KEY POINTS:
A new group formed to fight the carve-up and sale of precious South Island high country says New Zealanders are being ripped off and most are unaware because of a "fog of ignorance".
The Stop Tenure Review Group is a small band of concerned citizens, including mountaineer and
conservationist Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, that has created a website on the issue with its own solutions.
But a high-country farmers' group says the website contains factual errors and gives an unbalanced view of the process.
The Stop Tenure Review Group is calling for an immediate end to the process of land tenure review, whereby the Crown buys back farmers' leasehold rights to high-country land for grazing animals. It keeps some land for conservation purposes and returns some to farmers as lucrative freehold land.
"There's a fog of ignorance about the massive carve-up of huge chunks of the high country. The public need access to the other side of the story," said spokesman Ainslie Talbot.
"Particularly in the North Island, there is not a lot of awareness about what is happening."
Critics have questioned the amount paid to farmers for their leasehold rights, saying farmers are getting rich at taxpayers' expense.
"Results to date show when it comes to negotiations with the lessee, the Crown's main driver is to close the deal, at almost any cost to the taxpayer. In short, tenure review is the sale of the century, and the NZ public is the loser."
High Country Accord, a farmers' lobby group, said it believed the tenure review process always had the potential to be a "win-win" for New Zealanders, and still could be if done right.
Co-chairman Ben Todhunter said farmers supported debate about the process, but it had to be based on facts. He had seen the new website and had noticed a "lot of errors of fact".
Although the Crown might be pushing to get deals done with farmers, no one would ever benefit if deals were not closed.
Land Information Minister David Parker said he also welcomed debate about tenure review.
"There have been increasing concerns, and I share them, about how well tenure review is protecting high country landscape values, especially around lakesides, and about the associated issue of the protection of lowland biodiversity," Mr Parker said.
"That's why the Government has been taking a fresh look at these issues."