Waterland - Reserve keeps Dunedin in water
Te Papanui Conservation Park
The financial gain from keeping Te Papanui Conservation Park in a pristine state is $136 million. That's not bad for former high country farmland once considered by some to be a barren wasteland. But the park also provides other benefits: pure clean water, flowing from its permanent waterways and streams, fills Dunedin's drinking glasses and powers the city's commerce.
A rich stream of precious water flows from beneath the tussocks in one of New Zealand's quietly achieving conservation gems.
It feeds Otago commerce and communities, and is opening eyes to a new conservation frontier in which some of the country's unique landscapes and species get the recognition they deserve.
Te Papanui Conservation Park opened in 2003 and covers about 21,000ha of rippling tussock grasslands on the Lammerlaw and Lammermoor ranges.
It is about 45 minutes' drive west from Dunedin and is bisected by a 4WD track that runs from the Old Dunstan Trail in the north-east to Glendhu Forest, near Lawrence, in the south-east.
Its broad tussock-covered plateaus, cushion wetlands, peaty bogs and island tarns are in stark contrast to the lush native forests and awe-inspiring divides of Fiordland, but this remote and fascinating world offers visitors much that can not be found elsewhere. Among its ecological credentials are large tracts of indigenous tussock grasslands, which are becoming rare on an international level due to cultivation, grazing and burning for agricultural purposes.
Te Papanui's unusual upland environment provides a home for a huge variety of native wetland plants and animals, including 547 species of native insects.
But as with everything in this surprising park, that is only part of the story.
A ground-breaking report in 2006 examined the economic worth of a park now cleared of stock and musterers. It found Te Papanui was worth tens of millions of dollars to Dunedin - a city of 110,000 people, of whom many likely had no idea that the new park even existed.
It turned out that major benefits associated with parks like Te Papanui, which have no commercial production on them, were wrapped up in the so-called "ecosystem services" that came with keeping them in their natural state. For Te Papanui, those benefits flowed - literally - as water.
DOC Director-General Al Morrison
The study detailed a park whose natural aspect, geology, and ecology made it a significant natural water catchment for coastal Otago. It found the water that started its journey in the organic-rich soils of the Lammerlaw Range became drinking water in Dunedin, electricity at the Waipori and Paerau power stations, and irrigated pasture along the course of the Taieri river.
That water was worth a lot. A net benefit analysis - that is, the money saved by not having to make massive investments to get water from alternative sources, such as the Taieri or Clutha rivers - found Dunedin's water supply benefited to the tune of $93 million, that hydroelectricity generators benefited by another $31 million, and that a further $12 million - at least - was saved irrigating 60,000ha of Taieri farmland.
All up, Te Papanui's net present value was $136 million. And that was before considering the potential for new irrigation and hydroelectricity schemes, and the value of the plants, animals, and landscape that the new park was formed to protect. Not bad, perhaps, for apparently unproductive land that even the most ardent proponents say few people knew existed.
DOC Otago Conservator Jeff Connell says the park grew from a process that started decades before, when the government asked the old Lands and Survey Department to find and protect the best examples of New Zealand's remaining indigenous ecosystems and landscapes.
'Less than an hour out of Dunedin, you can lose yourself in a sea of tussock that ripples all the way to the skyline in all directions… It's like being on a magic carpet' - DOC Otago Conservator Jeff Connell.
The South Island high country was a priority, and by the 1990s the new Department of Conservation had identified the tussock lands in the Lammermoor and Lammerlaw ranges as some of the best left in the country.
At about the same time, high country farmers began asking the Crown to free up pastoral leases so they could work their land in different ways. The lease for the 30,000ha farm at Rocklands was reviewed and the farmer left negotiations with 18,000ha of freehold land, much of it already cultivated. DOC left with a relatively rockless 12,000ha for conservation - a large chunk of windblown loess that, in 2003, became the core of the almost 21,000ha Te Papanui Park.
The sensitive wetlands were now protected from the physical and chemical impact of stock. The park had a 24km-long four-wheel-drive track, so it was accessible enough - but the new challenge was to get people much more used to spectacular high-mountain parks to understand it.
'Less than an hour out of Dunedin, you can lose yourself in a sea of tussock that ripples all the way to the skyline in all directions. Beyond that, the crests of other Otago ranges are barely visible in the distance. It's like being on a magic carpet. But it is a place to which people have to become attuned,' Jeff says.
'It is one of our first high country parks, it is still young, and I think people will grow to value its subtleties to the same extent that they value the traditional park of forests and mountains.'
The odd ironic flashpoint helps. Plans to build the Mahinerangi and Project Hayes wind farms near Te Papanui suddenly turned the spotlight on the fledgling park. At last, the proposals promoted the feeling that the quintessentially Otago landscape of rolling hills and tussock needed protection.
'So we can say that attitudes to the conservation of these areas have changed. Only 20 years ago tussock lands were considered a wasteland. I'm convinced we've moved away from that, but the job isn't done yet. There are people who still aren't tuned into the aesthetic.'
The remote area has held a special place in Alan Mark's heart for several decades. The Dunedin-based botanist and environmental campaigner turned his attention to its windswept brows soon after helping forge the Save Manapouri campaign in the 1960s.
It's an area that had been written off by some as a barren wasteland, but nothing could be further from the truth, he says.
Alan and colleagues studied the area's ecology, which was under threat of development, and found its value as a water catchment to be world class. In some parts of the park, up to 86 percent of rainfall is yielded to the upland's permanent waterways, which flow down into Deep Stream and Deep Creek - and ultimately into the drinking glasses, kettles, baths and showers of Dunedin residents.
