Keen sense of conservation

A view towards a protected wetland and the Southern Alps, from a hillside on Balmoral Station....
A view towards a protected wetland and the Southern Alps, from a hillside on Balmoral Station. Photos by Gregor Richardson.
A flowering sprig of patotara at Balmoral.
A flowering sprig of patotara at Balmoral.
A native gentian is surrounded by the invasive weed hieracium.
A native gentian is surrounded by the invasive weed hieracium.
A pile of deer antlers in the Balmoral freezer.
A pile of deer antlers in the Balmoral freezer.
A honey-scented variety of olearia that grows in the grey scrub of the property.
A honey-scented variety of olearia that grows in the grey scrub of the property.
A species of native broom in flower at Balmoral.
A species of native broom in flower at Balmoral.
A merino-grazed tussock field.
A merino-grazed tussock field.

Karen and Andrew Simpson have a leaning tower of yellow ringbinders. It houses all the documentation relating to the science of Balmoral, their high-country station at Tekapo. Anna Chinn explains.

The Simpsons have had assessments done on the soil, rocks, water, and the biodiversity of their 10,000ha back yard, as part of their effort to identify and conserve the things that make it special.

That effort began, initially, out of pragmatism.

The Simpsons had for decades run Balmoral, about half of which was under pastoral lease.

Their homestead, one of the highest in the country, was 900m above sea level.

The farmland was bleak, brown, cold; they had 5500 merino sheep and a smattering of deer.

They were comfortable, though, and the property included priceless views of the Southern Alps and Lake Tekapo.

In 2005, winds of change blew south from Wellington: the government announced it wanted to reclaim 2800ha of the leasehold for the conservation estate.

It sent the Simpsons a precis map of the bit it would have, thanks.

The Simpsons were resistant.

To yield that farmland, they felt, would be to yield the financial viability of the place.

They suspected tenure review was more to do with the scenery; a "land grab" for recreation rather than conservation purposes.

Still, the process caused them to wonder: what on this farm was worth conserving?

And what harm could farming it do?

They engaged some scientists to find out, and the ringbinders started to accumulate.

"We surveyed the whole property to find out exactly what needed to be protected, and what protection mechanisms needed to be placed over those areas to protect whatever was identified.

"The body we used was the QEII [National Trust] so as we could get an outside opinion," Mr Simpson said.

The survey identified about 400ha as having "significant inherent conservation values".

That's the official term for such landscape features as wetland, tussock grassland and grey scrub; features that when magnified reveal native gentian, red tussock, mountain totara, rare native brooms, and other alpine species.

Botanists adore Balmoral.

The QEII survey was the start of a process in which the couple have spent tens of thousands of dollars learning about their patch, so that they could offer an alternative plan to full Crown ownership of that 2800ha.

They don't altogether regret it.

"I've always been passionate about conservation," Mrs Simpson said.

"Andrew's grown into it, probably with my push and shove here and there, but, yeah; I love the little things in the big landscape.

"And even though we farm, those little things have huge value, and the animals coexist with those little things; you know, the moths, the beetles.

"The animals are very much a part of that biodiversity."

Certainly, the sheep don't seem to be ravaging the landscape.

For one thing, you can spend quite some time roving over the station with out seeing another mammal.

"It's extensive farming, not intensive farming," Mr Simpson said.

Furthermore, some signs of merino farming appear as signs of ecological enhancement.

During a drive around the property, the Simpsons pointed out a paddock hirsute with native tussock, which boosts soil moisture and so aids pasture growth.

The paddock had been grazed by the flock. Beyond the fence line was a highway, and between the highway and the paddock was a margin of blonde grasses.

The margin had not been grazed, but no tussock was growing there.

Why not? Mr Simpson's theory was that historically, grazing moa and weka would have scraped around the tussock, assisting its development, and today the sheep performed that function with their nibbling.

"That's not proven; it's just a theory I have."

 

Nonetheless, the tussock field illustrated the need for this environment, already compromised by introduced species and human activity, to be managed.

"It's not a museum piece," Mrs Simpson said.

"It actually needs people; it needs money; it needs community participation to keep it vibrant and alive."

Enter the Balmoral Biodiversity Benchmark Trust, established by the Simpsons after the QEII survey was completed.

The trust board is stocked with scientists, and tasked with managing the conservation values on the property by way of an alternative to Department of Conservation control.

It identified a core conservation area of 180ha, which has now been fenced from all livestock and is being used as a "biodiversity benchmarking" zone.

Divided into about 300 plots within the zone, all plantlife has been assessed and recorded.

The plot locations have been stored in GPS maps and the vegetation thoroughly documented.

More yellow ringbinders.

"We've done vegetation monitoring over the rest of the property, too," Mr Simpson said.

