Te Paki 'should be national reserve'

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 20

Te Paki 'should be national reserve'

PA Wellington All Crown-owned lands at Te Paki at the northern tip of the North Island, should be turned into a national reserve, says the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. If a draft management plan for the area was put into practice, a substantial part of Te Paki’s native shrublands would be lost to extend the Lands and Survey Department farm park lands, the society said. In a submission to the department’s draft plan, the society points out a number of reasons why the present Te Paki farm land should not be extended. Pasture now covers 13 per cent of the park. • Farming was uneconomic at Te Paki and had cost the taxpayer an estimated $900,000 during the last 10 years. • Te Paki was nationally and internationally known

by the scientific community for its plants. ® Tourism was much better suited to the area. Most New Zealanders and many overseas visitors were attracted to the northern-most point of New Zealand. ® Te Paki was a focal point for Maori people throughout New Zealand as the parting place for the dead. Total Crown holdings at Te Paki are 22,692 ha, most of which was bought in 1966 to preserve the area in public ownership. The draft management plan, released in August, proposed to clear 2250 hectares of shrublands at Spirits Bay which house the rare Northland green gecko and Te Paki snail. There are also a number of plants endemic to Te Paki, the society said. “The wilderness feeling of Te Paki draws many visitors from other parts of

New Zealand and overseas. The coastline and dune systems are the present drawcard, but as Te Paki’s forests regain their former glory, this region will become one of the natural jewels of New Zealand. The area deserves recognition as a national reserve.” The society’s submission supports a number of policies in the draft plan, particularly the closing of the serpentine mine. It says that, while Lands and Survey has probably believed it has planned, preserved and developed Te Paki along sound lines, attitudes have changed dramatically during the last 15 years. People now appreciated the “forgotten habitats”—shrubland, swamps and dunes—and it was time that the land development section of the department recognised this shift in values. , 'f 1