Over-use of parks feared

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33061, 31 October 1972, Page 3

Over-use of parks feared

(N.Z. Press Association)

NELSON, October 30. National parks might be “loved to death” through over-use unless preservation of nature remained paramount in the policy of administration, said the Director of National Parks and Reserves (Mr P. H. C. Lucas) today. Although New Zealand had a fine system of national parks and a higher percentage of land area in parks than most countries, there was no room for complac-

ency, Mr Lucas said at a conference of chief park rangers, at Totaranui. “In times of economic downturn,” he said, “the parks are vulnerable to uses incompatible with the National Parks Act. “We know that mineral prospecting and mining are still legally permissible in national parks, albeit with opportunity for the Minister of Lands to vet or impose tight conditions. “There are pressures, too, for public use, and the growing popularity of parks.” Mr Lucas referred to a series of articles by an American "Will Success Spoil the National Parks,” in which

he suggested that parts of some parks were being “loved to death.” “He might well have been writing of New Zealand,” said Mr Lucas. MANAGEMENT Planning was necessary to develop the resources of a park from a detailed knowledge of them. This would require an ecological approach to park management but the number of qualified people to conduct this essential research was and would remain limited until university courses in ecology now being considered began to produce graduates. The second world conference on national parks, which Mr Lucas attended two months ago in the United States, produced three key recommendations dealing with the integrity of parks, their use, and the detrimental effects of mechanised vehicles. Inroads on the integrity of parks were listed as exploitation by the establishment of hydro-electric works, prospecting, mining, timber cutting, grazing, the construction of inappropriate roads, recreational and tourist facilities. The conference urged all governments to give national parks complete and continuous protection, banning all disturbing activities. ZONING URGED The world body, now representing 71 nations, recommended a system of zoning

parks for specific uses, limiting uses within those zones to a level that natural features could tolerate, siting facilities for tourism outside park boundaries wherever possible, providing more imaginative systems of transport to and inside parks, to ban or discourage the use of cars, and carefully siting and planning necessary roads.

From the experience of the American park system now under great visitor stress, their director, Mr G. Hartzog, said: “Build in national parks only when you can’t build outside and, when in doubt, don’t construct.”