Rabbit-proof fence

The boundary fence of Maungatautari Park. Photo / Doug Sherring

Stepping into the virgin bush of Maungatautari is like being suspended in time.

The air is cool and, instead of deathly silent like most New Zealand bush, alive with the chatter of native birds. There is a thud of wings as a wood pigeon flies overhead and a friendly takahe pops out of the undergrowth, unfazed by human presence.

Its weirdly thick body and the way it snuffles in the undergrowth makes it seem more like a dog than a bird. Maungatautari is a dark volcanic peak on the southern side of Lake Karapiro. It gets its name, which means "suspended mountain", from the way it hovers above the fog that often blankets the Waikato.

Today, the mountain is clouded by controversy.

The takahe and other native species including kiwi, hihi (stitchbird) and kaka flourish on the mountain because a predator-proof fence was built around it to create the Maungatautari Reserve.

A triumph of community spirit, the 47km fence was started in 2002 and completed in 2006. It has cost about $20 million to date, plus thousands of hours of volunteer time. The 3400ha reserve it encircles is made up of private land, Maori land and Department of Conservation (DoC) estate and council land.

Conservation-wise, the project is a huge success. Most furry pests have been eradicated from the area, with only a few pesky mice remaining. The bush has regenerated quickly and 13 kiwi hatched this breeding season.

But a dispute over a change in the governance structure of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust, which runs the reserve, has led to dissent within the once-united community.

In December, four landowners locked their gates to block access to the fence through their properties.

This month, they disconnected surveillance systems on the fence and this week they ramped up their campaign by writing a letter to the Prime Minister calling for government intervention.

Their dispute crystallises one of the biggest emerging disagreements in the management of New Zealand's "clean, green" environment. It is a disagreement emerging at the high priced Zealandia wildlife sanctuary in Wellington, at Sinbad Sanctuary in Fiordland, in Kaikoura with the whale-watching boats and elsewhere around the country.

Will tourists and the public fund protection see our native flora and fauna thriving in their natural habitat? Or is this attempt to commercialise conservation inevitably doomed to be corrupted by the mighty dollar?

Warren Charleston is the chairman of the Maungatautari Landowners Council, the group of farmers that has taken action. He says the project is at risk.

"If they don't come around to what we're thinking, they will be asked to move the fence," he says. "That is in the very short future."

The trust had been run by a board with even representation from landowners, iwi and community (volunteers).

Last October, in what was described as either a "coup" or "democratic process" depending on who you talk to, that governance structure was changed to a two-tiered model madeup of a guardian group of stakeholder representatives evenly split between landowners, iwi and volunteers, with an operational board of six -three iwi and three non-iwi.

Two sitting trustees opposed the proposal. Since the board needed a unanimous decision to make the change, they were voted off at the meeting so that it could be passed.

Some in the area see the governance change as an aggressive takeover by local iwi Ngati Koroki Kahukura, an attempt to seize control of the project.

Jack Jenkins is chair of the Maungatautari Community Volunteers and Funders Group, formed in protest to the governance changes. He says there is growing disillusionment among the 400-plus volunteers who have put in a government. Jenkins is awaiting a meeting with conservation minister Kate Wilkinson to air the group's grievances.

The Maori board members, Karaitiana Tamatea, Robyn Nightingale and Tao Tauroa, say they are restoring a voice for iwi that was diluted under the previous structure.

Complicating matters is the fact that Maungatautari is the subject of a Treaty of Waitangi claim that is likely to see more land in the reserve gifted to Maori as compensation for the flooding of Karapiro. There is nervousness in the wider community that, once this goes through, Maori will own about 90 per cent of the land in the reserve and consequently have all the power.

Tamatea denies this. He says the land will be returned under the ancestral title Potatau Te Wherowhero, the first Maori King - the arrangement under which the University of Waikato and Te Rapa air force base lands were returned toWaikato-Tainui.

He likens the structure to the Crown title for national parks except, as Maori, they want the title under the name of their own King. "After the signing there won't be a change in anything," he insists.

Dollars are at the root of the issue.

The concept behind the fence was to set it up in such a way that it would generate income from tourism, and to use that money to run the reserve.

But do conservation values and dollar values ever align?

This week it was reported that Zealandia bird sanctuary in Karori is failing to attract enough visitors to cover its operating costs and struggling to pay back a $10 million loan from Wellington City Council. Councillor John Morrison labelled the project a "bottomless pit that we've been throwing money into".

