Mavora : development of a planning process for reconciliation of interests in wilderness

Abstract

The Mavora Lakes area has been a subject of regional interest and some controversy for a number of years. Geographically, the Mavora is intermediate between an acknowledged zone of preservation and a zone of land development. Historically it represents a zone of interaction between different agency interests, notably those of the New Zealand Forest Service and those of both the nature conservation and pastoral administration and development arms of the Department of Lands and Survey. Extensive pastoralism as private enterprise has yielded ground in the district to pastoral development and farm settlement. The limits to this process have tended to be set by progressive experience on the land available for farm settlement. A working plan had been drafted for the adjacent Snowdon Forest. More active management planning for lands administered separately by these two major central government agencies served to bring into sharper contrast any differences between such development proposals if they remained ineffectively co-ordinated. Meanwhile the long-valued fishery resource of the Mavora Lakes and the Mararoa River has itself commanded greater attention because of increased use by anglers and the improved road access to the area which has itself increased boating and other shoreline recreation. While discharge from the lakes in the Mararoa River is being directed down-stream into Manapouri for power production, some thought has been given to using it in part to augment the summer low flows of the Oreti to Invercargill. Different communities of interest show varying degrees of support and aversion for the different kinds of resource use outlined above. Decisions are needed to determine the optimal use of resources before any further development which may irreversibly change the resources and their character.