Forest & Bird seeks court review of DOC decision to cede part of Ruahine Forest Park for irrigation scheme

Forest & Bird, the conservation lobby group, says it will seek a High Court review of the Department of Conservation's decision to allow 22 hectares of Ruahine Forest Park to be flooded as part of the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme.

DOC this month agreed to a land swap, where it would relinquish a small part of the park in exchange for land on nearby Smedley Station, which is owned by the Public Trust and run as a training farm. The swap was agreed to by DOC director general Lou Sanson following a request from Hawke's Bay Regional Investment Co (HBRIC), the investment arm of Hawke's Bay Regional Council.

When DOC approved the deal, Sanson said it represented a net gain for conservation. DOC would get about 170 ha of land containing beech forest and regenerating native bush in exchange for the 22 ha site that had been "heavily logged in the past, is partly infested with weeds such as willow and Darwin's barberry and contains a former house site."

To effect the deal, DOC must revoke the protected status of the 22 ha block. Under the Conservation Act, proposed land exchanges must result in an overall conservation gain for public conservation land and promote the purposes of the Act. The exchange is conditional on the $265 million water storage scheme proceeding and on HBRIC undertaking extra conservation programmes to eradicate wilding pines from the exchange land and restoring whio/blue duck habitat.

The council-owned company is also required, under a separate decision announced this month, to trap and transfer native fish species present at the dam site dam on the Makaroro River.

Forest & Bird believe that the land-swap was unlawful, because DOC had the power to swap stewardship land but not specially protected conservation park land.

"This issue goes far beyond Hawke's Bay and Ruahine Forest Park," Sally Gepp, a lawyer for Forest & Bird, said in a statement. "It sets a precedent for all specially protected conservation land, which includes forest parks, conservation parks, and ecological and wilderness areas."

Forest & Bird says the 22 ha site has "important conservation values including an oxbow wetland, braided riverbed, threatened red mistletoe, and is home for several threatened animal species including the New Zealand falcon, fernbird and long-tailed bats."

A revised decision from the board of inquiry considering the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme, released in May, relaxed water quality conditions that were regarded by the scheme's promoters as unworkable and gave irrigators 15 years to find ways to manage nitrogen levels in the Tukituki River to very low levels.

(BusinessDesk)