It had built a $17m interactive visitors' centre but locals and tourists stayed away after it imposed a $28.50 ticket charge to help pay the bill. Zealandia needs 137,000 visitors a year but in the December quarter alone, visitor numbers fell 8000 short.

The Zealandia model of charging an entrance fee is one the Maungatautari trust has long considered to be a good option for filling its coffers but it will need a smart plan in place to lure enough visitors through the gates to cover its annual costs of $1.3m.

The idea to fence Maungatautari was hatched by local farmer David Wallace. In 1999 he built a predator proof fence on his property near Cambridge and was so successful in eradicating pests from a forested valley that he was able to start a kiwi nursery.

Wallace then decided to take the concept to the mountain of his boyhood, Maungatautari. He managed to pull off the extraordinary feat of persuading private landowners, local Maori and the Crown to agree to the endeavour. Work began in 2002.

There is widespread respect in the community for Wallace's vision, from all sides of the debate.

"We've got to take our hat off to him for that idea," says Tamatea. "But because everyone was caught up in the euphoria of it all what they had forgotten is the finer detail of legalising the fence and getting written agreements from the surrounding landowners for it to happen."

It is unlikely the first fence post hole would have been drilled, if every issue had been signed off in triplicate in advance. But now that the fence is in place, the grand vision has been stalled in the molasses of detail.

A key sticking point in the project's trajectory was the plan to set up a tourism venture that would generate revenue and reduce the need to rely on ratepayer and taxpayer funding.

The trust enlisted Andrew Te Whaiti of Department of Discovery, the man behind Te Puia Rotorua Maori cultural centre, to come up with a plan.

Local Maori elders were interviewed on video. There were plans to populate the southern enclosure with native birds so tourists would be guaranteed an awe-inspiring, up close encounter.

"People were predicting this would be the biggest thing in tourism since Waitomo Caves," says Wallace.

Then it came to a grinding halt. Tauroa says there was a lack of consultation with the community. "Everyone's going to be affected by having thousands of people coming to Maungatautari, so we needed the community to be totally au fait with what was happening and how it was going to impinge on their daily life. So we put a stop to that."

Landowner Bill Garland, who has nearly 9km of fence running through his farm and 40ha inside the reserve, said Wallace and the rest of the trust had neglected to sort out the tourism plan with landowners first. "All of us with land in this project did so for conservation purposes," he says. "It's difficult if someone is running a tourism venture and using our property. We'd want a say on what conditions they need to comply with and some compensation for the use of our property."

DoC worker Bubs Smith is based in Tongariro and runs a conservation programme for North Island brown kiwi. The birds are hatched and raised in Maungatautari then relocated to the Tongariro forest when they are six months old.

Smith says some of the tourism venture ideas verged on exploiting the wildlife. "They were touching on, 'It would be good to get a bird out of a hole and get a photo taken and that'll be $5000 in the bank for kiwi'," says Smith. Any tourist venture should give first priority to the bird's wellbeing.

Despite the difficulties in striking a balance between conservation priorities, economic benefit and stakeholder interests, the board believes that commercial enterprise is still vital to making the Maungatautari reserve sustainable long term.

"We need to be real about it and say there is an opportunity for a visitor experience of some sort," says Tauroa.

The reserve survives mostly on public funding. Environment Waikato, Waipa District Council and DoC each kick in $300,000 annually, in a three-year deal that has another year to run. The board must find $400,000 from other sources to balance the books each year.

Concerns over where that money will come from is rising and big business funders are backing off as the stoush continues.

The Gallagher Group farm fencing company has been a big supporter, contributing a seven-figure sum to the project. That money is now in danger of drying up. "Gallagher simply put huge amount of work on the project, including building the fence, making tracks, monitoring for pests and fund-raising.

He fears the longer the battle drags on, the bleaker the future looks for Maungatautari. "The volunteers will just disappear into the ether. They don't wish to be involved in politics. They lose enthusiasm for it," he says.

"Gallagher simply put effort and money into something that we believed was a wonderful, iconic treasure for our region. It's become quite tarnished," says Margaret Comer, the group's corporate services executive. "Now that it is becoming a dogfight we're saying we don't want to be involved."

Economist-philanthropist Gareth Morgan has come out against the governance change, and is dangling a $1mdonation for a treetop walkway if it returns to its previous structure. Morgan slams the new structure, and the actions of the Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato that supported it.

