DOC facing opposition to helicopters, bikes and races in National Park – Stuff.co.nz

New Zealand’s newest Great Walk has been purpose-built to accommodate walkers and bikers, but questions have been raised over whether mountain bikes, helicopters and sporting events will be allowed anywhere in the national park it crosses. 

The Paparoa Track, in the West Coast’s Paparoa National Park, has been marketed as the first Great Walk to allow mountain-biking year round. 

But the West Coast’s overarching Conservation Management Strategy (CMS) – a planning document for the Department of Conservation (DOC) to manage conservation land written in 2010 – expressly forbids helicopters and mountain bikes in the park. Now DOC is potentially facing a legal challenge.

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DOC has begun a publicly-notified process to change the strategy to incorporate mountain bikes, helicopter landings and large sporting events into the Paparoa area, but tourism operators worry it could take months to be approved.

It also wants to be able to continue allowing mountain bikes on the Old Ghost Road and Heaphy Track in Buller, both of which are already open to bikers.

Bookings open for the Paparoa Track in June and an official opening is planned for November 30. DOC has told operators it cannot approve concessions for helicopters or sporting events until the changes are made. Submissions close May 20.

Environmental groups are considering seeking a judicial review of the process and DOC says it is also seeking legal advice. 

Forest & Bird and Federated Mountain Clubs say legally the CMS should have been changed before the Paparoa National Park Management plan was changed, not the other way around.

They are also concerned about the affect helicopter noise and large-scale sporting events will have on the park. In a letter signed by Nicky Snoyink, the risk of both is described as bringing “stampeding hordes of people through fragile environments”.

DOC said it could not answer questions until it received legal advice about whether existing biking and associated businesses would be allowed to continue operating on the tracks if the changes were not approved or were delayed by a legal challenge. 

DOC planning permissions and land director Marie Long said the Paparoa National Park Management Plan 2017 reflected the desire of the families of the 29 men who died in the Pike River Mine disaster to create the Great Walk as a memorial and provide economic benefit to the West Coast community.

“The need to amend the CMS was signalled during the review of the Paparoa National Park Management. The new provisions in the Paparoa National Park Management Plan received a wide level of engagement before the plan was approved by the New Zealand Conservation Authority last year,” she said. 

“While generally changes to the CMS would be made first, it was the unique situation that drove the review of the Paparoa National Park Management Plan.”

The Paparoa Track is New Zealand’s first new Great Walk in 25 years. It covers 65 kilometres between Blackball and Punakaiki and includes a 9km trail to the Pike River mine site, named the Pike 29 Memorial Track, as a memorial to the men killed in the 2010 mining tragedy. 

It has been purpose-built for both walkers and mountain bikers at a cost of about $11 million, including a memorial, interpretation centre and museum at the mine site.

A group of West Coast adventure sportspeople are planning to use it for a mountain race event, but cannot get a concession until the CMS is changed. 

Spokesman Steve Bushby said the Coast to Coast had been running for years under the same national park guidelines so he did not know why they needed to be changed to specifically to accommodate an event in the Paparoas.

WIDER RAMIFICATIONS

Other West Coast operators fear legal action around the presence of bikes, helicopters and events in the area could also impact existing activities.

Phil Rossiter, chairman of the trust that built the Old Ghost Road and race director for the annual Old Ghost Road Ultra run, said serious issues could arise if the CMS changes did not go ahead as it currently restricted front country groups to 15 people, and back country to just eight. He urged the public to have their say.

The Old Ghost Road, built primarily as a cycling route, has recently been added to Kahurangi National Park and the Ultra running race is held with a concession from DOC.

He was concerned that if the changes were not made it could have “really critical implications” and biking and sporting events on the Old Ghost Rd could unravel. But he said these were existing uses “that people really love” and it was hard to imagine how they could be allowed to unravel.

Rossiter rejected Forest & Bird’s claims that sporting event participants were “stampeding hordes”. In fact, competitors appreciated and respected the national parks as much as anyone. 

The Paparoa National Park Management Plan was approved in 2017 following a full, formal review including a public consultation and hearing process. Helicopter landings, mountain bikes and sporting events on the new Paparoa Track were well debated, and finally approved by the New Zealand Conservation Authority.

Bushby said he could not understand why DOC had left it two years after the plan was approved to make changes to the CMS. 

A 2015 Cabinet Paper from then acting Conservation Minister Nick Smith on funding the new track, clearly states a change to the CMS would be needed. 

