I spent nine years to 2006 in the Environment Court refusing to sign off on our land at St Bathans in a historic, rural, landscape area as outstanding natural landscape because it plainly was not. It was modified and cultural.
Overlaying these nine were another three, also in the Environment Court, arguing over a Central Otago District Council zoned small-cluster subdivision in the small rural village of St Bathans, also argued by Department of Conservation as significant or outstanding natural landscape.
It is obvious to me from my personal experience dealing with resource consents in outstanding and natural landscapes that these words appear to have no intelligent, legal meaning.
They give no real guidance in planning in landscapes, many of which have been intensively modified by human occupation.
The Historic Places Act, the Resource Management Act, the Conservation Act and the National Parks Act give clear planning definitions and were put in place for this reason.
In the past, planning made clear definitions in zoning.
Now, planning seems to be reduced to vague, abstract and nebulous words.
The Environment Court is no answer as it divides communities because there are no clear and strong rules and no communication between parties (in my case, I did try this), leaving a negative, destructive politicised approach. It is the worst-case scenario.
The result is that it achieves nothing but fractured communities, traumatised into a political landscape rather than a cultural one.
I believe the Central Otago District Council and its planners must change their approach to planning.
It is not the Environment Court's job to make planning decisions, nor is it the role of the myriad consultants and specialists that have grown in this fertile stew of chaotic indecision.
Central Otago district councillors were elected by the people of Central Otago to represent their views in all their multi-facets, not support large powerful government departments, such as the Department of Conservation, state-owned enterprises and multinationals with seemingly bottomless pockets. They are just part of the overview, no matter how powerful they appear to be.
All these organisations have the ability to disenfranchise communities.
I believe it is the district council's purpose to weigh up the entire picture, to give cohesion to planning and to have a complete and inclusive overview of all the factors.
There is a need to look further than our own backyard for new approaches and ideas, and to be proactive in planning.
There is a need to give all parties - whether they are humble home builders, rural dwellers, farmers, manufacturers, horticulturists, developers, power and mining companies or conservationists - a collective vision of what is OK and what is not, plus security of property rights, and a collective vision for the next 100 years, and protections for landscapes the community views as outstanding natural and cultural landscapes by making their conservation protection inviolate.
The battle lines are already being drawn, and it is easy enough to predict that if strong decisions are not made in planning by this council, Central Otago communities will be torn apart by endless Environment Court wrangles.
These will cost the district council and all ratepayers a fortune and, of course, will be a gravy train for all specialists who feed on indecision and lack of planning.
Planning should start with what we need to save from exploitation.
A national park, created through the National Parks Act, connecting the mountain ranges of Otago almost as islands needs to be created on a Unesco World Heritage scale.
The ranges of Central Otago - some containing the remains of Gondwanaland with recently discovered mammal species more than 70 million years old - together with Maori archaeological sites, greenstone trails, and early Pakeha rural land settlement form a chain of mountains and wetlands which should be protected for all New Zealanders.
To qualify, natural areas listed by Unesco are places that display such features as outstanding examples of the major stages of the Earth's evolutionary history, ongoing processes of biological evolution and superlative natural phenomena.
By choosing what is to be protected as a national park as a first priority, other political landscapes, rural landscapes, and future developments will fall into place.
In order to achieve all these aims, conservationists, farming communities and the wider community need to have a collective vision of the future.
The landscape of Otago has absorbed 1000 years or more of human occupation with little sign of their passing.
But in this modern age, we have the ability to alter the landscape irrevocably.
This should be a fair warning to communities and landholders who find themselves zoned in outstanding natural landscapes of what is in store for them. There are no rules, just outstanding natural landscapes.
The cost of developing your land under these conditions is prohibitive.
People's rights are eroded and they are effectively disenfranchised by legalised stealth. There were a massive number of submissions over these concerns at all planning hearings.
Did the district council consider the majority viewpoint? No.
