PROGRESS BATTLE LINES DRAWN

Unesco watches Fiordland
tunnel project in New Zealand

By Tracey Roxburgh

6:26 AM Friday Aug 10, 2012

Milford Sound

Unesco is keeping a close eye on the Fiordland and Mt Aspiring National Parks and their status as a World Heritage site may be under threat from two controversial commercial proposals.

If the Dart Passage Tunnel, proposed by Milford Dart Ltd, or the Fiordland Link Experience, proposed by Riverstone Holdings Ltd, gain approval, Unesco may send a monitoring group to New Zealand to assess the impacts of the developments.

This could lead to the Te Wahipounamu heritage site being deleted from the World Heritage list. It could be added to the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Unesco public relations division media relations chief Sue Williams said yesterday the organization became involved after receiving "a number of reports by third parties" earlier this year.

It contacted the New Zealand authorities, requesting information on both proposals, "including their legal status and stage of implementation", Ms Williams said when contacted at her base in France.

Doc confirmed the two proposals had been "approved in principle" and provided Unesco with copies of impact studies and proposed mitigation measures.

Milford Sound Airport

Unesco's World Heritage Centre and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an international environmental group, were assessing the information.

The next step could be the preparation of a report to be considered at the next World Heritage Committee session, in June or July next year.

From that meeting, officials could be asked to visit the area to assess the impact of the proposals.

"The World Heritage Centre has requested the New Zealand authorities keep it informed of any development, including the outcome of the public hearings," Ms Williams said.

Late last year, Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson announced her intention to grant concession applications to both companies. Submissions were then called for and were heard over several weeks this year by a Doc hearings panel in Queenstown and Te Anau.

Doc media adviser Reuben Williams said yesterday Unesco had no legal jurisdiction over the concession applications process.

Unesco was interested in world heritage but "they won't be in a position to be involved ... in the decision making".

Doc was still preparing reports on the applications to be forwarded to the delegated decision-maker, Doc operations deputy director Sue Cosford, he said.

"No formal decisions have been made ... it could be some time off."

Milford Dart Ltd director Michael Sleigh said he "just can't see how" the 11.3km tunnel could jeopardize the World Heritage Status. It would have a "minimal impact" compared with other developments at Milford Sound.

"If they [Unesco] were coming, they should be having a very close look at what the various Te Anau-based stakeholder groups [in] the Milford village [have done] in terms of the 6ha of native forest they removed to allow for commercial expansion.

"It's far more dramatic than anything we're proposing.

"They should also be talking to the people at Gunn's Camp and the mayor about recent support for the Haast-Hollyford highway and what impact that will have on the World Heritage status."

Riverstone Holdings Ltd director John Beattie said Unesco would be "absolutely satisfied" with his company's project, which would be an "exemplar for future activities inside the Department of Conservation estate in New Zealand".

He likened the project to the 7.4km Kuranda Scenic Railway which traversed native rain forest in Cairns.

"I'm advised by the operators ... that the benefit, they believe, of the infrastructure to the World Heritage status position - the knowledge and understanding of the rain forest - has been considerably improved ... as a result of the infrastructure being in place.

"We expect the monorail will be no different in that regard and we'd expect, having been through a detailed eight-year process, which has been extremely robust, with Doc ... that Unesco will respect the integrity of the Doc process and this will cease to be an issue."

Unesco World Heritage sites:

*962 sites worldwide, including three in New Zealand.

*Te Wahipounamu ("Place of Greenstone") covers the Aoraki/Mt Cook, Fiordland, Mt Aspiring and Westland National Parks; included in 1990.

*Tongariro National Park included in 1990, New Zealand Subantarctic Islands in 1998.

*To be included, sites must be of "outstanding universal value".

The proposals:

*Dart Passage Tunnel: An 11.6km, commercial bus tunnel from the Routeburn road in the Mt Aspiring National Park to the Hollyford road in the Fiordland National Park. Cost: $150m.

*Fiordland Link Experience: A catamaran trip across Lake Wakatipu to Mt Nicholas, an all terrain vehicle trip to the Kiwi Burn, then a 43km monorail journey to Te Anau Downs, on Lake Te Anau. Cost: $175m.

- Otago Daily Times

By Tracey Roxburgh

Debate: Fighting over Fiordland2

By Dianne Blumhardt and Bob Robertson

Tourism developers want to put a monorail into Fiordland, shortening the journey from Queenstown. Bob Robertson defends his scheme, and Dianne Blumhardt urges the Government to turn it down.

Bob Robertson: FOR

In a few weeks the Minister of Conservation, through his department's general manager of operations, will decide whether to grant a concession for the "Fiordland Link Experience", a privately funded, $170 million eco-tourism proposal of national significance.

The decision comes as the head of the Tourism Industry Association, Martin Snedden, is calling for the industry to adapt its offerings to what visitors want. Though the project ticks all the boxes, a collection of small special interest groups is working to kill it off.

This raises a question: if even green projects like this run into this kind of opposition, what is the future for investment and development throughout New Zealand?

Visitor numbers to Milford Sound have decreased every year since 2006. The project would reverse this by replacing the 580km round trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound with a combination of catamaran, all-terrain vehicle and monorail travel, and shave hours off the trip.

The monorail would be the longest in the world and powered entirely by renewable energy. The monorail track would be carefully laid to avoid significant beech trees and stay outside the boundaries of the Fiordland National Park.

Only 22ha of the 46,750ha Snowdon Forest would be affected - less than 0.05 per cent.

The investors have spent $3.5 million consulting the Department of Conservation. At a time of strained government budgets, the project would be entirely funded by local developers. It is expected to create at least 40 engineering and construction jobs and around 65 permanent jobs once the project is operational.

