Manapouri and Te Anau in Grave Peril

Forest and Bird, Issue 147, 1 February 1963, Page 2

Manapouri and Te Anau in Grave Peril

During the past few weeks a number of organisations and individuals have informed us that they had communicated with the Prime Minister and some Members of Parliament requesting that the present favourable opportunity to negotiate with the Comalco Company should be used in an effort to obtain agreement that the company will not exercise its right under the Act to raise the levels of Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau by up to perhaps 100 ft. and 20 ft. respectively. So far as we can learn none of the approaches have met with the slightest success, the replies received being more or less simply a reiteration of a statement that the scenic beauties of the lakes are protected under the Act. We cannot too strongly emphasise that, if the levels of the lakes are raised in accordance with the provisions contained in the Act, the natural scenic beauties of those peerless lakes will have been destroyed for ever, and the scenery-preservation clause in the Act will be known for what it is, a bitter sop given to the people to cover unthinkable, deliberate destruction in one of the world’s liest scenic gems. Actually hundreds of miles of tree-lined shores in Lake Te Anau

will be inundated and the countless trees flooded will be irrevocably doomed. All the wonderful tree-covered shores of Lake Manapouri will be completely submerged, miles and miles and miles of them, the lovely beaches and bush walks obliterated, and the breath-takingly beautiful tree-covered islands and orchids will disappear under the waters, some to have their dead, slime-covered bones exposed to human gaze again as the lake rises and falls, as is permitted under the agreement should water be short. To those who know the lakes, how anyone can contemplate such hideous destruction and approve of it is beyond comprehension. Now is the time to seek an agreement to avoid that calamity/ a calamity of such magnitude that it is impossible to think that those responsible can visualise the sickening, revolting destruction of natural scenery authorised under the Act. To imagine that once that destruction has been perpetrated bulldozers can restore what has been lost in beauty is a delusion akin to a horrid jest. Even nature will not be able to restore it in less than some hundreds of years. We have been assured by an authority that, because of changed geological conditions, quite likely new beaches will never be formed in the lakes. It is satisfying that at least there is evidence that more and more individuals and organisations are becoming aware and alarmed about the national calamity envisaged in the Act. Surely now is the time to make a serious effort to avert it.

The power-development project has now been taken over by the Government. This presumably will provide an opportunity for reconsideration of the proposal to raise the level of the lakes.—Ed. '