Unesco
watches Fiordland
tunnel project in New Zealand
By Tracey Roxburgh
6:26 AM Friday Aug 10,
2012
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| 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.
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| 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.
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.
