Somewhere deep in the psyche of almost all New Zealanders there is a bush glade shaded deep green. When asked to think about what makes us who we are, so often the answers speak of our relationship to the land in which we live: the mountains, the lakes, the rivers and beaches; the forests, the plains and the oceans and the wildlife it harbours.
Geography and topography are engraved on the New Zealand soul. They feature in New Zealand literature, poetry, art, and commerce: tourists in their hundreds of thousands are enticed here at the boast of this country's beauty. We design entire marketing concepts - 100% pure New Zealand - around it.
Even before the zeitgeist decreed "we are all conservationists now" - so much more aware of the natural treasures New Zealand contains, and how much the country has to lose - a Department of Conservation (Doc) was created. Under the Conservation Act 1987, it arose out of an amalgamation of the Department of Lands and Survey, the Forest Service and the Wildlife Service.
Its role is to oversee the conservation of the country's natural and historic heritage, with the Act setting out its responsibilities. Much of the rest of the world has now caught up but back then even the name echoed with a reverberative environmental intent.
The department administers most of the Crown land in the country, including national forests, maritime parks, marine reserves, nearly 4000 reserves, river margins, some coastline, several hundred wetlands, and many offshore islands.
The majority of the land under its control is protected for either scenic, scientific, historic or cultural reasons, and for many New Zealanders who regard such areas as their own backyard, the thought of any diminishing state protection for such areas, and for the wildlife they contain, is unwelcome.
This much was clear from the ferocity of the response in mid-2010 to the National-led government's intention to revisit the prohibition on the mining of schedule four land, including in various national parks. On that occasion the government, evidently sensing a battle with environmentalists from across the political spectrum, backed down.
The most recent challenge to Doc's mandate comes - in line with the cuts across the state sector which are an integral part of the National Government's approach to debt reduction - with the restructuring of the organisation. Up to 96 jobs across the department are to go.
While the Government signalled the losses would primarily be "back-office" positions, with front-line activities barely affected, opponents argue this will not be the case.
The latest salvo in this particular skirmish came in a letter signed last week by more than 100 scientists from across the country. Addressed to Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson and Director-general of Conservation Al Morrison, it registers "collective dismay" at the restructuring and notes particular concern "with respect to science and technical support staff".
The signatories argue the latest staff reductions are part of a pattern of underfunding for New Zealand conservation. It issues a reminder of the country's position at the forefront of international conservation and biodiversity management, and requests assurance this be "properly acknowledged as a strategic asset for the wealth of all New Zealanders".
Such a display of unanimity from a wide range of leading scientists should not go unheeded. While it remains the case that all government departments are having to cut their costs, and their cloth, according to the straitened circumstances in which the country finds itself, protecting the environment is important.
Lessening the department's ability effectively to carry out its role in protecting and preserving New Zealand's natural heritage should be avoided: at least part of the solution to this may be found in a "working smarter" approach within the department and this may indeed be part of the thrust of the restructuring.
But if it is not - if in fact the initiative is simply a slash and burn exercise aimed at maximising saving without a thorough scoping of likely future impacts - then environmentalists may indeed have cause for the alarm sounded by the nation's scientists. As the latter point out in their missive: "Recessions come and go: extinction is forever."
