A land swap to allow the realignment of the road and a new bridge at the Gates of Haast has been approved by the Otago Conservation Board - subject to regular updates on monitoring the work.
The new alignment requires about 1.2ha of land to be excluded from the Mt Aspiring National Park and, in exchange, about half a hectare (0.492ha) of road will be passed on to the Department of Conservation to add to the park.
Board member Jim Williams said at its meeting yesterday at Berwick excessive "zeal" had been shown by roading authorities in the past regarding trees and there was "potential for excessive zeal to boil over on a project of this nature".
It would be important to put in place some sort of monitoring or controls so as to ensure it did not happen in this instance, he said.
"Their interests are not necessarily our interests.
"There needs to be a degree of buy-in to ensure it does not go any further than it has to."
Otago conservator Marian van der Goes said although this was a very expensive project, at $28 million, similar road realignments had been done in other national parks.
Monitoring of the work was a normal part of the process, she said.
The board carried three recommendations approving the land swap and also requested the board be kept informed of monitoring through status reports from the West Coast Conservation Board.
