Bright red gorse becomes a symbol of Lewis Park resentment

Press, 11 October 1979, Page 21

Bright red gorse becomes a symbol of Lewis Park resentment

By

GARRY ARTHUR

John Hewison, a Maruia Valley farmer, trudged up the river flats of the Maruia River with an aerosol can in his hand. Every time he came across a gorse bush he gave it a squirt of red "dazzle.” Before long there were 160 gorse and 16 broom bushes, ail sporting red splotches in bright contrast to their yellow blooms. Well satisfied with his day’s work, John Hewison drove home and composed

a letter to the Commissioner of Cr.owr/ Lands, Nelson. Mr L. H. Russell. It was his response to a challenge by a Lands and Survey Department officer to point out any gorse bush that had been allowed to grow on the river flats since they were “retired” from grazing. This was just one shot in the battle that is raging between the department and the farmers and other residents of the Lewis Pass region over proposals to include 1100 sq km of the

region in an extended Nelson Lakes National Park.

The effect on farming is a particularly sore point. Farmers depend on the river flats to graze cattle while they grow hay on their own land for winter feed.

Ron Blackadder of Springs Junction had the grazing of the Maruia Valley flats, but it was taken from him in 1976 on the grounds that his cattle were damaging the edge of the bush and it was not regenerating.

Mr Blackadder, on the other hand, points to the many small trees along the bush edge, all apparently quite unharmed. He says he used to keep down noxious weeds like gorse and broom by sprinkling weedkiller around them whenever he saw them. But since then, he says, the Crown has let the noxious weeds get away. Hence the challenge, and Mr Hewison’s gorse-dazzling expedition.

To most settlers .of the Lewis Pass region, these patches of gorse and broom on the river flats

are more than mere noxious plants. They illustrate the point at the very heart of their argument with the national park proposal — that far from harming the environment, they have looked after it and protected it. It is only since the grazing was stopped, they say. that the gorse has appeared. Along with the gorse has grown long grass, already yellow and dry. which will be a fire hazard in the summer.

These settlers regard the mountains, bush, and rivers that surround their farms as theirs. They and their parents settled the area, cleared the land for farms, logged the bush and built the farmhouses, and they consider it their right to have the main say in what happens to their surroundings.

They are quick to point out they are the last ones to want to see the bush despoiled. But neither do they want it locked up in a national park. There is timber that can be logged .on a sustainable yield basis in the beech forests, they maintain, and that would not harm the forests. As evidence of this they point to the Maruia block about nine miles from Springs Junction, which was logged about 15 years ago. Regrowth .of beech trees now at head height has been so vigorous that they will probably have to be thinned. In the same area red and silver beech is now being cut and carted away to Richmond to keep the chipmill going. — a project which has had grudging approval from the conservationists. The bigger, sounder trees have been reserved for timber. A few trees remain to supply seed for regrowth. The forest looks rough and unsightly where the loggers have been, but it will grow again if the older experimental block is any indication. Many local people favour the Forest Service proposal (which is at odds with the Lands Department’s plan) to make a forest park in the area. That would allow logging, mining, and quarrying. Gold is not the only

good mining prospect. Ron Blackadder quotes from Professor J. Park’s "Geology of New Zealand” to show that the northern part of the study area contains a large undeveloped coal field.

There is copper on Mount Baldy where Ron Blackadder plans to reopen a quartz reef gold mine this summer. His brothers are mining alluvial gold in the Alfred River.

Marble Hill, two miles from Springs Junction, was quarried for many years, but not in recent times. John Hunter was not allowed to renew the lease when he wished to recently, on the grounds that the quarry was a blot on the landscape. His view, shared by his neighbours, is that a quarry is a

quarry, and is an interesting visual feature in itself. Mike Walsh has been working another lime quarry in the area for the last three years. He does not expect to lose it, but fears what will happen if the area becomes a national park and leasehold runs are-closed down. Some will become less than economic units, he believes, and he will not sell much lime.

The Maruia Valley alone has about 46 homesteads, so a lot of people feel threatened by Wellington's conflicting proposals. They have formed themselves into the Maruia Guardians to protect what they feel is theirs, and to make submissions to the Lands Department in the hope of influencing its final decision.

As their letters to "The Press" have clearly shown, they just want the area to be left alone. It is safe in their hands, they claim, and with its present status all sorts of people can enjoy it—from pony riders to four-wheel-drive clubs "They say a national park will bring more people in,” says Mrs Josie Blackadder, secretary of the Maruia Guardians “Where the dickens from? People can go anywhere they like now.”

A scenic reserve already extends either side of the highway on a "line of sight” basis right through the study area. Ron Black-* adder’s father was the instigator of it. his son says, and he was also the man who stocked Lake Daniels with its first trout. “This area has been looked after,” Ron Blackadder says. “You’d think we were trying to destroy