Please make a submission on the Regional Parks Management Plan, open for consultation until midnight on Friday 4 March 2022.

The draft plan threatens to downgrade the classification of large parts of the region's most important conservation parks in order to enable greater development and commercialisation for visitors.

The regional parks were bought and are meant to have their special values protected in perpetuity for the benefit of all Aucklanders. These changes threaten the long term integrity of these precious places and will damage irreparably their wilderness and conservation values for us and for future generations.

Here are some suggested points that you might like to include in your submission:

• Manage the entire Waitākere Ranges and Hunua Ranges Regional Parks as Class 1 parks (as they are now) recognising their wilderness, heritage, natural and recreational values.
• Reject the introduction of a new Class 1b for any Regional Parks as this will result in over-development of these areas and the loss of wilderness values.
• Support the retention and use of the existing Special Management Zones which can control the management of high use areas, or areas that need special care, and protect the park values from the impacts of increased visitors, including the reinstatement of caps on specific activities, as in the 2010 RPMP.
• Recognise the national significance of the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act and the legal requirement to protect and enhance its heritage features.
• Support and resource the co-governance and co-management proposals for mana whenua to work with council in better management of our regional parks, including the honouring and implementation of rāhui and memoranda of understanding where they exist.
• Clearly identify the resourcing requirements over the next 10 years for implementation of this plan. Regional Parks need to be resourced in full by Auckland Council, not relying on unspecified co-funding arrangements with commercial entities who will have different priorities than the protection and enhancement of these parks for the benefit of all Aucklanders. Our parks are not places for commercial exploitation.
• Support the retention and expansion of the Ranger Service as effective managers of our regional parks, not just as "hosts" for visitors.
• Require all heritage sites and notable trees within regional parks to be listed in the written part of the plan and included on the maps.

In additional to the generic management proposals in Part 1 of the draft RPMP there are specific proposals for each of the 27 regional parks in Part 2.
The Appendices contain a huge amount of very important detail on how the parks will be managed, including on track development and kauri dieback.

You can read the draft RPMP here.
For reference you may like to compare it with the 2010 RPMP here.

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