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Auckland Zoo says conservation land is for conservation
20 May 2010
Auckland Zoo says lifting protection on conservation land would threaten our wildlife and wild places - home to invaluable ecosystems and some of the most endangered and unique animals in the world, including the critically endangered Archey's frog.
The zoo is responding to proposals that some conservation sites, designated Schedule 4 conservation land, be mined. It does not support the removal of any land from Schedule 4. The listed sites were protected in this way because of their significant conservation value, and this conservation value has not changed.
In addition, mining this conservation land would tarnish New Zealand's 'clean, green' image, and put at risk this country's hard-earned international conservation credentials.
The zoo says the government did a great thing in 1997 by affirming New Zealand's commitment to preserving our natural heritage.
"The conservation value of all Schedule 4 areas, including Auckland region's Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel, and Paparoa National Park, have not changed, and so must remain protected. As the zoo sees it, these ecosystems are our gold, and if we honour the 1997 commitment made to protect and conserve them, they offer this country a renewable resource that can benefit New Zealand and New Zealanders in perpetuity," says Auckland Zoo Board chair, Cr Graeme Mulholland.
The proposed areas for reclassification in the Coromandel are home to important indigenous forest, waterways identified as nationally important for biodiversity, wildlife including brown teal, kaka, kiwi (species the zoo breeds for release to the wild) and Hochstetter's frog. It is also the stronghold area for the planet's most critically endangered and evolutionary distinct amphibian - Archey's frog.
"For the past six years Auckland Zoo has been part of a husbandry, breeding and research programme for Archey's frog - an ancient species that scientists and conservationists still understand very little about. Like all other institutions that hold this frog, we have not yet been able to successfully breed it. If this species disappears in the wild, New Zealand has no back-up populations," says Auckland Zoo conservation officer, Peter Fraser.
International frog expert, Dr Phil Bishop of Otago University - winner of Auckland Zoo's 2008 Conservationist of the Year award for his efforts for New Zealand's four endemic frogs, says "the suggested area under consideration in the Coromandel includes several long-term frog monitoring sites that represent the best data on frog populations anywhere in the world".
"This proposed mining activity, which ironically comes during the Year of International Biodiversity, could cause the extinction of Archey's frog, and a severe decline in the Hochstetter's frog population - a devastating blow to global amphibian conservation. Archey's frog is listed by the Zoological Society of London as the world's most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered amphibian out of 6000 species. New Zealand has an obligation to do everything it can to ensure the survival of these incredible amphibians, not their extinction," says Dr Bishop.
Auckland Zoo says other habitats and wildlife under threat should mining proceed, would include native forest on Great Barrier Island, home to both Chevron skink and our endangered brown teal - both of which the zoo is involved in conserving. Under threat if Paparoa National Park were to be mined, would be forest habitat and species such as the great spotted kiwi, kaka, and kereru.
"New Zealand has a proud history of making hard long-term decisions to help protect our environment, such as our 1987 decision to stand up to the world and become nuclear free, and the forward-thinking 1997 decision to place conservation land under Schedule 4 protection, in spite of its mineral value. In Auckland Zoo's view, to renege on such a commitment to our wildlife and wild places is unthinkable and totally counter-productive to New Zealand's long-term prosperity," says Mr Fraser. "The zoo urges all New Zealanders who care about our unique natural heritage to make a submission asking Government to retain all Schedule 4 protections."
Join us in making a submission
Submissions close at 5pm on Wednesday 26 May.
Making a submission is easy
Go to www.med.govt.nz/Schedule4 to answer questions online.
Alternatively, you can download the questions and emai your Word document to: schedule4@med.govt.nz or mail your response to:
Schedule 4 stock-take
Ministry of Economic Development
PO Box 1473
WELLINGTON 6140
Reference material
Crown Minerals Act 1991 - http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0070/latest/whole.html#DLM242543
Schedule 4 - http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0070/latest/DLM247378.html