Kayakers pleaded with the Department of Conservation to protect their access to remote whitewater rivers in the Mt Aspiring National Park during the second day of hearings on the park's draft management plan in Dunedin yesterday.
New Zealand Recreational Canoeing Association Otago branch spokesman Craig Adams, of Dunedin, and association patron Hugh Canard, of Christchurch, arrived at the hearing carrying a kayak and equipment weighing up to 40kg.
Mr Adams told the panel the aim was to highlight the difficulty kayakers would have tramping through remote areas for days to reach whitewater rivers in the park if the department restricted their right to use helicopters.
The non-profit voluntary association, formed in 1957, represented clubs and individual kayakers across New Zealand.
Mr Adams argued kayakers' access to the park, by using helicopters to reach the Bonar Flats landing site, before undertaking whitewater trips, particularly in the Waiatoto River, should be protected.
Proposals contained in the draft plan would end the organisation's previously unrestricted access, but there was no evidence whitewater users and other groups - such as trampers, fishermen or hunters - were encountering each other and having "negative experiences", he said.
The helicopter flights themselves - rather than activities once on the river - were the real issue, he believed.
However, a short video presented to yesterday's panel, demonstrating a flight path that stuck largely to river valleys, showed the impact on other user groups within the park was minimal, he believed.
He said the perception those using helicopters to reach parts of the park were "cheating" was erroneous.
"Without the ability to fly in . . . it [kayaking] becomes totally infeasible. Once the access is cut, the activity stops," he said.
The need for three-day weekends for trips into the park meant there was a natural cap on kayaking activity, with only eight suitable public holidays each year for many New Zealand-based kayakers, he said.
Since 2005, about 120 white-water users had used the Bonar Flats landing site to reach the park's rivers, which was a "low . . . but constant" use, he said.
Speaking separately, Mr Canard said the ability to promote the sport - and the park - to the next generation of white-water enthusiasts would end without helicopter access.
He recognised whitewater users had no "moral right" over other users, but believed most would "never know we are there".
He urged Doc staff to "keep an eye" on use in the park, but not restrict access yet.
Yesterday's session was the second day of hearings on the draft plan, which sought to determine how the country's third-largest national park - stretching from Otago to South Westland - would be managed until 2020.
The hearings resume in Queenstown next Monday and continue in Wanaka on Wednesday.
