Conservation effort unbalanced

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 20

Conservation effort unbalanced

A national conservation policy that gives equal consideration to all indigenous ecosystems is needed urgently in New Zealand, according to a leading New Zealand botanist and conservationist, Professor A. F. Mark, of Otago University. Professor Mark urged the adoption of such a policy at a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research symposium at Lincoln yesterday. Speaking on the botanical component of conservation in New Zealand, Professor Mark traversed the history of New Zealand’s network of reserves, national, and forest parks, and described a number of imbalances in the system. These, he said, would not be redressed until the public could be persuaded to give the same level of support to efforts to correct them that they had given to the campaign to protect native forests. Prospects did not look particularly bright for achieving a main aim of the Reserves Act, he said. This was defined in the act as “ensuring, as far as possible, the survival of all indigenous species of flora and fauna, both rare and commonplace, in their natural communities and habitats, and the preservation of representative samples of all classes of natural ecosystem and landscapes which in the aggregate originally gave New Zealand its own recognisable character.” Professor Mark was one of the keynote speakers at the symposium, which was held by the botany division of the D.S.I.R. at Lincoln

over two days to mark the impending retirement of its former director, Dr Eric Godley. Dr Godley is also a former director of the crop research division of the D.S.I.R. Conservation issues included important international responsibilities to maintain habitats to. sustain stocks of animals and plants peculiar to New Zealand. Another responsibility was the maintenance of plant cover on vulnerable mountain terrain where it existed naturally in delicate equilibrium with a dynamic landscape “as the mainstay of our often pathetic efforts in water and soil conservation,” Dr Mark said. Botanical conservation was also vital to maintain scientific reference areas for study of the impact of various forms of development on the natural systems. In some instances these needs could be catered for in conjunction with the increasing recreational demands on some of New Zealand’s more spectacular landscape areas. The potential of these areas to earn overseas exchange should not be underrated, he said. Tourism was, according to the Tourist Hotel Corporation, now ranked sixth alongside forest products as a foreign exchange earner and was showing the strongest growth of any sector. More than 70 per cent of overseas tourists visited a national park, Dr Mark said. Increasing numbers of visitors could be expected. Dr Mark noted that scenic and biological values had only rarely

taken preference over economic values in deciding on land use. In national parks, scenic reserves, and even in flora and fauna reserves, there was a strong emphasis on uplands generally unsuited to settlement and economic development. “It can truly be said that the main-road traveller from Auckland to Wellington (and even to Christchurch) no longer travels through any native forests worthy of that name, and only in two places — the so-called Desert Road and the Kaikoura coast — is he exposed for any length of time to native vegetation and roadside scenery at all distinctively native to New Zealand. The same could be said for the Christchurch-Invercargill travellers.” The apparently generous extent of existing reserves increased substantially the difficulty of obtaining a more representative system “within the period that probably remains to do so,” Dr Mark said. In 1981, a D.S.LR. report on landscape and nature conservation found that there had been very little real sacrifice, because, in real terms, less than 0.5 per cent of New Zealand had been designated national park or reserve in preference to a use forgone. This finding should be emphasised in official circles, he said. Serious anomalies in the reserves system had been highlighted by studies made in the early 1970 s by D.S.LR. botanists in Otago and Canterbury, Dr Mark said. In Otago, the pre-European land-

scape had been dominated by tussock grasslands, which had covered some 71 per cent of the province. Only 13 per cent of the area reserved in Otago was tussock grassland, and only 0.1 per cent, or 9 hectares of this was lowland grassland. In Canterbury, tussock grassland had provided 68 per cent of the original cover but now accounted for only 5.7 per cent of the reserved area. Dr Mark urged botanists to play a more prominent role in educating the public about New Zealand’s botanical heritage. The significant achievements in the conservation of indigenous forests in the last few decades had been made almost entirely through the influence of national conservation organisations, “not merely because of their substantial membership, but more particularly through their well-researched cases, their co-ordinated efforts, and their effective political lobbying,” he said. Some botanists had devoted considerable effort to these groups, to provide information, perspective, and direction to their causes, but “it disappoints me that many professional botanists tend to shun such involvement with so-called pressure groups as being beneath their professional dignity or perhaps they disapprove of some of the tactics used.” Similarly, he said, many professional botanists appeared to hold serious reservations about those few of their colleagues who attempted to popularise the subject through television and other media, “an aspect in which the botanic man, Dr David Bellamy, probably

leads the world with his obviously widespread and successful influence.” Conservation groups, supported by the public, had been so successful in their campaigns to conserve the remaining areas of lowland indigenous forest that the efforts made to conserve the equally important areas of non-forest ecosystems appeared pathetic by comparison, he said. “It seems inevitable that the present imbalance in the success of nature consservation in New Zealand will not be redressed until thpre is a similar level of public support to what the indigenous forests have engendered,” Dr Mark said. The Royal Forest and Bird Society, which with more than 40,000 members was the country's largest conservation organisation, was making policies and seeking public interest in the conservation of tussock grasslands and wetlands, he said, and to this end the recent Environmental Council report on the diminishing wetlands would be an invaluable resource document. “These are the challenges of the immediate future in which the wholehearted support of all botanists will be needed, particularly to raise the public conscience,” Dr Mark said. Professional societies, such as the Ecological Society, could play an important role by providing an administratively acceptable means for government scientists to present their views on politically sensitive issues, he said. Botanists could, and several did, play an important role also as members of parks and reserves boards.