He was 54-year-old David Michael Jongsma from Hawea Flat.
Dr Jongsma is a local chiropractor and a member of Save Wanaka Lakefront Reserves Trust.
He was involved in the trust's fight against the Wanaka Watersports facility which has been proposed for a popular and undeveloped section of Wanaka lakefront in Roys Bay.
He is also a keen whitewater kayaker.
Emergency services were alerted to the crash, halfway up the north face of the mountain, about 3pm.
A police spokeswoman said the Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter was able to access the crash site about 5pm, where paramedics found the man dead.
A 28-year-old Dunedin woman, who declined to be named, saw the crash from her holiday campsite at the Glendhu Bay Motor Camp.
''There were about five paragliders at the time.
''We watched an orange one. It was probably the furthest one around and he was going around and his parachute started to twist and it got a wee bend in it.
''He went down, he hit the rocks and tumbled and then we saw the parachute go a bit further and then we lost sight of him.
''We drove around the road because another paraglider came around quite fast after him and we watched him land down by the road and we drove around to make sure everything was OK and that they had phoned the ambulance.''
The police spokeswoman said the man's body was later recovered from the mountainside, and police spent much of last night notifying his next of kin.
A Wanaka paragliding representative declined to comment on the crash when contacted by the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
New Zealand Paragliding Open 2018 organiser Mark Hardman also declined to comment.
The national championship is expected to attract more than 100 paragliders to Wanaka between January 28 and February 4.
