MOUNT COOK DEVELOPMENT ANY SCHEME MUST CONFORM TO NATIONAL PARK VALUES

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33533, 14 May 1974, Page 12

MOUNT COOK DEVELOPMENT ANY SCHEME MUST CONFORM TO NATIONAL PARK VALUES

(Bu

JOHN WILSON,

who worked [or a number of years on the summer staff at Mount

Cook National Park, and has since climbed in the Andes and visited national parks in the United States.)

The Commission for the Environment is at present reviewing plans, prepared by the Tourist Hotel Corporation, to build more accommodation at Mount Cook. There is nothing premature about these plans. Accommodation at Mount Cook has been critically short for many years. Those pressing for more accommodation to be built have argued that the “bottleneck” at Mount Cook is costing the country dearly in loss of overseas earnings. Others have opposed further development in the interests of protecting the environment.

Development at Mount Cook raises, in its minor way. the same question the Manapouri dispute raised earlier — where should the balance be struck between economic development and the preservation of the environment? Is it more important to earn overseas exchange or leave the environment unspoiled for New Zealanders to enjoy?

| , The problems of housing j hotel staff, national park i rangers and employees of the s Mount Cook Company have s been acute in the past but ; are being solved by building la new service village on the > Black Birch fan, close to the I Hermitage promontory. For i some years, the Park Board ! planned to build the village ’ at Birch Hill, five or six miles down the Tasman Valley from the Hermitage. But the site was never developed properly, or given a chance to prove its suit’ ability. The three houses built there have since been moved up to the Black Birch fan. The problems of housing staff are being solved satisfactorily, but accommodation for visitors to Mount Cook remains inadequate, particularly for those who cannot afford an expensive hotel. The T.H.C. is now planning to expand accommodation at Mount Cook by building a four-storey, 40bedroom wing to the Hermitage, four new motel blocks containing a total of 48 beds, and 10 A-frame cabins with common cook-house and toilet facilities to provide low-tariff accommodation for up to 120 people. Urgently as this accommodation is needed, there may still be delays before the buildings are erected. The Nature Conservation Council and the Scenery Preservation Society have objected to the plans. They claim that the projects will involve unacceptable destruction of some of the remnants of sub-alpine scrub on the Hermitage promontory, that the new Hermitage wing has been sited unwisely, that the . new cabins may become a shanty town and that the promised safeguards against , environmental damage while ; the works are in progress i are inadequate. 1 If the objections are up- , held by the Commission for , the Environment, the build- j ing cannot proceed immedi- < ately. Trying as the delay will be to some, the T.H.C. ( should not be exempt, just j because of the urgency of , the need for further accom- ( modation, from the rigorous . standards that should apply j within a national park. But , those making objections to ,

the plans should keep in mind the danger that if reasonable proposals for development at Mount Cook are resisted on relatively unimportant grounds, counter pressures for unrestrained, and therefore haphazard, development might build up. Sensible plan Development at Mount Cook has been unrestrained and haphazard in the past. Now, for the first time for many years, there is a sensible and comprehensive plan for development. It was prepared by a committee of the Town and Country Planning Division of the Ministry of Works a few years ago and has been adopted by the Park Board. All future development at Mount Cook will have to fit in with this plan—and there will have to be more building there in the relatively near future. The T.H.C. want to build, eventually, a new luxury hotel on the Hermitage promontory. More motels and cabins, a tavern, and a new youth hostel are planned for the lower Glencoe and Black Birch fans. Environmental impact reports will have to be prepared for al) these projects. Despite the existence of a general plan, many decisions have yet to be made by the Park Board, the T.H.C., and the Government, which will profoundly affect the physical appearance of the Mount Cook settlement, the ro.le the resort will play in the national economy and the kind of use visitors will be able to make of the country’s only easily accessible area of high mountains. If development at Mount Cook is to cater to both the overseas tourist and the New Zealand holidaymaker, and yet be in accord with con- . servation and national park values, there are certain principles that will have to be obse-ved as these decisions are made. Those who would prefer to see Mount Cook kept as exclusively a high-class resort serving , mainly overseas tourists, and , those who would like to see a more general holiday resort built near the Hermitage would want different principles to apply. These suggested guidelines for the development of ’ Mount Cook are those of a conservationist who is not opposed to development but , wants to see it proceed in j accord with a strict interpretation of the National . Parks Act. Balance needed ' A balance must be main- ; tained among expensive, , medium-priced and low-tariff : accommodation so that the ; selectly - located Hermitage area does not become the , exclusive preserve of the 1 overseas tourist but is i accessible to the New Zea- , land holidaymaker as a place i to stay as well as visit for i the day. This raises the diffl- i cult question of the camp- I ground. i

There should be a campground within the National Park. But it is also important to keep development at Mount Cook concentrated and not allow the settlement to spill too far out over the Hooker or Tasman flats, and campgrounds need much space and even when welldesigned can look untidy. One of the delights of approaching Mount Cook is that after driving up the side of the vast Tasman Valley towards great, inhospitablelooking peaks, a close, intimate settlement appears. Something of this has already been lost with the spread of the settlement on to the Black Birch and lower Glencoe fans. But it should be possible to recapture, by skilful landscaping and careful siting of buildings, the atmosphere the settlement had when building was confined to the Hermitage promontory. It would be lamentable if the settlement at Mount Cook assumed the straggling, scattered appearance typical of most unplanned New Zealand holiday settlements. Above all, development at Mount Cook must not encourage visitors to engage in activities inappropriate in an area as unique as the Mount Cook National Park They can ride, swim, play golf and skate elsewhere. Elsewhere only climbers or trampers can look at high, glaciated peaks from close by, or walk among mountains through relatively unspoiled alpine vegetation. It would be incongruous to build at Mount Cook facilities which can easily be provided elsewhere in the Mackenzie Basin — say at Pukaki. Tekapo or Ohau. At these places too, the New Zealand public can be given the ppportunity to buy the holiday sections which will not be available in the park. Simultaneous development of a holiday centre in the Mackenzie Country is essential to ensure that development at Mount Cook is orderly and conforms with national park values. The other critical question which may arise in future years is that of a cableway at Mount Cook itself. A reasonable conservationist should not find a cableway entirely unacceptable. It would allow non-climbing visitors to see the high peaks from a position they could not otherwise reach. But the Park Board should not lightly allow a cableway to be built There are dangers with this sort of development that the village and its amenities will become attractions in their own right distracting attention from the mountains. Mount Cook, uniquely, offers visitors the chance to look, undisturbed, at high mountains. It should be the prime aim of all development at Mount Cook to make this experience available to as many New Zealanders and overseas tourists as possible.