Land plea to billionaire

By ANNE BESTON

New Zealand conservationists have invited an American billionaire to make a "fine gesture" by gifting back some of his newly acquired $6.75 million high-country station.

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society said Julian Robertson, otherwise known as the "Wizard of Wall Street", had recently bought the 4538ha Brooksdale Station, a strip of which bisects the neighbouring Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park.

The society wants the billionaire to gift some of the station's high-altitude land to the park because it blocks public access, a total area of 2300ha.

The 22,000ha Korowai/Torlesse park was opened late last year by Conservation Minister Sandra Lee. It was created to preserve some of New Zealand's spectacular high country, 220,000ha of which is under foreign ownership.

Brooksdale controls access from the foot of Porters Pass up the Kowai River and Kowai Valley. The station surrounds Lake Lyndon on the Porters Pass side and shares boundaries with Castle Hill and Coleridge stations, and the Porter Heights ski area.

One of its jewels is Lake Rubicon, a prime fly-fishing location in summer and often used for curling during winter. The station comprises 3300ha of pastoral lease and 1210ha of freehold land.

Forest and Bird spokeswoman Eugenie Sage said snow tussock and high-altitude parts of Brooksdale would also be degraded by Mr Robertson's plans for intensive stock production and vegetable seed growing, plans the billionaire had outlined to the Overseas Investment Commission. The commission approved the station's sale to Mr Robertson.

Forest and Bird understood the Crown was in negotiations with the previous owner of the station to buy some of the high-altitude parts of Brooksdale, but the station had since withdrawn from the tenure review process.

Ms Sage said the "obvious solution" was that some of the land be gifted to the park so Mr Robertson could enjoy "community support for his intensive farming and cropping proposals on the lower part of the property".

Trampers, botanists and hunters who wanted access to Porters Pass and the Kowai Valley would also appreciate such a "fine gesture" by the new owner, she said.

Mr Robertson already owns his own golf course and luxury lodge in Northland. His latest purchase is likely to spark new debate over foreign ownership of South Island land.

Several overseas interests now own a string of high-country stations, including the Rausing family, one of Britain's richest, which this year bought the 1330ha Raincliff Station near Geraldine for $9.4 million.

nzherald.co.nz/environment