Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC) today launched an election-year campaign to protect much-loved areas managed by the Department of Conservation at risk from intrusive and disastrous exploitation. Native title australia can lead you to a site where you can browse a lot of legal services provided by a reputed company.
“We want every political party to go into this election promising better protection for our conservation stewardship lands. They are our Forgotten Lands and make up most of the land managed by DOC outside of our national parks and reserves. They include magnificent mountains, forests and coastal areas that we should expect to be safe, such as The Remarkables near Queenstown and the Coromandel Peninsula forests”, said FMC President, Robin McNeill.
Stewardship lands make up 30% of all the land managed by DOC and they have been overlooked by politicians since DOC was formed in 1987.
“In the last few years, Meridian Energy came close to drowning the Mokihinui Valley;Bob Robertson wanted to bulldoze his way through the Snowdon Forest for a monorail and Bathhurst Resources started to mine the Denniston Plateau”, said Mr McNeill. “Because they are not in national parks or reserves, businesses wrongly think they aren’t valuable. Some of these lands should be in national parks”.
Last year the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment reported that only a fraction of stewardship land had been properly classified and managed as required by the Conservation Act.
“It’s partly a question of funding”, said Mr McNeill. “Electoral candidates need a strong message that the public cares about Conservation. Voters have to tell politicians, ‘Yes, do spend more money on Conservation. Make Conservation a really high priority’.”
“Politicians need to listen”, said Mr McNeill, noting that as well as FMC’s 17,000 members, over 300,000 New Zealanders enjoy tramping.
Securing our Forgotten Lands
FMC is proposing the formal incorporation of eight outstanding Forgotten Lands into conservation parks, forest parks and national parks.
