The Department of Conservation (Doc) is again being accused of doing secret deals with developers of electricity schemes.
Fish and Game Otago has claimed Doc has agreed not to stop Pioneer Generation in Alexandra from freeholding parts of two Central Otago high country pastoral leases it owns on the Nevis River, where it wants to build a hydro-electric dam.
Pioneer Generation owns Ben Nevis and Craigroy pastoral leases in the Nevis Valley, southwest of Cromwell, where it wants to build a 45MW hydro-electric scheme, a proposal Fish and Game Otago opposes.
It has started the tenure review process with the Government, where land was retired for conservation in return for the ability to freehold land of productive value.
Fish and Game Otago chief executive Niall Watson said by not stopping Pioneer building a hydro dam, Doc was repeating its behaviour with Meridian over the Project Hayes wind farm in Central Otago, where it neither supported nor opposed a wind farm application.
"It's the same sort of thing, a lack of transparency, and in this case it comes at an important point in the public process, before the public submission phase."
Mr Watson said it "distorted" the starting point of the public-submission phase of tenure review.
"Instead of rationally reviewing significant inherent values on the properties leading to Crown reserves where they are important, there is an accommodation of Pioneer's interest in the valley floors in what they describe as a hydro-dam footprint.
"The hydro-dam footprint is entirely the area of the proposed freeholding," he said.
Mr Watson said the Nevis River fishery was recognised as outstanding, and he believed the "significant" landscape, biodiversity and other values meant the properties should be exempt from tenure review as per government policy.
"Ben Nevis and Craigroy fall in to this category, but Land Information New Zealand and Doc have so far ignored that policy requirement," Mr Watson said.
Tenure review had resulted in a disproportionate amount of high-altitude land added to the conservation estate compared with land on valley floors, which reflected Doc's interest in creating high country parks rather than protecting significant inherent values, Mr Watson said.
"In reality, the public interest values on Ben Nevis and Craigroy would be better protected if the Crown withdrew from the two tenure reviews and the two properties [were] left as Crown Pastoral leases," Mr Watson said.
Doc Otago regional conservator Jeff Connell said it was not appropriate to comment on draft-tenure review proposals.
He said Doc would participate in a tribunal hearing in June, called to consider a Fish and Game request to amend the Kawerau Water Conservation Order to remove the provision for hydro schemes on the Nevis River.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment will today release a report on tenure review.
