Department of Conservation (DOC) Canterbury’s enthusiasm to provide vehicle access around the southern shores of Lake Heron is threatening lakeshore wetlands, tussock grasslands, and walkers’ peaceful enjoyment.
Lake Heron is the largest of the Hakatere/Ashburton Lakes. The lands around it are central to Forest & Bird and Federated Mountain Club’s proposed Upper Rangitata/Arrowsmith Range/Lake Heron conservation park, one of the “Six Pack of Parks”.
DOC has recently carved a wide gravel road along 1.5 kms of lakeshore. The road was against the advice of the Canterbury Aoraki Conservation Board and Forest & Bird and other submissions.
Pressure from anglers means DOC now appears likely to consider extending the road several kilometres further along the lakeshore to Harrison’s Bight.
View over Lake Heron to the Cameron Valley - L.Shand
Vehicle tracks through wetland boardering Lake Heron - L.Sharnd
LakeHeron’s values
Lake Heron is a nature reserve and wildlife refuge with “outstanding habitat value for waterbirds especially as a key breeding and feeding area for the endangered Australasian crested grebe” (according to the Canterbury Conservation Management Strategy). The lake also has high numbers of New Zealand scaup .Motorboats are prohibited to protect and prevent disturbance of wildlife.
The red tussock communities around Lake Heron are some of the best remaining in Canterbury and are vulnerable to vehicle damage.
Key points
The lake’s southern shores need protection. DOC should not extend the new road to Harrison’s Bight for the following reasons :
Many people come to the high country to escape the noise, bustle and overbearing presence of vehicles and human structures found in urban areas. Harrison’s Bight is an easy 1½ walk over gentle terrain from the new road end. The area is very accessible on foot or mountain bike to a wide range of people of different ages and abilities. There is no need for vehicle access.
Lake Heron’s southern shores are one of the few places in the Hakatere/ Ashburton lakes where walkers can easily enjoy a natural lakeside with dramatic mountain views on public conservation land without vehicle noise or pollution. Allowing vehicle access would diminish walkers’ sense of achievement.
Walking around Lake Clearwater requires permission from the lessee. At Lake Emily, walking access is compromised by vehicles and their tracks. At Lake Camp there is motorboat noise and vehicles on the nearby road, and conifer spread has also compromised the lakeshore environment. The small size of Lake Roundabout means it is less suitable for day walks.
Past vehicle use at Lake Heron has scarred the landscape, damaged glacial moraines and red tussock wetlands and turned the Swin riverbed into a gravel road. More roading would damage a significant wetland at the lake outlet, and landscape values. It would risk off-road vehicle use damaging significant red tussock wetlands.
Vehicle users wanting lakeside access are already very well catered for. The Hakatere -Heron Road hugs the south-western shore of Lake Heron. Lakeside road access is available at Lakes Emily, Camp and Clearwater and very close to Lake Roundabout. Vehicles also have easy access to Lakes Coleridge, Lyndon, Georgina and Selfe in Canterbury.
No substantive case has been made to extend the road. It would be convenient for a small number of fishers at the expense of conservation values and those wanting to enjoy the area more on nature’s terms.
DOC’s gravelling and upgrading of the access track to Lakes Emily and Roundabout has encouraged both 4WD and two-wheel drive use. Significant rutting, scarring of the landscape and vegetation damage is obvious. Instead of a backcountry experience beside a natural lake, users have the sense of being on a farm track in a highly modified landscape.
DOC has not done any recent integrated conservation and recreation management plan for the Ashburton/Hakatere lakes area to establish how the expanding conservation lands in the area should be managed, including lands gained through tenure review. Such planning should be done before new recreational facilities are considered or provided.
There are more urgent needs for conservation funding in the area than building roads. These include more predator and weed control in the South Branch of the Ashburton from Buicks Bridge to Blowing Point to improve breeding success for wrybill, banded dotterel and other species, extending the predator trapping programme initiated by Lake Clearwater hut holders, willow control on the Cameron Fan and elsewhere, and other weed and wilding control.
Forest & Bird would like to see the following
No more new roading at Lake Heron.
Lake Heron and the nearby Maori Lakes should stay as nature reserves. DOC is proposing to uplift this status.
DOC should develop an integrated recreation management strategy for the Hakatere/Ashburton Lakes (including additions from tenure review) to protect conservation values and minimise visitor impacts.
