Ryton Basin

Press, 24 August 1988, Page 20

Ryton Basin

Sir, —It surprises me to read the comments of Nick F. Randall (August 18) concerning the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society’s opposition to future development of the Ry ton Basin. Surely, for an acclimatisation society, and presumably its honorary rangers, it is water quality which is important. To anyone visiting the Ryton Basin it is clear, from the bulldozed access road and the proposed site of carparking and facilities, that safeguards to protect the natural environment are not satisfactory. So, to pretend that ski-field development, with its proposed snow-making and on-field accommodation with sewerage and waste, will not affect downstream water quality, is naive. The North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society deserves full support for its stand and if Nick Randall cannot reconcile his position with that of the society then he is right in concluding that he should not be an honorary ranger. — Yours, etc., MIKE HARDING. August 19, 1988. Sir,—l write about the effect of ski-field development on the snow tussocks of the Ryton Basin. There is at the head of the Ryton Valley a beautiful snow tussock flat, of considerable botanical value. It is the plan of the developers to turn this grassland into a parking lot (Environmental Impact Assessment of the Ryton Resort, Boffa-Miskell Partners), in spite of the fact that it is the most extensive valley floor example of Chionochloa macra in the Craigieburn Range. Last year a road was bulldozed through the eastern side of this grassland, apparently without permission (D. Rooney, April 1987). Now the developers plan

to complete its destruction. This is not what I call “adequate safeguards to protect the tussocks” (Nick F. Randall, August 18). The developers have no right to destroy this valuable natural area in order that money may be made from skiers. — Yours, etc., JOAN E. VICKERS. August 18, 1988.