Drainage threat seen to Northland swamp

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 34

Drainage threat seen to Northland swamp

PA Wellington The Ministry of Energy has given the go-ahead to drainage work which is threatening Northland’s Kaimaumau swamp, the Royal Forest and Bird Society has said. Describing the swamp as an internationally important wetland, the society said the Ministry’s Mines Division had allowed a mining company, Kauri Deposit Surveys, Ltd, to do drainage work without a manage-

ment plan. There had been no monitoring to check natural water levels before mining started, and the mining licence conditions did not protect the adjacent scientific reserve, said the society’s statement. Several species of rare tropical swamp plants are found at Kaimaumau, the largest surviving gumland swamp in New Zealand. It also contains populations of the threatened North Island fernbird and bittern.

“Northland people have been trying for five years to save this 3000 hectare swamp from destruction and now action by Government departments may jeopardise this national treasure,” said the society’s conservation officer, Mr Mark Bellingham. Kauri Deposit Surveys, Ltd, was mining peat in the swamp to extract resins and would rehabilitate the land for farming. Mr Bellingham said conditions of the mining licence should be strengthened so

that the reserve alongside was adequately protected, and a buffer zone should be created to safeguard the reserve from mining and farming.

“In 1983 the Minister for the Environment guaranteed that water monitoring would be carried out within the reserve. The Department of Lands and Survey, which was meant to do this, has failed to. Immediate action is needed if the reserve’s future is to be assured,” Mr Bellingham said.