Message From the Minister of Conservation
Kayak across a marine reserve, tramp along the tops when the morning's mists are lifting, or quietly watch a pair of kokako amid towering podocarps, and the surroundings speak volumes.
Conserving this heritage is one of the most important challenges we face.
As Edwin Teale says in a favourite quote of mine: "The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best: it requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues: self restraint."
This plan is about making sure that the Government's conservation efforts are achieving the maximum benefits for the people of New Zealand. Are the most important conservation targets being achieved by doing the highest priority work to the standard necessary and using the public's funds as efficiently as possible? To answer this question requires a strategic plan such as this.
In preparing this plan, the Department has been working to clear instructions from me. I outlined a number of specific conservation and policy initiatives I wanted the plan to provide for and I placed particular emphasis on making progress on developing reliable and comprehensive measures on the ecological health of our natural assets.
I have made improved performance in caring for our historic heritage a priority. I have also emphasised the importance of getting closer to the communities we need to work alongside.
Many of the conservation results foreshadowed in this plan can be achieved with the resources and capabilities the Department has at present; others involve a significant expansion of activity.
Such an expansion has to be assessed realistically in the light of tight constraints on public spending and the need for the Government to make decisions between a range of possible public services. Edwin Teale's virtues of self restraint apply equally to managing the public's purse as to the protecting of nature.
The conservation job is a big one involving the whole community. This plan provides a clear direction for the Department of Conservation in leading that work. I commend it to you.
Nick Smith
Minister of Conservation (1996-1999)
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