The High Court has ruled a parcel of reserve land known as Riversdale Flats was correctly removed from Mt White Station’s pastoral lease.
The question now is, will the 1000ha block be added to the nearby Arthur’s Pass National Park, as was the intention in 1901?
In 2018, Czech-born businessman Lukas Travnicek, through his company Southern Ranges Ltd, paid $28 million for Mt White’s lease – a lease that had been held by the Turnbull family for decades and had included the Riversdale Flats.
The curiosity of the Canterbury reserve’s inclusion in the lease wasn’t just because of a 1901 Gazette Notice, in which the Governor permanently reserved the block for the stated purpose of a national park.
(While discussions about creating such a park at the head of the Waimakariri River and the Ōtira Gorge occurred in the House of Representatives in 1899, the Arthur’s Pass National Park wasn’t officially declared until 30 years later.)
Riversdale’s anomaly has been acknowledged by government officials – through what the High Court called “inconsistent analysis and conclusions” – for more than 50 years. Its bizarre “double history” meant the block sat both within a farm lease and was held for reserve.
However, there seemed little appetite to fix it. That is, until the lease was bought by Travnicek, a New Zealand resident.
In 2020, Land Information New Zealand, the Crown’s land manager, rejected a proposal from Southern Ranges to continue leasing the reserve land.
The 33-year lease expired in December 2021.
The previous month, Commissioner of Crown Lands Craig Harris confirmed Riversdale would be excluded from the Mt White lease when it was renewed in January last year.
Riversdale, which lies on the northern bank of the Waimakariri River, had been farmed at Mt White since 1881. Travnicek’s lawyers claimed the 40,000 hectare farm station would be uneconomic without it.
The legal arguments were teased out before High Court Justice Rob Osborne at a hearing in April.
Southern Ranges sued the commissioner – a statutory manager who reports directly to the Minister – for breach of contract, and a judicial review of Riversdale’s exclusion. The company also wanted damages.
In a decision released last week, Osborne rejected its claims and awarded costs to the Crown. Travnicek couldn’t be reached for comment by publication deadline so it’s not known if he intends to appeal.
Osborne was methodical in his dismissal of Southern Ranges’ claims, which reached far back in time.
Riversdale consituted a reserve under the Public Reserves Act 1881, to serve as a park. The Judge said it was irrelevant whether it included or constituted “natural curiosities”.
This disarmed Southern Ranges’ lawyer Stephen Rennie’s submission that Riversdale – formally known as Reserve 3535 – was never a public reserve, that its status was to be considered solely under the Land Act 1892, and, in fact, remained in full ownership and control of the Crown.
Another argument advanced by Travnicek’s company was its 2018 record of title for the lease was “indefeasible” – unable to be defeated – and the reservation was, at that time, extinguished.
While Rennie said the title was guaranteed to be free from all estates and interests, the opposing line, raised by Crown barrister Jeremy Prebble, was that reserve is a “status”, not an estate or interest.
Also, a leasehold is a lesser interest than the underlying Crown ownership.
“Upon a leasing of the land, its reserve status remains unaffected,” Osborne’s decision said.
The primacy of the 1996 Reserves Amendment Act threw up a conundrum about whether reserves needed concessions under the Conservation Act, or, as Rennie suggested, Crown leases had been “carved out”.
Nothing specific suggested such a carve-out, the decision said.
Arguments then turned to whether the Mt White lease, renewed in 1988, was an extension or effectively a new one. Case law established the presumption of the creation of a new lease, Osborne said, and, when it came to Mt White, the parties had “adopted the right of the lessee to a new lease”.
Parliament’s intention with the 1996 reforms was to achieve a uniform regime for different types of conservation land, and for the Department of Conservation (Doc) to take a consistent approach when authorising activities.
Therefore, Osborne found, the Reserves Act overrides the Crown Pastoral Land Act and the Land Act when considering reserves on pastoral leases. It followed, then, that Southern Ranges didn’t have an indefeasible right to renew its whole lease, including Riversdale.
“This decision is a fantastic win for nature and it gives DoC a mandate to take action on including it in the national park.”
Nicky Snoyink, Forest & Bird
Osborne writes in his 58-page decision:
“Since 1996, for any activity to be carried out on a reserve (including Reserve 3535) a concession (not a lease) must be obtained from the commissioner.
“I accept that had a memorandum as to the renewal of the lease been executed by the parties and registered on the title, then Southern Ranges would have an indefeasible title which included Reserve 3535. But that registration has not occurred.”
The Commissioner was correct to remove Riversdale Flats from the lease, Osborne found, as such a lease, to Southern Ranges or anyone else, would have breached the Conservation Act’s concession requirements.
Nicky Snoyink, Canterbury manager of environmental group Forest & Bird, says: “This decision is a fantastic win for nature and it gives DoC a mandate to take action on including it in the national park.”
As noted previously, the 2007 Arthur’s Pass National Park Management Plan and the 2016 Canterbury (Waitaha) Conservation Management Strategy both advocated for Riversdale to be added to the national park.
The strategy said this should be done by 2026. “It gives DoC a couple of years to get on and do it,” Snoyink says.
Professor Ann Brower, an environmental geographer at University of Canterbury, was hoping the High Court decision would more strongly reinforce the Crown’s rights on leasehold land.
“I think it’s fair to say that it is a narrow decision in that it applies to this one very particular situation, but it’s comprehensive in that the judge considered every last question posed by Southern Ranges and comprehensively rubbished them, to my eye.”
Land Information NZ’s head of Crown property Sonya Wikitera says: “The reserve land falls under the separate jurisdiction of the Department of Conservation and not the commissioner.”
Unless the High Court decision is appealed, then, the future of Riversdale, and its future inclusion in the national park, appears to be in the Department of Conservation’s hands.
