Kiwi tradition survives a Govt Goliath

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 21

Kiwi tradition survives a Govt Goliath

CHRISTOPHER MOORE meets people in rural areas whose reserve and domain boards and nomenclature are being swallowed by central authorities under local government reform, but their voluntary work goes on

THEY STAND alongside pavlova, Plunket and the Taranaki Gate as a great New Zealand institution.

In a country where “Do It Yourself” has emerged as a national motto, the mosaic of local authorities — the noxious plants and animal authorities, the nassella tussock boards, the authorities for pest destruction and drainage, the reserve and domain boards — seemed as enduring as Grizz Wyllie’s walrus moustache.

As part of the Kiwi way of doing things, they may have had shortcomings, but these tended to add to the character and charm of getting things done in Godzone. Above all, they have drawn communities, especially rural communities, together for more than a century. The recreational reserve and domain boards enshrined the spirit of rolling your shirt sleeves up and doing it yourself. The concept of public recreational reserves was put into practice in the first years of European settlement. The reserve system has been continually cemented by law and reinforced by a unique system of community volunteer involvement. Together with the North Canterbury Nassella Tussock Board and the South Canterbury Wallaby Board, the local reserve board appeared to be with us for ever. But nothing is for ever. The bureaucratic axe has fallen with local government reform. “Local authorities dissolved and districts abolished,” an official circular recently intoned. With gravity and decorum, the Local Government Commission set about interring dozens of local authorities throughout the Canterbury region.

What the commission possibly did not realize was the depth of public feeling about the future administration of reserves. The South Canterbury Wallaby Board and the Strathallan District Noxious Plants Authority may go the way of all flesh, but the reserve boards volunteer workforce has survived. While the boards themselves will vanish under the remorseless tracks of local government reorganisation, the legion of volunteers who have cossetted and cared for the dense patchwork of recreational reserves across the region will continue to work on — mowing grass with farm tractors, pruning trees and painting fences under the umbrella of the new district councils.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings the plains- and hills will come alive to the sound of mowers, electric saws and weedeaters emerging from the local reserve. One small slice of Kiwi tradition has survived.

But first, spare a thought for the late departed — or at least one notable victim of the Government purge. For 63 years, the Elephant Hill River Board has been taming a group of cantankerous South Canterbury creeks. It has been spoken about in Parlia-

ment and written about on the pages of the capital’s morning newspaper. To the critics, the Elephant Hill River Board typified the small, inefficient ad hoc authority.

It was water off the collective back of the Elephant Hill River Board. After working for six decades to safeguard the paddocks south of Waimate, it was determined to continue its work in spite of a bunch of wittering North Islanders. In 1926 the farmers and landowners of the Ikawai, Tawai and Glenavy districts sought a community solution to a community problem. The Elephant Hill Creek forms after heavy rain in its catchment area. The braided streams combine to send floodwaters churning across the surrounding pastures.

A channel was dug to funnel the floodwaters on to less valuable land near the Waitaki River three kilometres away. During the following six decades, successive members of the board worked to maintain the Work, eliminate erosion and protect the channel with willows and stone groynes. Finance was provided through peppercorn rental charged to property owners in the area. “We believe in the principle that a stitch in time saves nine,” the board’s chairman for the past seven years, Wilkie Wallace, said in Waimate last week.

“The board’s membership has been drawn from established farmers in the area. As you get older and have a family, you find yourself serving on the school committee and the hall committee. You become involved. It’s a New Zealand thing. As a people, we’re like that, especially in country areas. A New Zealand farmer can do anything — pull a tractor to pieces, put it together again and keep things going.” The board’s responsibilities will now pass to the new Waimate District Council ... “hopefully someone from the area and

familiar with the scheme will be able to serve on the committee and keep an eye on the work and any potential problems,” he says. After 63 years, a chapter closes for a group of individuals helping themselves and their neighbours.

