Source: Radio New Zealand
Vaughn Filmer, president of Teanau Cycling Incorporated, PE teacher at Fiordland College. Supplied
Bike trail builders in central Otago are talking about an end to the “dark days” when they ran into a mess of conservation rules, stopping many tracks being built for years.
But just south of them, it’s a different story, and a club there that raised $80,000 for a trail has had to give half of it back.
Vaughn Filmer of Te Anau is sounding down about it.
“We had a management agreement with DOC (Department of Conservation) and they pulled the pin and said, ‘no, you can’t build those’,” said Filmer, recounting their bid around 2019 to start on tracks in Snowdon Forest Park.
Te Anau Cycling Incorporated where he is president had spent $10,000-15,000, but gave $40,000 back to a major donor.
“I mean, they sort of said to us, ‘when things change and you’re able to go, come back to us’, but nothing’s changed.
“So we haven’t gone back to them.
“It just knocked the window out of our sails. We basically, as a club, we haven’t done anything since then.”
Te Anau Cycling gave $40,000 back to a major donor. Supplied
‘We appreciate this is frustrating’
Cycle trail builders in Southland and Fiordland are champing under inflexible rules that are tougher than in other places.
All 16 conservation management regions were gummed up for several years, but since a rethink last year 11 have been getting more flexible, albeit slowly, case-by-case.
Five, though, remain inflexible, said the Department of Conservation.
“We appreciate this is frustrating,” said DOC, but it had to stick by the rules. “It underpins the importance of progressing, modernising and updating the legislation.”
“It feels like we are excluded,” said Filmer. “We have to basically drive two hours to Queenstown or two and a half hours to Bluff to mountain bike.”
In the five inflexible regions, and all national parks which had their own specific requirements, unless a location was already listed in the conservation management strategy to allow for new bike trails, then the hurdles were high.
To make matters worse, each region’s CMS is different and many are years out of date. The one covering the Timber Trail near Taumarunui bans e-bikes though that is ignored and most riders now use electrics or “eebs” as some call them, as RNZ reported on Monday.
Next year would be different under government reform of the Conservation Act, promised DOC.
Dave Boniface at Fiordland Trails Trust hoped so, since he faced not just the public conservation land regime but the national park one as well.
His trust took a year to get a consent to extend one trail, the Lake2Lake south of Te Anau, and months to amend a wildlife permit on another trail north to Te Anau Downs. Even then, that second trail would hit the national park boundary in another 11km and there stall, short of more legislative change and short by 16km of its destination.
“We’re probably 18 months behind where we should have been,” Boniface said.
And at least $600,000 short of fundraising, and probably a lot more.
“We’re constrained by consenting and money,” he laughed. “In some areas we see constraint after constraint after constraint.”
An area in Snowdon Forest where Te Anau Cycling hoped to build a trail. Supplied
‘We put a plan to them seven years ago’
Gore cycle shop owner Richard Pasco could relate to that.
“Yeah, the poor Te Anau guys, they broke their tails off for quite a few years and now hit a brick wall I think for a few years now, haven’t they,” Pasco said.
He had a different problem trying to add to the several small downhill tracks put in since 2002 by Hokonui Trails Trust.
“I mean, we’ve been proposing new trails since 2018, so that’s seven years ago.
“We put a plan to them [DOC] seven years ago … the plan’s still on the table, but it went back to them again last year.”
Pasco had high hopes. “About a month ago we thought we were going to get close to putting more trails in.”
However, the proposal went back to someone different in the local office due to DOC staff churn.
“There’s a new person taking over and they’ve got to figure out where everything is again.
“It is definitely slow, slow going from our end.”
Fast track, or slow
And time is money: The longer any permissions take to get, the more inflation – and red tape – take a bite out of fundraising.
“We’ve probably doubled the cost of kilometres-per-trail for the processing,” said Boniface.
Pasco argued their volunteers could “turn any dollar into $10” because they had to – they did not get the big bucks from government, unlike the 23 Great Rides.
“If I was going to gripe about something, it would be we don’t get a lot of funding for small areas.
“I think it needs to come from government level, isn’t it, that we want to be nation of bike riding through bush as well as just central Otago.”
The length of the wait and height of the hurdles depends a lot on the type of the land. At nearby Waikaia, the trails trust was quick off the mark with its first mountain-bike tracks this year because they were in a Southland District Council forest.
“However, establishing new bike tracks on public conservation land has not been straightforward,” said DOC.
Pace fosters enthusiasm; but the reverse is also true.
Filmer knows all about that. “You know, we had, in a tiny town, we had over 50 members at one stage, and now we don’t really even bother collecting memberships.”
Pasco: “Dead right, the challenge for people like us is your motivation.
“Because you’re full of, ‘let’s have a go, let’s try’ and, y’know, then you get no communication for four months, five months or a year.”
The cost of building cycle trails is increasing with the time taken to get any permissions. RNZ / Chris Bramwell
‘We’re keen to be part of it’
There are signs that is changing: DOC staff came to a trail builders’ forum a few weeks ago with an encouraging message and they appeared much more open to trails, several track builders told RNZ.
“At the end of the day you work really hard to have a good relationship with the local DOC but they are fairly constrained too,” said Boniface.
The department said mountain biking was a valued activity and would be streamlined on conservation land “where effects to conservation values can be properly managed”.
Pasco appreciated the change, but he believed DOC was just not resourced to cope – and this was at a time when more trails business was coming its way.
Some of that would come from the far south, where the fledgling Aparima Riverton Trails Trust had a new long-term plan though no consents yet for its first 5km round-town trail.
“It is hard,” said trust chair Roger Baillie.
“I had always thought that getting landowners’ OK and community buy-in would be very easy. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have said we should have a trail up and going by now.
“But it’s much more time consuming than I’d ever thought.”
Roger Baillie, chair of the Aparima Riverton Trails Trust. Supplied
They imagined a coastal trail to Taramea Bay, and wetlands and flaxmill tracks, and, ultimately, a trail network linking Bluff to Tūātapere and on to Te Anau, and intersecting with the Te Araroa Trail for walkers.
“Others have done it in other parts of the country, although some have had some very difficult problems and it’s been very expensive to negotiate some of the blocks,” said Baillie.
“But we see trails as being hugely beneficial and popular and we’re keen to be part of it.”
‘That would be ultimate’
Dave Boniface has been giving the Aparima Riverton trust advice – “be bloody patient and determined,” he said.
Like them, Fiordland trust was pushing on.
Filmer was more cautious – once bitten and all that. If the conservation management strategies were dumped next year, as looked likely, would conservation values remain to the fore, he wondered.
He was also not on board with some locals’ enthusiasm to ride on the Kepler Track which was reserved for trampers. “I don’t know if that’s the right fit.”
Snowdon Forest was always a stopgap project on land without huge conservation value and he was not sure he had the energy to have another go, even if flexibility arrived.
“It was kind of a bit of a stepping stone,” said Filmer. “It’s like, well, do we want to waste our time on what could potentially be a gap filler?
“Or do we just want to keep driving to Queenstown where the trails are world class?”
On the other hand, the Fiordland College PE teacher hoped to see the cycling club become re-energised, and to see the college’s girls’ downhill champion, Libby Excell, get to ride much closer to home.
“You could have beautiful hand-built trails in the conservation land between here and Queenstown, and people have pitched this idea … that would be ultimate.”
It would take money and certainty. Did they have either? “Neither at the moment, nah.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand