KEY POINTS:
The Department of Conservation is undertaking a "brand refreshment project" to help people better understand what it does. And not before time given the results of the Auckland Regional Council's latest environmental awareness survey.
Asked who they would go to for information on protection, restoration and conservation, just
7 per cent of Aucklanders nominated DoC.
Twice as popular, on 15 per cent, was the ARC, then came local council on 19 per cent, library, 23 per cent and internet the rest.
Even if you presume that some of those heading for the internet will eventually end up on DoC's website, it hardly shows much brand recognition for a mega-ministry responsible for spending more than $400 million of tax monies in the coming year.
The survey suggests that in Auckland at least, what is needed is not "brand refreshment", but brand creation. For an organisation dependent on Auckland taxpayers for around a third of it's income, such a response is lamentable.
Particularly when 87 per cent of Aucklanders share DoC's concerns about pollution of our waterways, 77 per cent worry about loss of native plants and animals, 72 per cent decry the destruction of important historical heritage sites and 56 per cent are concerned about the modification of volcanic cones and landscapes.
In other words, we Aucklanders are on DoC's side too, even if there seems, at times, not much by way of reciprocation.
In the past I've argued it's past time the department put a bit more back into the region that funds it so generously. What a great branding project it would be, for example, if more effort was pumped into the national park around which most Aucklanders lived - the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.
Yet eight years after then Conservation Minister Sandra Lee steered through legislation declaring our first "national park of the sea", it still hasn't been formally opened. What an opportunity missed, a showcase reserve in it's funding heartland.
Sure, DoC's bailiwick is huge, but at the risk of being disloyal, not everyone wants to roam the remote southern high country. In its enthusiasm for both saving and killing critters, DoC HQ seems to have a blind spot for the plight of Auckland heritage and landscapes sites that are every bit as endangered as the kakapo or obscure Westland snails.
In isthmus Auckland, it's been the lonely volunteers of the volcanic cones society who have saved our "kakapo" cones from the road builders and developers, not DoC.
A month ago, the Environment Court upheld the cone society's objections to housing being built on the undeveloped northern face of Mt Wellington. It ruled that the 2.4ha sliver of mountain slope separating the 108ha Stonefields housing from the adjacent park reserve could not be built on.
But it was at best a temporary reprieve, leaving the land open to future deal making between developers and bureaucrats. I wrote to Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick, asking if DoC had given thought to protecting this little piece of land - which at the moment seems to be more trouble than it's worth to the developer - by buying it and incorporating it into the adjacent Crown-owned reserve.
In reply she said the Government had "competing priorities" and limited resources. "The highest priorities centre on the preservation of our unique and precious biodiversity, and it is only in extraordinary circumstances that significant expenditure would be directed to other purposes." She said that the Mt Wellington matter, "has, to date, been addressed through Resource Management Act processes." No thanks, might I add, to DoC.
Regardless of the minister's implication, protecting biodiversity is only one of DoC's responsibilities. As director-general, Al Morrison, says in Statement of Intent 2008-2011: "Conservation ... is an investment in the state of our natural places and species."
Notice he even puts the stewardship of "places" before species, which in the case of isthmus Auckland, is appropriate. Kiwi and tuatara are long gone from Mt Eden and Mt Albert. But our natural places are still intact - just.
If DoC's "brand refreshment process" were to recognise this, and treat Auckland as rather more than just the cash cow, perhaps in return, more than 7 per cent of us would think of them when the pollsters rang.