“We never wanted to be among the big boys. There was no kudos and we didn’t receive a cent from our work. All we wanted to do was to keep that damn river off our farms ...” Wilkie Wallace says. Northwards across the Canterbury pastureland, Leeston clings to the shores of Lake Ellesmere: a quiet country township which has always contained ample reserves of community spirit when the need arose. When Leeston learnt that the work of its local recreational reserve volunteers could be centralised in the Selwyn District Council, it was not amused. When the Local Government Commission met in Christchurch, the chairman of the Ellesmere Reserve Board, Bill Heslop, made the community’s position very clear. • “The functions of the board should be retained in the best interests of the reserves under their administration. The board is certain that no system can better top the tremendous local voluntary input of labour and machinery which has already established a very high standard in these parks and reserves,” Heslop told the Local Government Commission. If the board was to lose its identity, he suggested that a specialist committee should be established to administer the system. <

The Ellesmere Domain Board was originally established in 1876 to administer the 86-hectare Ellesmere Domain. Gradually other domains and reserves came under its umbrella — the Gambles Estate (42 ha leased for farming); Southbridge Park (five hectares of playing fields, controlled by a local committee) and Dunsandel Domain (four hectares of playing fields, swimming baths controlled by a local committee). “The existing system of administering reserves receives amazing feedback from the public. Although we are primarily an administrative body, each of the reserves in our area has its own committee which works voluntarily to maintain the standards for people using these areas. We assist with occasional funds,” the board’s secretary, Ivor Smith, says.

A cross-section of the community ranging from sports organisations to the public spirited became involved in the work of maintaining, and improving the reserves. In some cases, it has been a family tradition to work on the reserve board.

"Selwyn District Council will extend from the hills to the sea, from the Waimakariri to the Raikaia; excluding Christchurch. We have made submissions which were put toward to the

council’s interim committee. It proposed a resolution which means that our board will go under the council’s wing. It won’t be known as a board any longer but they seem to think that the finance we have previously administered will continue to be administered by a committee which will include some board members,” Bill Heslop says. “They will want to keep the workers on the ground — the volunteers. The commission was warned about losing them and the effects it could have. If it became the sole responsibility of the council, the volunteers would wash their hands of the situation.”

The rural spirit of co-opera-tion?

“It’s quite noticeable that once you cross the Selwyn River;

coming away from Christchurch there seems to be a rise in local enthusiasm. Local people seem to want to hop in and get involved,” Bill Heslop says. Getting involved has been part of Pigeon Bay’s lifestyle for generations. In spite of changes to local government, the chairman of the Pigeon Bay Reserve Board, Frank Davison, doubts whether the basic philosophy will change radically. “We don’t visualise a great deal, of change. We will be responsible to the Banks Peninsula District Council. I can’t see the council abandoning all the reserve boards around the Peninsula and paying someone to run them. The ratepayers would be the ones who would suffer and people in small communities, like the bay, would lose the

feeling for their area; we could end up with a few problems. It’s far better to leave things and let people simply get on doing what they have always done with their reserves,” Frank Davison says. The Pigeon Bay Reserve Board is responsible for its snug reserve tucked alongside the shoreline. The area contains camping ground, picnic area and tennis courts. An overseer/caretaker supervises the area. The area is popular in summer but only a scattered number of visitors visit the historic bay in winter.

The main change at Pigeon Bay appears to be that the board’s annual books will be audited by the district council rather than the Audit Office. “The impression I get from the council’s administrative staff is that the reserve boards have always been run voluntarily. They have not cost the ratepayers any money and should carry on as before,” Frank Davison says.

"The initial impression was that reserve boards would be wiped. But the message from the Commission we received was “go home, do your homework, meet the transitional committees and you could receive what you want. But above all do your homework. We did just that.” For Derek Morse, of Christchurch, the region’s reserves have formed an important part of his working life. For more thari a decade he worked to administer the reserves for the Lands and Survey Department. He sees the system as an enduring community asset. "In the early days of European settlement, laws were passed to set aside certain areas as reserve, during the subdivision of land. To set things going, the Crown, like Caesars wife, had to be above reproach. The most sacred of all these areas were the recreational reserves,” says Derek Morse.

“The reserves for gravel pits, planting trees and public building were not nearly as sacrosanct as the recreational reserves. It was a far-sighted idea. While the Crown still has a finger in the pie, the community has the major involvement. The spirit of the original legislation is still very much alive.

“I believe that the same common sense will prevail today.”