No man's land: A third of the conservation estate is in limbo, waiting for its natural values to be rated. A new report says we can't wait any longer for this stewardship land to be reclassified

摘要

History is littered with relatively innocuous bureaucratic oversights and slip-ups that have had disproportionately significant consequences. The dividing up of Africa with arbitrary straight lines and introducing apparently harmless animals into NewZealand to create a fur industry are two.The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE), Dr Jan Wright, has investigated another quirk of fate that has resulted in poor outcomes for conservation and cost Forest & Bird - and others - a lot of money.Unclassified parts of the conservation estate - known as stewardship land - have come under the PCE's scrutiny, and she released a report, "Investigating the future of conservation: The case of stewardship land", in August.Until the 1980s the Forest Service or the Department of Lands and Survey administered most publically owned land that wasn't "productive" (to use a contemporary term). Forest & Bird, the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand and the Native Forests Action Council could see this wasn't working for conservation so began campaigning for a department of conservation to be formed. The campaign was a success and work began in 1985 to form what would become the Department of Conservation.