He is a big believer in partnerships between conservation and private enterprise. Keep the politicians out of it, he believes.

The project has the potential to work as a commercial enterprise because of its location, Morgan says. It also has the advantage of being driven by the community.

"It hasn't come about as the result of public funds commandeered by some dreamy but temporary local body politician," he says. Zealandia, Morgan warns, should not be the model for Maungatautari's future. "Zealandia is a great template for where Maungatautari would go, with local bodies controlling it. It would simply run out of money as ratepayer fatigue and lack of any commercial nous whatsoever smother it.

"Private sector donors like to do more than simply give money. They like to see what they're funding is on a path to sustainability, to admire the champions of the project and they like the values of whoever they're helping."

The teaming of corporates with conservation efforts is getting results down south.

The Fiordland Conservation Trust is an independent board of community members set up three years ago to run conservation projects with the support of businesses. It has partnered with tourism boat operators to support the Sinbad Sanctuary, south of Mitre Peak, the last-known mainland home of the kakapo, and with Peregrine Wines to sponsor the transfer of saddlebacks to Chalky Island. Peregrine produces a wine called Saddleback.

Trust manager Rachel Cockburn says the projects aren't just about money. "Peregrine Wines gets to take its stakeholders down and do the work. It's not a jaunt. They catch the birds and release them on the island. They love it."

These projects aren't on the same scale as Maungatautari-the Sinbad Sanctuary sponsorship is $35,000 a year and bird transfers cost between $5000 and $12,000 - but it shows how companies can be involved.

Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell says corporates already make money from conservation and should be investing in environmental programmes in return.

Our major industries - tourism, dairy, wine, horticulture, beef and wool-all trade on our clean, green, "100 per cent Pure" image.

He claims the Government backed off its plans to mine schedule-four land last year after worries that it would endanger our image in the global tourism marketplace.

Gerry Eckhoff, a former Act MP, is convinced he has the solution to our conservation concerns: Capitalism.

"If if can't work on a commercial model then conservation has no future in this country," he says.

Eckhoff, a farmer, hit the headlines in 2001 when he was in Parliament, by proposing farming kiwi. He argued then that animals farmed for the dinner table never become extinct; now, he says a similar philosophy is behind the Maungatautari project.

When Wallace set up the fence on his own property to create a pest-free environment, he was able to open a kiwi creche for the national conservation programme.

Over the years, DOC have received 85 chicks from Wallace. Eckhoff likens it to farming crocodile.

"That has enabled more investment into research and breeding programmes and kept the species safe." With big cuts expected in the Budget and the pressure of rebuilding Christchurch on the economy, Eckhoff says Government expenditure on conservation will shrink. His conservation commercial model goes beyond charging at the entry gate to a sanctuary to developing trade in native wildlife.

"A pair of breeding kea are worth $30,000 to a zoo or aviary in Paris. We're talking substantial money," says Eckhoff.

When it comes to conservation, nothing is as simple as a supply-and-demand equation.

As proven by Maungatautari, cultural issues, wildlife wellbeing and stakeholders' interests all influence economic outcomes. The easiest conservation-commercial projects to achieve are those with clear goals, such as the ones Fiordland Conservation Trust tackles.

Maungatautari has the added complication of many landowners, which has magnified the problems.

Disagreements over the legality of the fence, liability issues with public using private land, a lack of access agreements and perceived power imbalances have led to distrust.

"The sad bit is it is dividing the community," says Garland. "This was a neat place to live, but there's a degree of nastiness that's emerged because of the fence."

Just how easy it is to knock relationships off kilter is demonstrated by different reactions to the tagline on the Save Maungatautari website, set up by the landowners and volunteers opposed to the new governance structure - "Without the predator proof fence, Maungatautari is just another hill".

Its value, certainly commercially as well as ecologically, lies in having the fence, but there are other value associated with the mountain. "That really got up our old people's noses," says Tauroa.

"Maungatautari is our home, for all of us," says Garland. "It's a special place."

For now, the mountain remains a haven. Kiwi grow plumper faster at Maungatautari than they do in the Tongariro forest by feeding on the rich insect life that have made their home among the regenerating undergrowth.

Under the arching ferns and towering rata inside the fence, the bickering of local politics is drowned out by birdsong. Outside, locals listen for the bulldozers.