions are made by LINZ. (Four months approx.)

Step 2 : DoC inspects the land, consults interested parties and prepares a report, recommending what should revert to Crown control as conservation land. LINZ contractor consults lessee, DoC, Fish & Game and Maori and prepares Preliminary Proposal. When LINZ and lessee agree on this, it is advertised for written submissions from the public. The Preliminary Proposal divides land into freehold and conservation areas and public access routes over the freehold. (20 months approx.)

Step 3: LINZ consults DoC and lessee over any issues raised in the submissions and prepares a Substantive Proposal. The lessee decides whether or not to accept the proposal. (12 months approx.)

Step 4 : Survey, exchange of land and money. Lessee gets freehold title. (12 months approx).

More information

Find more information on the LINZ website