Concessions paid to DoC would contribute to its work and extensive overseas advertising by the investors would help the wider tourism sector.

Despite all this, a small number of people want to stop the project. They can be divided into three groups: those who want to keep the area for themselves, those with competing business interests, and those who oppose any development.

The first group comprises existing recreational users of the Fiordland area. They are concerned that the footprint of the monorail will disrupt their use of the land. As this is a matter of perception, we have to take their word for it. However, the area in question is vast and multiple uses can easily co-exist.

The second group run existing businesses that would compete with the Fiordland link. The degree to which they will be affected depends on the choices of visitors to the region.

The overriding point, however, is that commercially self-interested parties should react to competition by improving their visitor offering, not by knee-capping potential competitors with cynical objections at the consenting phase.

The third group has parachuted in from out of town. It appears opposed to development for ideological reasons and advocates encouraging people to stay longer and walk more. That is easier said than done for those who are time constrained or who lack the physical strength to go on walks. They include many elderly visitors.

The decision each of us now faces is whether we get behind projects like this or bow to pressure from a few special interest groups.

Do we want to create jobs and enable more people to see more of our beautiful country, or keep the environment the preserve of a select few?

Bob Robertson is managing director of the Infinity Investment Group.

Dianne Blumhardt: AGAINST

The fate of parts of pristine Fiordland hangs in the balance. Proposals by two different development companies to shortcut the road journey from Queenstown to Milford Sound are being considered by the Department of Conservation.

One of them proposes a tunnel in Mt Aspiring National Park, beyond Glenorchy where the stunning Routeburn wilderness walk begins. It would take private buses underground to the Hollyford Rd in Fiordland National Park, then on to Milford Sound. The other proposal is a monorail that would cut a swathe through DoC's Snowdon Forest, also aiming to condense the journey through to Milford.

DoC, established in the 1980s to protect the diminishing natural assets of New Zealand, is being lured by the dollar to grant concessions to these two invasive private enterprises.

Already the conservation estate is peppered with businesses that operate fairly unobtrusively, generating income through a strictly monitored relationship. So why the fuss over the proposed monorail and tunnel?

Look at the jobs they will create felling trees, bulldozing roads and in their main construction. Think of the revenue pouring into the local economy and Government coffers.

Yes, big companies will benefit, as will huge hotel consortiums (New Zealand-owned?) to accommodate targeted Asian tourists who will come to see as much as possible in as short a time as possible.

But what about small businesses throughout New Zealand?

With the loss of integrity, yet again, for our "100% Pure NZ" image, real travelers, prepared for real journeys seeing, and experiencing the raw natural beauty of real New Zealand, will recoil from travelling here. Such travelers embrace our perceived respect for the grandeur we guard.

The real loss is beyond monetary consideration. It reaches into the heart and conscience of anyone with enough humility to see beyond self-gratification. To allow all senses the chance to absorb the aura of this untouched world is a humbling experience indeed.

What arrogance would even consider meddling here? But DoC needs money, and conservation and tourism are strongly linked, so let's look for solutions within tourism.

Tourism ranges from the high-end, top lodge, private jet set through the organized hotel-staying bus tours to self-drive retirees who stay in small motels or bed & breakfasts, campervan users and backpackers.

All enjoy our conservation estate to a greater or lesser degree but how many contribute directly to DoC?

As a retiring bed & breakfast operator, a hiker and a caring citizen, I have sought an answer to this problem. Through discussion with the thousands of tourists over the past 20 years, I have discovered that not one of them would be averse to paying a small levy going directly to DoC.

Obviously charging to enter a National Park is not worth consideration, whereas a small levy (say $20) charged at our border to anyone travelling on a foreign passport, should provide revenue. We don't need to sell our soul.

Regardless of where we live in New Zealand we all have a duty to defend what is left of its natural assets. Kiwis who leave city comforts, and visit our wilderness areas, will understand this plea: Don't stuff up any more of Real New Zealand, this is our heritage.

Dianne Blumhardt of Thames is a retired school teacher and bed and breakfast operator. The real loss is beyond monetary consideration.

Peter’s Comment

First, let’s look at UNESCO. Here in part is what Wikipedia has to say about UNESCO:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (French L'Organisation des Nations unies pour l’éducation, la science et la culture: UNESCO; /juːˈnɛskoʊ/) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN). Its purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter.

Listed among the agency’s wide ranging activities is also the responsibility for registration of World Heritage Sites. The aims of UNESCO would appear to support the projects as aids to international collaboration and understanding through education, science and culture. Isn't that what tourism is all about?

The article above by Bob Robertson is the view of a business investor and one would expect him to come out on the side of the developers. But he argues with logic that is hard to dispute.

Dianne Blumhardt on the other hand argues with the logic of someone who wants to save the whole world from itself. She seems to be a believer in the theory that everything should be turned back to the first ten seconds of evolution so that the world would be a perfect place for right thinking people like her.

I think the reality of the two new Milford Sound access routes is that both will do more to preserve this world heritage area than the existing means of getting to this remote location.

It is well known in the tourism industry that attractions at the end of a no-exit road never attract as many visitors as attractions that have more than one route in and out.

In addition, there is the time problem. It’s all very well to say that tourists should be encouraged to walk everywhere, but they don’t have the time. Most visitors to Milford Sound go there and back in a day from Queenstown. That’s a 680 kilometer round trip on a road that is one of the most dangerous that we have. Few people have time for an extra night in Te Anau to break the journey.

More people need to realize that we can’t stop the clock ten seconds after the start of evolution. We can’t stop the clock at any point in history and we can’t stop it to take effect at midnight tonight. We live in a world that is still evolving and man and his creations are part of the evolution.

Both projects will be good for New Zealand and good for our World Heritage sites.