"And we can now go back there and assess changes in a decade's time to see what those changes are.

"And what we hope to do is to be able to monitor from inside the benchmark areas, to our farming practices outside, so as we can actually see if our farming practices are sustainable.

"At the moment, nobody knows."

A request was made to see the contents of the farm freezer, a still life of the high country.

The Simpsons apologised: theirs was low in stock just now.

But it did not disappoint the visitors from the Otago Daily Times.

The Balmoral walk-in held a dozen or so deer antlers clad in costly brown velvet; meat from those less-fortunate rams that were destined to become hunks, not studs; a side or two of wild pork shot in the surroundings; and a species exotic to a rural freezer, a packet of store-bought sausage rolls.

It gave an impression of the sorts of resources available on the station. The couple are savvy about their resources, seeing business opportunities all around them.

Mrs Simpson considers this one of the few survival strategies available to a modern high-country operation.

"Basically, we had three choices: we really had to get bigger, get out or get niche."

They decided to get niche.

Among their income streams are merino wool and ram sales, fawn and velvet sales, property development, and the renting of accommodation in the original 1911 Mt John Homestead, which they have carefully restored.

They are experimenting with alpaca-blend wool, a helipad, and both carbon-sink and production forestry.

But they are perhaps most excited about their latest venture, Mihi Merino.

A joint enterprise with two other high-country farms and an established Nelson clothing company, Mihi Merino takes the Simpsons into the retail side of wool production.

"It means that we can tell the whole story right from the sheep's back, right through to the retail store," Mr Simpson said, proudly looking over the first catalogue full of contemporary, superfine wool garments.

With their partners, they will own not just the clothing label, but also the retail outlets, initially in Nelson, Tekapo and online at mihimerino.co.nz, and later overseas.

They have the United Kingdom and North America in their sights.

Said Mrs Simpson: "This is by far one of the most exciting things we've done, because for years you just produce this wool, it goes out the road on a truck and you never know where it's gone.

"Now, here's our product; how exciting's that? There's the animal; there's the product."

In a way, it's a natural progression for Mrs Simpson, who is a knitter and has always been interested in the end product.

She sees potential wool dyes in the colours of conservation: the smoky blue-grey of a native broom; the soft green of a branch-draping lichen.

Nevertheless, retail is foreign territory.

"It is a big jump outside of our square to leap into this arena, but you cut out a lot more people," she said.

"One farmer said he believed 17 people take a clip of your ticket, you know, when the wool leaves the farm.

"So we were driven to have to do something, because what we were getting paid for our wool didn't meet our costs."

 

A major cost in running Balmoral is weed and pest control, usually between $40,000 and $70,000 a year on the leasehold alone.

The main jobs are keeping rabbit numbers down, and killing wilding pines and hieracium.

The latter is an accidentally introduced weed that smothers the ground, preventing much else from growing.

The Simpsons have had limited success with increasing the nutrients in the soil through fertilisation, to give other plants a fighting chance to establish themselves.

Fertiliser has been more effective in controlling the pines, as it sweetens the taste of the smaller seedlings so the sheep are persuaded to eat them.

The Simpsons reckon that sort of caretaking is best left to them and the Tekapo community, rather than the Crown, and they are hopeful their land-management proposal will soon be approved.

Mr Simpson said: "We've now got an administration that is saying, 'Hey, this is not a bad idea.

"We don't want to own any more land.

"We see that it's going to cost us a huge amount of money to look after it and administer, so let's look at this proposal.'"

If they get a ministerial signature on the QEII covenants they want to place over the property's conservation values, their tenure review will be completed.

The conservation areas will be managed in perpetuity by the Balmoral Biodiversity Benchmark Trust.

Which will leave only the question of recreational access to the land.

The Simpsons are clearly crazy about Lake Tekapo and the Mackenzie Country.

They were movers in a community project to build the Macaulay Hut, and shakers in the publishing of a photography book to promote the district.

Concomitantly, they never refuse a request from anyone wanting to gain an appreciation of the area through the recreational use of Balmoral.

"You can feel the intensity of it being just you and the environment," Mrs Simpson said, gazing out at the kind of open sky that has been obliterated in the cities.

Cavalcades come rolling through, gun-toting rabbit shooters head for the station's hills, botanists merrily go botanising.

Balmoral already includes a 1.5-hour walking track up Mt John that is used by an estimated 15,000 people a year. The view from its height tumbles down suede slopes and into the frigid waters of the lake.

The Simpsons say most high-country farmers have a similarly open policy about access, as long as any limitations associated with farm activities are respected.

However, they concede members of the public may not always know whom to phone when wanting access.

"That's something we could be better at," Mrs Simpson said.

"We need to get together as high-country farmers and make sure people know how to contact us, so everyone can share in this land."

 

 

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