The Government has added a swathe of high-country farmland made famous in the Lord of the Rings films to its network of conservation parks.
Land Information Minister David Parker yesterday said the Crown had paid $4.7 million for almost 21,000ha of the 26,000ha Mesopotamia station.
The station isat the foot of the Southern Alps, near the headwaters of the Rangitata River.
It was founded by author and farmer Samuel Butler, who made its stunning landscape famous in his 1872 novel Erewhon - now the name of an adjoining station.
More recently the station was the location for the Middle-Earth city of Edoras in Peter Jackson's film portrayal of the Lord of the Rings.
Mr Parker said the deal which was done as part of the Government's tenure review process, would protect a beautiful landscape with high conservation values.
The land included alpine screes, tussock grasslands, shrublands and beech forest. Several threatened birds lived in the area.
The purchase also filled an important 25km gap in the Te Araroa walking trail that was being established to run the length of the country.
He said the current leaseholders, the Prouting family, would freehold the most productive 5200ha of the land, most of which was on flat and rolling land next to the Rangitata River.
The Proutings had also been granted a 20-year tourism, filming and photography non-exclusive concession over the new conservation land.