The water yield from the tussock grasslands to the streams, bogs and rivers running through the catchment is the stuff of world records, Alan says. 'Several studies have shown that the yields are better than from any other type of cover, even bare soil, since the snow tussocks use very little water.'
He was one of a band of local campaigners who pushed for the creation of the Nardoo Conservation Area in the 1970s, which now forms part of Te Papanui.
It was pioneering stuff, and represented one of the earliest environmental campaigns for tussock land conservation in New Zealand.
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Back then, there were many who questioned the wisdom - perhaps even the sanity - of those arguing for the retention of what was seen as an unproductive expanse. However, the area's proponents recognised the natural grassland ecosystem was irreplaceable, and that it could never be reconstituted once the first sod of development was turned.
Professor Alan Mark
Alan says full recognition and protection of the grasslands was timely, given the increasing worldwide demands for fresh, clean water.
At an international grasslandrangeland conference in China this year, delegates pressed him for more information on water production through a cover of native grassland. The spectre of a world thirsting for water puts Te Papanui's rich ecological value into context. About 65 percent of Dunedin's water is sourced from the moisture-laden fogs and driving rains captured by needleleaved tussocks. The water is then soaked up by rich sphagnum mosses, which act like a sopping wet sponge, turning Te Papanui into a massive reservoir.
'It's critical for Dunedin's present and future water supply,' Alan says.
New Zealand is relatively well-off in terms of water resources, but shortages have been experienced in drier locations, including parts of Otago, he says.
The scientific evidence from Te Papanui also sheds more light on tussock grasslands elsewhere in New Zealand. Without these efficient water producers, the country's water supplies would be in a much sorrier state. DOC has moved in the past decade to protect more tall tussock grassland, shrub land and wetland landscapes.
Former Department of Conservation scientist Brian Patrick, now director of Central Stories Museum in Alexandra, thinks back fondly to the day in 1983 when he was dropped off on a snow bank on the Lammermoor tops.
After a mere two hours on his hands and knees, Brian had discovered two new species of native moth. Later he was to discover plant life - such as the delightfully-named Hebejeebie trifida, a relative to the popular native hebe - low growing on late snow banks nurtured by the abundant meltwater.
What was then an arguably overlooked, understudied environment has become his favourite mountain range. 'It's a stunning place - full of surprises.'
Its unique geographical position, chilled by Antarctic wind-strikes, breeds life into a rare amalgam of invertebrate communities. At about 1000m above sea level the rolling tussock landscape is dotted with flora and fauna usually found at much higher altitudes, he says. The native flora and fauna on show is surprising and distinctive, and as such offers visitors an easily accessible upland experience.
While the weather can be bleak in winter, Brian says nothing beats camping out on a ridge on the Lammermoors on a fine summer's day, watching gorgeous green- and orange-speckled native moths flit about in the breeze.
The richness of the park's biodiversity makes for a marvellous natural attraction, he says.
'Twenty years ago tussock lands were considered wastelands. I'm convinced we've moved away from that.' - DOC Otago Conservator Jeff Connell.
DOC Coastal Otago manager Robin Thomas is certainly tuned to the aesthetic. He was only vaguely aware of the area he would eventually help manage when he returned to work in Dunedin in the late 1980s.
Today, he calls the park of tawny tussocks, emerald tarns and ephemeral wetlands a quietly achieving gem.
'It's not a Remarkables landscape - it's the sort of landscape to get the inquisitive excited.'
- DOC Coastal Otago manager Robin Thomas.
'The softly folding undulations and the rolling, fantastic swathe of tendril cover has a subtlety about it. It is not a Remarkables landscape - it's the sort of landscape to get the inquisitive excited.
'You've got to get down on your hands and knees to experience this park. For such a big area, the scale of it all can be so small. It is a park you actually have to experience, not just drive through.'
DOC Otago Conservator Jeff Connell,
Coastal Otago manager Robin Thomas
Robin's team has worked hard so that as many people as possible can see and experience the park. They manage a fourwheel- drive route that gently wends its way along the higher points of the range surrounded by a landscape of hardy tussock and sensitive sphagnum mosses on sometimes soft, peaty ground.
The tussocks help protect some of the park from off-track travellers - 'they're that massive that anyone who tangles with them is going to get stuck' - but the steady trickle of visitors shows people are increasingly visiting the park for more than an off-road challenge.
On weekends, it is not unusual to see 20 to 30 vehicles in organised groups; or mum, dad and the kids having a picnic with a view.
Horse trekking has become popular in a park that was less physically demanding and accessible to many more people than the hardy trampers you'd expect to see enjoying the great outdoors. Armed with GPS units, crosscountry skiers make the most of the lingering snow in winter.
'And in summer, just 45 minutes from a major city you can be lying in the tussock, looking … toward the horizon, and feeling like you're a million miles away from everything.'
Sure, the park's dollar value has been quantified, but that is only part of the story.
'When you are in it, and you are watching the wind catch the tops of the tussock, and the ripples it creates spread toward the horizon, then the value of that landscape is priceless.'
At a glance
- Te Papanui is almost 21,000 hectares of protected tussock grassland, west of Dunedin.
- Te Papanui's net economic benefit has been estimated at $136 million.
- It opened in March 2003, bringing together existing protected areas, land purchased by the Nature Heritage Fund, and former pastoral leasehold farmland.
- It is increasingly popular as a family picnic spot, and among horse trekkers and other recreational users.
- It is home to many native plant and insect species - scientist Brian Patrick found two new species of moth in a brief visit.
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