Maggie Barry speaks. Photo / Hagen Hopkins / Getty Images
Maggie Barry speaks. Photo / Hagen Hopkins / Getty Images
Opinion
I'd like to see the Conservation Minister visit the sub-Antarctic region, perhaps for her Christmas holidays.
Maggie Barry would benefit from taking one of those eco-tourist voyages with a Heritage Expeditions, or perhaps shipping aboard a Navy fisheries patrol vessel headed for the deep south.
Getting down amongst the Roaring 40s isn't so hard, not if you're determined to do so. Being anxious to discover why a new whaling settlement on Auckland Island wasn't catching whales, staunch Governor Grey managed it 1858.
And Ms Barry's predecessor, Dr Nick Smith, arrived at the same spot, but in a lot more comfort, aboard HMNZS Wellington just last year.
Because the sub-Antarctic is a ecological front-line, where rising sea temperatures, declining wildlife populations, over-fishing and many other factors are changing the game for New Zealand and the entire planet.
Ms Barry may have a vast conservation estate to manage, challenges include stoats and other pests daily sniffing our precious native birds. But despite constraints from budgets, time and resources - the urgent should not divert from the important.
An area Ms Barry could demonstrate leadership in would be to ensure that the scientific research base on Campbell Island is restored, rather than demolished.
DoC is evaluating "all possibilities" on the future of historic Beeman Base, but let's hope they get it right.
More scientists - a lot more of them - are needed in this part of the world, not fewer.
Paul Charman on Campbell Island.
Wet landing
The first thing the Minister will notice jumping from a Zodiac to land on Campbell Island, will probably be water flooding into her gumboots.
A few years ago the MetService partially demolished the base wharf and stripped out services from the accommodation.
MetService has shown little respect for decades of useful research at this site, or its potential to be used again.
The base has gathered meteorological data since 1941.
"Instruments were automated in 1995," says Former MetService expedition leader Mark Crompton, who spent six years living on Campbell Island.
"But there's a 71-year database of readings at the site: air, ground and earth temperatures; rainfall, sunshine, wind speed and direction; barometric pressure and upper air observations."
Since the 1950s, scientists there have measured the Aurora Australis, which can make entire night sky, "strobe big red like a disco light".
Researchers have recorded "radio hiss and whistlers"; magnetic and seismic readings; earth currents and changes in the ionosphere. Geologists, botanists and biologists have lived at the base and there's been much research on royal albatross, rock hopper penguins, sea elephants, sea lions, whales and many other creatures.
Beginning 1970, Colin Meurk has recorded recovery of vegetation following removal of sheep cattle and rats. And for 40 years Norm Judd has pieced together the archaeology the the island, looking at possibility of early polynesian settlement and sites visited by sealers, explorers, whalers and farmers.
Despite MetSevice running this asset down, it remained useful to 50 Degrees South Trust, which stayed there during the Campbell Bicentenary Expedition from 2010 to 2011.
Chairperson Shelley McMurtrie said her party - historians, archaeologists, ecologists, botanists and technicians - made good use of the buildings, which were still sound and adequate for expedition needs.
"Continuing to have Campbell Island as the site of a permanent research base will be a lot more cost effective when one considers the wider infrastructure already on the island," says McMurtrie.
Assets there include the wharf, water tanks, boardwalk, tracks and huts that provide access to the further reaches of the island.
"History shows that economic and political circumstances change and it would be rash to turn our back on a base location in the Sub Antarctic that has already stood the test of time," says Ms McMurtrie.
The key figure in all this is DoC's conservation services manager (Southern islands) Jo Hiscock, who is negotiating with MetService to determine the future of the base.
Hiscock is an astute manager, legendary for putting her body on the line during expeditions to manage wildlife and infrastructure on remote islands.
It's possible Hiscock personally favours DoC taking the base over from MetService, but she rightly points out that this would require a substantial investment.
"Maintenance of a working base in the sub-Antarctic is expensive considering the remoteness and difficulty of access and the extreme environmental conditions. Covering the costs of restoration and ongoing maintenance will need serious support and planning," says Hiscock.
So what a perfect opportunity for a free-enterprise Minister such as Maggie Barry to really make her mark.
If DoC were to follow the suggestions contained in its own recently published discussion document on the future of Beeman Base, it could fund all the costs incurred.
Former DoC boss Brent Beaven favoured the idea of paying tourists staying at the base, to help cover the costs of operating it.
Beaven, who now works in the Prime Minister's office, raised the possibility of partnerships with "concessionaires or interested businesses".
Such a massive shift in how DoC administers its southern islands - which now could be described as allowing as few visitors as possible - will only happen in my view if Ms Barry personally drives the changes required.
Buildings at Beeman Base are mostly still sound.
Blake Station
It's not all doom and gloom as regards scientific infrastructure in the sub-Antarctic.
The Sir Peter Blake Trust is in pre-application consultation with DoC over building a new research base, not on Campbell but on Auckland Island - 300km to the northwest.
The proposed $3 million Blake Station would consist of a new floating jetty at the head of Smiths Harbour; two accommodation blocks for long-term stays; one block for short-term stays of up to 14 people; a block for two wet labs and a boat shed.
Blake Trust CEO Shelley Campbell told me she hasn't been in contact with DoC regarding using Beeman Base.
"No-one from DOC has discussed this with us and the best location of any proposed station will need to be fit for purpose and determined by our expert science and conservation advisers."
So, astonishingly enough, one long-standing scientific base lies empty in the sub-Antarctic, while another slowly takes shape on the drawing boards.
There may be difficulties of gaining consents to build Blake Station in a UNESCO World Heritage site and National Nature and Marine Reserve. A cynic might say you'd have an easier time gaining consents to build a big new casino on the Treaty Grounds.
Construction work in the extreme environment could also be difficult.
But the Blake Station concept is a worthy one, which should not be disparaged.
Former Conservation Minister Smith visited the proposed site and gave it his blessing last year.
The concept also has the support of the University of Otago, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Education, the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute and Auckland University of Technology.
Seal lions use the base as a landing spot.
Symbolic appeal
Yet to me, much of the appeal seems symbolic, or even romantic, rather than purely scientific.
It will serve admirably as a method of introducing young New Zealanders to the exhilarating sub-Antarctic environment.
But unless they are to sit in one location, like coastwatchers during the World War II, I wonder how much science the Blake people will really do outside of Smith's Harbour.
They won't be jumping into Zodiacs to travel to Carnley Harbour, Adams or Disappointment Islands.
Due to the power of seas surrounding the Auckland Group, serious ocean-going craft of the calibre of the University of Otago's RV Polaris II, or the Antarctic expedition yacht Tiama, are required for such voyages.
Back in the 1880s castaways wrecked at opposite ends of vast and rugged Auckland Island.
But moving around the island was (and is) so difficult, that these parties never met, and failed to realise the other group existed.
