Roads Seen As Menace In National Parks

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31187, 11 October 1966, Page 7

Roads Seen As Menace In National Parks

Opening up of national parks by roads for the use of the travelling public was endangering the natural scene, Mr L. W. McCaskill said in Christchurch on his return from a world tour.

The most vital thing he had learned in his study of national parks in Canada and the United States was the danger of roads, he said. The desire of most people was to drive, not walk, and the provision of extra roads was resulting in a demand for more picnic sites, more camping grounds, and more building sites for commercial users. Every one of these facilities meant destruction of the natural resource, which the narks were set aside to protect. “Apart from the completion of the Hollyford road in Fiordland, I will strongly oppose any more roads in New Zealand national parks,” said Mr McCaskill. “Increased use of parks in North America is frightening in so far as its destruction of the national scene is concerned, and I will make re- : commendations to the National Parks Authority suggesting ways in which we in New Zealand may be able to avoid the worst effects of over-use.” Commenting on the decision of the Mount Cook National Park Board and the National Park Authority to provide an alpine village outside the park boundary at Mount Cook, Mr McCaskill said that this fitted in with modern thinking and planning overseas.

“From some points of view the most exciting national park in the world is New Zealand’s latest, Mount Aspiring,” said Mr McCaskill. “It could be used as a major experiment in non-develop-ment.” To illustrate his point, Mr McCaskill quoted a recent statement by the chief ranger, Mr R. W. Cleland, who stressed that the park had no ski ing field, no village within its boundaries, no Tourist Hotel Corporation building.

no major private holdings, no major grazing areas, no motor camp and no lakes subject to hydro-electric development. “I hope to try to assist Mr Cleland and the park board to keep it that way,” said Mr McCaskill.