New Zealand’s thriving cycle tourism operators in limbo over legality of DOC cycle trails

Hundreds of kilometres of Great Ride cycle trails don’t comply with the law while new trail proposals have been on hold for years. Now pressure is growing on the Department of Conservation (DOC) to sort it out. DEBBIE JAMIESON reports.

About three years ago Vaughn Filmer​ was excitedly working on a new mountain bike trail to be built in Fiordland’s remote Snowdon Forest.

Starting at Lake Te Anau, it would take cyclists through open beech forest, alongside towering tōtara and with glimpses through the canopy of Fiordland National Park, while providing the steady uphill climb and thrill of the downhill rush.

As president of Te Anau Cycling Inc, Filmer had already signed a management agreement with DOC approving the development of the trails, completed environmental reports, and employed a specialist trail builder to do a feasibility study.

The group had about $70,000 of funding and had already spent about $25,000 when they went back to DOC to see if a resource consent was required.

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“Their planners came back and said, actually the [conservation management strategy] doesn’t allow for trail development in that area.”

The project was stopped in its tracks. Two-and-a-half years later it remains on hold.

What changed and why? At some point, about 2018, DOC staff started approaching applications for cycle trails on department land differently.

DOC says it is due to increased interest in biking around the country, while cycle trail managers and administrators say there appears to have been a complete reinterpretation of the 2005 legislation that overlaid the conservation management strategies.

The strategies were required to identify the locations and use of vehicles and other forms of transport on land owned or administered by the department.

Bicycles are considered vehicles under the Conservation Act 1987, but the locations of thousands of kilometres of cycle trails being created all over the country were generally not listed in the documents.

Worse, DOC now wanted the locations of proposed cycle trails to be listed on the strategies before an application could be made to build them.

The only way they could be included was through a review of each region’s strategy, something that is supposed to happen every 10 years. In reality, seven of the 16 relevant strategies are current, two are under review, one is under development and six are overdue for review. Some are more than 20 years old.

Not only has the new interpretation of the policy put a complete halt on new cycle trails on conservation land, it also means hundreds if not thousands of kilometres of DOC-funded trails potentially don’t comply with the department’s own rules.

It is understood that about half of the Great Rides have sections that don’t comply. DOC declined to share the information as it has not yet verified the details, it says.

The department’s proposed solution is a nationwide partial review of 16 conservation management strategies but trail developers, communities, administrators and cyclists are stuck in limbo as the process drags out.

Gavin Walker​, interim chairperson of New Zealand Cycle Trails, the organisation that looks after the department’s 23 Great Rides, says many people are confused about the problem.

“All the tracks that cross public conservation land were built with DOC as part of the planning team and a key partner.

“Now it turns out that we have this strange planning situation where some of the trails we thought were legally authorised under DOC, are not.”

It made it difficult to get funding for trail maintenance, incomplete trails were stalled, and there was a “whole lot of uncertainty for community groups who have spent blood, sweat and tears, and money, to get these trails built”.

“At the strategic level, everything lines up perfectly but the mechanisms to make it happen are a bit of a shambles,” Walker says.

Even more infuriating is the lack of action in the three years since the problem was identified.

Pete Masters​ is also on the NZ Cycle Trails board and is part of the group working with DOC to resolve the issue. He hasn’t heard from it in eight months.

“On a local level we have fantastic relationships [with DOC]. We work together really well.

“Nationally it’s a mess and it doesn’t need to be. You could say it’s ideology gone mad.”

What makes it really frustrating is the undisputed benefits of cycle trails, he says.

An evaluation of the 22 Great Rides in the year to June 2021 estimated health benefits of $11 million from trail use for cycling and that cycle trail users contributed more than $950m to the regions they visited.

The Lake Dunstan cycle trail was added to the list this year, and users are believed to have brought between $10m and $12m into the local economy already.

Other regions would like a part of that action, such as the “economically challenged” community of Tuatapere, in Southland.

The mass closure of sawmills in the 1980s devastated the town’s economy but tourism and the development of the Hump Ridge track brought new hope.

Western Southland Trails Trust executive member Paul Marshall​ says an idea was conceived to link the Great Walks in Fiordland with a stunning 100km cycle trail along the Waiau River from Manapouri to Te Waewae Bay.

