DOC

The Department of Conservation (Doc) Wakatipu is upgrading the Lake Sylvan campsite and Bobs Cove car park in the third year of its three-year works programme to improve public facilities used by the large number of visitors to Queenstown.

A Department of Conservation (Doc) project to protect a rare ecosystem near Queenstown will receive a helping hand from the Queenstown Climbing Club.

Healthy mohua (yellowhead) numbers and a partial beech tree mast have left the Department of Conservation in a quandary on the need for pest control on its land in the Catlins.

Associate Conservation Minister Peter Dunne does not regard heli-hunting in the conservation estate as a major part of controlling introduced animals.

Time is running out for hunters who want to pursue game animals by helicopter on the South Island's conservation estate. Planned legislation is likely to end the practice known as ''heli-hunting'' by February. Mark Price reports.

Decades of conservation experience and technical knowledge in the Wakatipu could be lost as a result of national restructuring of the Department of Conservation (Doc).

Under the Department of Conservation's new structure, the Otago region disappears and 16 positions will be lost - five fewer than first proposed.

The Department of Conservation has now made a formal complaint to Queenstown Police in relation to tagging along the Routeburn Track.

The net is closing on the person responsible for tagging ''Rowdy'' in felt pen along the Routeburn Track last month, following reports the perpetrator had been leaving their mark all over the South Island.

Department of Conservation Wakatipu area manager Greg Lind is confident the ''idiot'' who tagged various structures the length of the Routeburn Track last month will be apprehended and prosecuted.