Molesworth station to remain under Crown management

Press, 20 February 1987, Page 2

Molesworth station to remain under Crown management

Molesworth Station will remain a Crown-managed farming enterprise and public access is likely to be freed up, according to a Government report released yesterday. The Government has decided that Molesworth will be leased by the Crown to the Land Cor-’ poration for farming. Conservation issues, the subject of much public debate, will be dealt with in a management plan requiring input from the Land Corporation, the Conservation Department, and the public. The report was released by the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, who chaired the Ministerial committee investigating the future of Molesworth. At 182,000 ha it is New Zealand’s biggest farm and carries about 10,000 head of cattle.

For 50 years it has been under the stewardship of the Lands and Survey Department, which is being divided into two agencies — the commercial Land Corporation and the noncommercial Conservation Department. The Minister of Lands,

Mr Wetere, said the decision to leave Molesworth under Crown control was a clear endorsement of the dedicated management practices of the Lands and Survey Department, which used public money to restore the landscape.

The management plan will be prepared under the guidance of a steering committee of five which comprises two Land Corporation senior officers, two Conservation Department senior officers, and an independent chairman, Mr Bernard Pinney, of Southland. The Government has directed that both the Land Corporation and Conservation Department should support a gradual approach to more intensive vehicular use by the public of both the Acheron and. Hanmer Springs-Rainbow pylon route roads. It also directed that the Conservation Department assume most of the public recreation management in consultation with the farm manager.

The plan is to explore the development of low-

key facilities at three locations in the western margin already open to the public — Tarndale Lakes (or Wairau bridge), Lake Tennyson (already a scenic reserve), and Acheron accommodation house, including the Clarence riverbanks.

Very little of Molesworth has been explored in ecological detail. All four ecological districts — Dillon, Sedgemere, Balaclava and Miromiro — round Molesworth are considered highest priority for protected natural area surveys. The plan is to take account of such factors as the maintenance of soil and water, that significant changes in farm management are probably neither desirable or necessary, the desirability of meeting nature protection and recreational goals in a man-, ner which complements pastoral farming, and the need to ensure adequate public comment in the planning process. The plan is most likely to be produced by a local planning team.