Sub-Antarctic work snared in funds trap

Press, 31 March 1989, Page 5

Sub-Antarctic work snared in funds trap

By

NIGEL MALTHUS

A University of Canterbury zoologist is appealing for financial support for a research programme on the Snares Islands, one of New Zealand's sub-An-

tarctic island groups about 200 km south-west of Bluff.

Dr lan McLean, the coordinator of the Snares research programme, said the university’s zoology department had been conducting research there since 1961, providing a policing and monitoring role for Government departments.

Expeditions of between one and four months had been mounted annually since 1982, funded by the old Lands and Survey Department. Its reorganisation into the new Department of Conservation, and subsequent funding squeeze, meant there was no expedition last year,

Dr McLean said. He said that the sub-

Antarctic islands, including the Snares, Auckland, Bounty, Campbell, and the Antipodes islands were the “poor relations” of the Antarctic region.

Research in Antarctica itself got “huge amounts” of money, partly for poli-

tical reasons: New Zealand’s ownership of the sub-Antarctic islands was unquestioned, but its claim in Antarctica required a continuing presence, he said. “It is critical that we maintain a continuing research presence on

these islands, first to ensure that they remain undisturbed, and second to better understand environmental influences on New Zealand as a whole,” Dr McLean said. His comments were partly in response to news that the Conservation Department was considering

using Orion aircraft for aerial monitoring of the five sub-Antarctic island groups ("The Press,” March 27).

Aerial photography could help ensure the islands remained undisturbed, but could not replace work on the ground, he said.

As the trial flight showed, it could easily be thwarted by fog, and the ■cost would have paid for a two-month expedition several times over.

The Conservation Department’s directorgeneral, Mr Murray Hosking, said he agreed with the need for ground work. The department had been through a year of "fairly constrained” finances but was emerging from that and hoped to resume funding for some of its shelved projects.