Media Statement
Conservation Week 2000—31 July to 6 August:
Hakinakinatia nga aitanga a Tane-te-wao-nui! (Enjoy your parks!)
"This week is Conservation Week 2000, with the aim of highlighting the theme 'enjoy your parks' in recognition of the
high value New Zealanders attach to their network of public conservation land," Conservation Minister Sandra Lee said
today. "It is an opportunity to remind ourselves how important our national parks, reserves and conservation areas are
to all New Zealanders."
Ms Lee said visitor figures and surveys indicated that both overseas and domestic visitors continued to find New Zealand
parks and reserves attractive. She said the latest International Visitor Survey for the year ended March 2000, using
data from on-going exit interviews conducted at airports, showed that 128,000 overseas visitors said they had gone
trekking in New Zealand. 87,000 said they had taken a half day bush walk. 82,000 visitors said they had been to Milford
Sound, in Fiordland National Park. 16,000 visitors said that they had stayed at least one night in a national park or
DOC hut.
Ms Lee said recent qualitative surveys commissioned by the Department of Conservation—from a small but representative
sample—also indicated that as many as one in three New Zealand adults over 18 may have stayed in a DOC hut or camped on
conservation land at some stage in the past. About one in 10 may have done so in the last 12 months. The surveys also
indicated that as many as two-thirds of adults may have visited a DOC visitor centre or day-tripped to a national park
at some time in the past.
"In the face of such appreciation, I am determined that our public lands are recognised for their full conservation and
recreation values," Ms Lee said. "They provide a recreational resource for the people of New Zealand, and a haven for
our unique animal and plant species, which is especially important as the loss of biodiversity continues to be our most
pervasive environmental problem. At the start of the 21st century, it is appropriate that greater protection for all our
biodiversity and particularly for iwi and hapu interests in indigenous biodiversity is being put in place through the
implementation of the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy," she said. That process had been bolstered by the Government
allocation of $187m of extra funding in last month's Budget. She said no one could overlook that the Labour-Alliance
coalition was elected with a strong conservation mandate on a raft of issues that were now being addressed through
implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy.
Ms Lee said that the growing commercial pressure on the use of parks and reserves was a factor that also needed further
debate. "I am concerned that we should not allow our national parks and reserves to be viewed simply for their
commercial value. Rather we should continue to recognise their natural and human values as well." Ms Lee said the
arguments put in support of commercial initiatives on public conservation land always needed to be weighed carefully and
then offset against the lands' other values, when statutory processes were applied at the local community, regional or
national level.
Ms Lee said she hoped that people would check their local newspapers and use the various Conservation Week events
scheduled throughout the country during the next week to discuss the conservation values they wanted to preserve for
future generations.
"All our parks-local community, regional and national-are important because they enable New Zealanders to access our
special places, and the many animal and plant species found there, that are the focus of the Department of
Conservation's daily work," said Ms Lee, releasing the Conservation Action 2000 publication today. DOC's natural
heritage focus includes saving species and protecting natural heritage sites with help from landowners. Providing for
recreation opportunities is also a major part of the Department's core work, from family picnic sites to rugged
backcountry tracks. Local community involvement, including community organisations and iwi, is vital to the Department's
success.
During Conservation Week 2000, the Minister of Conservation will present the annual Wellington Conservation Week awards
at a Beehive function (6.30pm) on Wednesday 2 August. On Thursday 3 August, Ms Lee will join the Minister of Youth
Affairs Hon Laila Harre at Cannons Creek Park in Porirua (11.15am-powhiri starts). The Ministers will take part in a
joint project between the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Project Crimson to plant pohutukawa and rata trees to mark
Conservation Week 2000, and promote regeneration of these trees nationwide. Simultaneously with this ceremony, the other
77 Conservation and Youth Service Corps programmes throughout New Zealand will also plant a symbolic rata or a
pohutukawa in their area. On Thursday evening, Ms Lee will join DOC's Director-General Hugh Logan to make a short
presentation on the Department's work during the previous year to a DOC "associates function" of conservation and
environmental stakeholder groups in Wellington (5.30pm).
ENDS