Brendan Mc Bryde Fiordland Advocate 29th May 2014 (Front Page)
A Te Anau to Manapouri cycle track has been thwarted until at least 2017, after seven years of planning.
The Fiordland Trails Trust held it's annual general meeting last week where shocked attendees heard that a partial review of the Fiordland National Park Management Plan they were counting on would no longer be happening.
The management plan stipulates that bikes can only be used on formed roads, so any tracks built would only be accessible on foot. This is not able to be addressed by the Conservation Management Strategy (CMS), which is currently being redrafted.
Fiordland Trails Trust acting chairman Steve Hoskins said that since the group's creation in 2007 its main priority had always been to open a bike trail from Manapouri to Te Anau. Until recently trustees believed that the Department of Conservation (DOC) was on board with respect to its statutory documents.
A $15.000 community board funded feasibility study had already looked at the three main options for the low gradient, family-friendly track along the eastern side of the Waiau River Dr Hoskins said.
"Where we are at a week ago was to have a DOC management agreement nearly ready to sign, and the CMS had been submitted on." he said. "What the draft CMS says is that they committed to doing a partial plan change. what I now understand is that they won't be doing that partial plan change."
The national park management plan was not due for an official review until 2017, and previous reviews had taken up to five years he said.
"We will have to rethink where we target our energies." Dr Hoskins said. "A floatpane can fly overhead, a jet boat can zoom past on the lake, a hunter can let his gun off 500 metres away, but my daughter can't ride her bike."
DOC spokeswoman Beth Masser said that funding for a partial review of the Fiordland National Park
Management Plan had been internally requested on more than one occasion. but it was repeatedly denied.
"It's a frustrating time for the community and we share the frustration, but we have to act lawfully at the end of the day. Our role goes wider than any single interest ." Ms Masser Said.
Te Anau Community Board member Rachel Cockburn said that after seven years of work the rug has been pulled out from everyone involved.
"So Much work, and feasibility studies, really good commitment from previous trustees."
While cycling in some parts of the national park like thew Kepler Track would be more controversial,
the CMS would demonstrate that the public opinion was behind a Te Anau Manapouri link. Mrs Cockburn said.
"I haven't seen the document yet, but we understand that,yes, there is a bit of contention about cycling on the Kepler, but we understand that there was absolutely nobody against cycling through that little bit on the east side of the river,"
"We knew we had to be patient, but to me it is just heartbreaking."
she said. "We're going to meet in June to discuss what we do next."
Former Southland Conservation Board member Robin McNeill said leadership and vision for the cycle trail was lost with the DOC restructuring last year.
"There's no one left in DOC to do much of that anymore. the CMS is running years behind because it's all being run out of Christchurch."
If you go to the Southland conservancy office now it's a bit of a ghost town."
While DOC's statutory documents were a balancing act between flexibility and guidance for local groups, they were currently failing at both. Mr McNeill said.
I am not very happy with the new Conservation Management Strategies because they seem to be trying to be all things to all people and achieving nothing for anyone." Mr McNeill said.
"The view of the board was that cycling on the eastern side wasn't a big deal."
Southland District Council Mararoa -Waimea representative Alistair Jukes said such a trail would be an icon for New Zealand and the hurdles didn't make sense.
"What really bugged me with the two [community board ] meetings that we've had is that we've got a whole lot of really enthusiastic people and there's people around in the community that would go and get these projects started . But here we just seem to be stuck with this DOC problem."
It would take very little to upgrade the walking tracks that already existed on the riverside. Mr Jukes Said.
"Having a track through there is not going to make one iota of difference to the bush."