Bushby was concerned about the process delaying the group’s plan to hold an event in 2020. 

Bushby, who grew up in Kaiata near Greymouth, said adventure sports could help the West Coast economy’s post-mining transition. 

“The Paparoa is a community-driven trail running and mountain biking event. We want to prove that it’s possible to create environmentally sustainable jobs on the Coast. We’ve brought in experts who’ve painstakingly created our environmental impact reports. We have even calculated the total carbon offset of the event,” he said. 

A DOC commissioned assessment found the environmental impact of the track’s construction and the projected impact of its ongoing use by walkers, runners, bikers and sporting events were acceptable, he said. 

DOC Paparoa Track project director Tom Hopkins previously said he expected several groups would be keen to hold events on the track, but only a limited number would be granted concessions to protect the “sensitive nature of the environment and the potential impact on other users”. 

Acting West Coast Conservation Board chairman Keith Morfitt said he did not believe there was any opposition to allowing mountain bikes, but the majority of members did not want large sporting events or helicopters in the Paparoas.

“The Paparoa is a quiet place and the park plan changed all that. Allowing big groups will change the nature of the place,” he said. 

In a letter to DOC, Forest & Bird and the Federated Mountain Clubs said DOC’s planning process was “inappropriate and unlawful”.

“It is obvious that a serious error has been made. It was wrong in law for the Paparoa National Park Management Plan to be approved, when [it] derogated from the CMS,” they wrote.

“The unlawful nature of this approval is fatal and is not saved by the anticipating subsequent amendments to the CMS. The obvious options are to advance our concerns through the CMS review or seek a judicial review … to remove the offending provisions.”

Forest & Bird regional manager Nicky Snoyink said DOC had “put the cart before the horse”.

“They are trying to change a higher order document so that it is consistent with a lower order document and that’s just not right. It doesn’t make sense and could mean the CMS doesn’t give effect to the legislation,” she said.

She wanted more detail about the type and scale of any proposed sporting event, and was opposed to helicopter landings. 

“They are significant changes. The Paparoa National Park’s CMS has some quite outstanding statements. It talks about how the park is renowned for its natural quiet and remote character. The CMS is quite explicit and doesn’t allow [helicopter landings],” she said. 

“If you’ve been to Franz Josef on a busy day, man it’s loud. It reverberates and changes the place into something else. Totally transforms it.”

In its submission to DOC, Forest & Bird said large sporting events would have a negative impact on the track, but it did not object to mountain bikers in general. 

“Forest & Bird consider that competitive sporting events, which in reality, provide for stampeding hordes of people over a short duration through fragile environments, have no place in Paparoa National Park,” it said.

The proposed amendments would allow five helicopter landings a day at a helipad near the Ces Clark Hut, in the Southern Paparoa Range for transporting packs, mountain bikes and passengers. The plan also considers allowing aircraft concessions for wild animal recovery, maintenance, monitoring, research and filming. 

“We consider that helicopter landings at this hut are not appropriate. This area is a known great spotted kiwi area – this population of Roroa cannot be put at further risk by helicopters and the additional numbers of visitors that this frequency of landings enables.”

“This is the wrong way round – DOC should be managing the Park so that there is no intrusive noise, as the CMS states, not removing that requirement. It is extremely important that Paparoa National Park retains natural quiet, both as an intrinsic value and so that people can experience it. This is one of the reasons that Paparoa National Park is so special – and different to many of our other parks,” it said. 

Federated Mountain Clubs incoming president Jan Finlayson said the changes would put commercial interests ahead of conservation and recreational users. 

“Unlawful things have been rubber-stamped. This planning process and its purposes are flat out disrespectful to National Park values and the law,” she said. 

BUSINESS PLANS

Blackball businesswoman Jane Wells is opening a hotel and accommodation business to cater for the influx of visitors expected to the small West Coast settlement. 

She said she was very surprised DOC had left itself open to legal challenge. 

“I thought they had sorted it all out. It’s quite amazing,” she said. 

She was in favour of allowing mountain bikes because it would encourage more people to use the track, but had concerns about the effects of large sporting events. 

She personally wanted helicopters kept out of the park. “I really really think it’s better for helicopters to stay away. I would like to see it kept in its naturally quiet state,” she said. 

West Coast Conservation Board member and tourism operator Barry Hughes said a balance was needed between preserving conservation values and attracting tourists to the West Coast. 

He said he believed helicopters should be banned from some national parks to offset the intensive helicopter presence around the Fox and Franz glaciers in Westland. 

Stuff