Park addition wanted

Press, 26 November 1981, Page 26

Park addition wanted

Wellington reporter Conservationists are agitating for a big addition to the Fiordland National Park. Protection is now being urged for a strip of coastal land next to Waitutu State Forest in western Southland, with the idea of incorporating both the strip and State forest into the adjacent national park.

The Maori owners of the coastal strip are considering granting timber rights to a milling company. The conservationists hope the owners will negotiate a land exchange.

The future use of the coastal strip must affect the future management of Waitutu State Forest. This, remote area has high forest wilderness values in a setting of mountains, lakes and rugged sea coast, which conservationists think merit protection.

The forest is the last big stand of lowland native forest in western Southland.

Incorporation of Waitutu into Fiordland National Park was advocated by the Nature Conservation Council as long ago as 1972. It then recommended the forest be withdrawn from the original Southland beech scheme because of the lack of ecological information about it.

When the Waitutu State Forest Management Plan was published in 1979, the council strongly recommended that the forest should be preserved.

The council has now recommended that the coastal strip from Sand Hill Point to the Waitutu River be included in the proposed investigation of natural values of the forest for the National Parks and Reserves Authority.