Two years ago the group had secured consent from all but one of 38 private landowners for the estimated $7m project, but needed access to parts of the conservation estate to bring it together.

It hit the conservation management strategy road-block and the trustees could do nothing further.

In the Tongariro/Taupō area there are 16 tracks that don’t comply with the legislation, and masses of projects on hold, including a 11km link between the Great Lakes Trail and the Timber Trail.

Bike Taupō’s Rowan Sapsford​ has also been on the working party to resolve the issue and says they are running out of ideas.

“We don’t want to get into an adversarial situation, but we’re losing patience.

“We could put in a walking track with the same effects and impact on the environment and that would be fine but because we want to put bikes on we can’t even ask the questions.”

Things are different in Otago where the department – under pressure to consider many new cycle trails, including the Kawarau Gorge link between Queenstown and Cromwell funded by the Government as part of a grand cycleway from Central Otago to Dunedin – was forced to take action.

DOC launched a partial review of the 2016 Otago conservation management strategy. The review does not include national parks.

It attracted almost 1750 public submissions in 2019, and a decision listing 112 possible cycle trail sites was issued this month.

The proposals still need to go through an assessment process, including engagement with Ngāi Tahu and consultation with the Otago Conservation Board, but organisations everywhere are relieved to be able to continue their work.

However, there are still uncertainties.

Upper Clutha Trails Trust chairperson Dave Howard​ estimates his team has spent 6000 volunteer hours covering every piece of land where they might want to develop a biking track.

“[We’ve spent] all this time and effort and energy on making stuff up that might never eventuate,” he says.

As project manager for the 50km Wānaka to Cromwell link along the Clutha River, Howard is also able to proceed with detailed design work, having already secured access to all the necessary private land.

However, he’s not sure how long any of these will proposals will take to be accepted under this new DOC process.

“It could potentially be onerous. We hope it won’t be. The way it’s written in the [strategy] they could ask the world and the whole thing could grind to a halt.”

Central Otago Queenstown Trail Network Trust chairperson Stephen Jeffery​ is also concerned.

He has had responsibility for overseeing the 500km network of trails linking Queenstown, Wānaka and Central Otago to Dunedin since before then-Prime Minister John Key announced a Government funding contribution in 2016.

The three-year delay has been expensive as construction costs keep rising, and legislative requirements become more complex, he says.

Jeffery is also nervous about the new processing environment where there are no set standards for assessments such as cumulative effects of the work to create the trail.

“I’m not sure how they make an assessment. Does this mean they become God in this system?”

And there is still no provision for new cycle tracks on land not listed in the strategy.

DOC says the Otago work will provide a template for the nationwide partial-review.

Its website says the approach will be discussed with various parties, including tangata whenua, the New Zealand Conservation Authority, regional boards and other stakeholders before full public consultation begins in 2022.

No date has been confirmed.

DOC planning, permissions and land director Natasha Ryburn says the review is a complex process and is being done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“We are being innovative in our thinking, and as we have never attempted this before we need to ensure we get it right.”

The work has been prioritised as it has become a significant issue across the country, she says.

“We want to provide more agility in conservation management strategies to be able to address the high number of requests for new biking opportunities on public conservation land.”

She says DOC was aware of areas where biking is occurring that is not consistent with conservation management strategies, “but our priority focus at this time is working on a nationwide solution”.

Questions sent to Conservation Minister Poto Williams and Tourism Minister Stuart Nash have not been answered. Williams referred her questions to tDOC.

In Te Anau, the mountain biking club that once had 50 to 60 members has almost completely disintegrated, Filmer says.

“Almost all our energy went into the Snowdon Forest proposal. We haven’t been able to run any events because of Covid or develop any trails – the two main things we do as a club.”

In Tuatapere, the trust has not met for eight months now, several people have defected and there are no signs of any assistance from DOC, Marshall says.

“Why the hell should a community have to be put on hold for that long? We’re desperate to get economic initiatives under way.’

And in Taupō, Sapsford says those in the cycle community who have been advocating for DOC to overhaul the process are losing patience.

“There are some significant opportunities lost.”