Talk:Kahurangi National Park

How and why it became a national park?

As a reader of this page I was hoping to find some information on the history of the park. ie. How and why it became a national park. Does anyone know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.104.67.121 (talk) 01:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

This thesis does an excellent job of summarizing the history of the creation of the park. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q112806329 Stitchbird2 (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Geography section added

@Schwede66@Turnagra @Uninspired Username I have just added a new section on Geography, but found this quite hard going. The area covered by the Kahurangi National Park is highly diverse, and this makes it difficult to know what to cover. So far, I have not found any source that provides in-depth coverage of the geography, so I have had to piece something together myself, based on my perception of notable areas. At present, the material I have prepared doesn't cover the Cobb Valley, or the Mount Owen area, and it also doesn't cover the remarkable Kahurangi coastline. Shall I carry on with the present model and write brief sections about those (providing I can find sources ?). I intend to carry on, and produce a separate section about Geology but this will also be a challenge - partly because the sources use technical terms that I sometimes struggle with. Any and all feedback about the article is welcome. Marshelec (talk) 08:11, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Marshelec. I looked it over and it reads well - if there are particular sources you want included feel free to tag me and I can try to help. Added a photo. Cheers Uninspired Username (talk) 05:21, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree that it's off to a great start - sorry for being a bit inactive after having set this up! I'll try and make some time later this week or the weekend to give it a proper read over and add some content. Turnagra (talk) 09:21, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

by total coincidence i was there just two weeks ago. There's a great geology 'map' at the new entrance to the road to Gates of Moria, that's carved out of the literal stones that it's describing. Regret I didn't take a photo, will see if there's anything online Somej (talk) 09:42, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Ecological Management Units within the park

@Vallee Hi, I would like to ask if you would be willing and able to assist me with creating a special map that would be included in the article Kahurangi National Park. The Department of Conservation has defined a large number of Ecological Management Units (EMU) across New Zealand, including around 13 that appear to lie within the boundary of Kahurangi. These EMUs are areas that have been selected for priority attention, based on the special character of ecosystems and species they contain. DOC has published GIS data about the EMUs here:[1]. Would you be able to identify (perhaps from LINZ data) the boundaries of Kahurangi National Park, then select and show the EMUs that lie within the park boundary (complete with name labels etc). I think a map like this would be a great addition to the article. I will provide some text coverage of some of these areas in the article, (and have covered some already) but showing them in a map would help the reader. I understand that you will have many competing interests and pressures for your time, and will understand if you are not able to take this on right now, but I thought I would ask :).Marshelec (talk) 22:51, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Will do my best, but this might take some time.

Since I just woke up on this freezing sunday, I will scoll through your input and come back to you.

Till Vallee (talk) 07:30, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Flora of Kahurangi National Park

@Stitchbird2 Kia ora, I seek some assistance with further development of this article, and in particular, the section on Flora. This work is part of the project: Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/National parks. When I began work on 4 January, this article was in a poor state [2]. I have tripled the size of the article in my work to date, although there is a lot more to do. Today, I began work on the Flora section, but I need some help. The Flora section cannot be a comprehensive description of all plants, but we need to provide useful and readable high-level coverage. One of the difficulties is that I have not yet found sources that provide a good overall view of the diverse flora in the park. I am not even sure how best to address this. Can you help by identifying any sources that might help fill this gap ? Marshelec (talk) 04:21, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

One possibility is to try and summarise and paraphrase pages 25-26 of the Kahurangi National Park Management Plan [3], but this would not be easy.Marshelec (talk) 04:37, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Marshelec, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I am happy to help. I have a few other things I'm trying to finish now, but this is now on my to do list and radar, and I will get to it and be in contact with you about it soon. Stitchbird2 (talk) 09:04, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I've just come across an old bibliography on the North West Nelson Forest Park from DOC - might be something in here that's useful for either this section or some of the others? I'm seeing a lot from GNS in the list, so perhaps something for the geology section. Turnagra (talk) 18:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I've just done some preliminary searches. Worth searching for "northwest Nelson flora" or "northwest Nelson Forest Park" or similar. Anyway, here's a list of some things to start with (some of which you may have already found):

General:

The environmental politics of the creation of Kahurangi national park

https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/items/628869b9-23bd-4812-9d1d-d07c156d2523

Love Thy Neighbour? The Relationship Between Kahurangi National Park and the Border Communities of Karamea and Golden Bay, New Zealand

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q58258376

Flora (general)

Biodiversity Treasures of the Flora

https://www.fof.org.nz/pdf/page_content_pdf_0120.pdf

Evolution of the New Zealand vascular flora: Regional and provincial patterns of richness, radiation, and endemism

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q54687143

A vegetation history from north-east Nelson, New Zealand

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124313519

Late Quaternary pollen records from the Lower Cobb Valley and adjacent areas, North‐West Nelson, New Zealand

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124313520

Vegetation and flora of tertiary calcareous rocks in the mountains of western Nelson, New Zealand

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124313521

Flora (specific):

Characterisation of SSR markers for New Zealand Craspedia and their application in Kahurangi National Park

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q119576381

Dracophyllum marmoricola and Dracophyllum ophioliticum (Ericaceae), two new species from north‐west Nelson, New Zealand

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q54579871

New species of plants [original description of Myosotis concinna, endemic to the Owen Range; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosotis_concinna]

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/TPRSNZ1884-17.2.6.1.26

Also, searching the botanical society newsletters might prove fruitful: https://bts.nzpcn.org.nz/

There are also 366 plant lists from the Nelson-Tasman region! Tony Druce's lists from this area might be quite good to check. https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/publications/plant-lists/plant-lists-by-region/nelson-tasman/

This doc: https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/parks-and-recreation/national-parks/kahurangi-np-visitor-information.pdf says there are 67 species of plants endemic to Kahurangi National Park. It would be good to get a list of those and highlight them somehow in the article, as you have already started doing. I could reach out to one of my contacts at DOC to get this info if it's not available online. Also "Kahurangi’s rich native flora – it has the largest number of endemic plants of any national park – was a major reason for its establishment." from https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/14444/tablelands-kahurangi-national-park

Let me know if there is something specific you'd like me to do. I can certainly help you with some of this. This is just a first go at a list of some botanical resources, at different scales. Stitchbird2 (talk) 04:34, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Here is another source that may be useful: The subalpine and alpine vegetation on the Central Sedimentary Belt of Paleozoic rocks in north-west Nelson, New Zealand, from NZ Journal of Botany, 1993.[4].Marshelec (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for alphabetising the list of endemic plant taxa. How do I now add a reference at the end of one of the names to that? Because it is now in a template, I am not sure how to do this... Thanks. Stitchbird2 (talk) 03:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@Stitchbird2 It can be done using the source editor, if you want to avoid this, then the most practical thing for the moment is for me to remove the column setting. But I think it would be best for the longer term, to avoid taking too much space down the page. I will remove the columns now. Just let me know when you have finished :) Marshelec (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, I was giving that a go but not quite getting it right! So removing for now is a good option, so I can add all the links quickly. The list is not yet complete (I haven't heard back from my contact at DOC yet, I will follow up this week) but it's growing... Thank you. Stitchbird2 (talk) 03:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@Stitchbird2: I am still thinking of adding a higher level narrative on the diverse ecology, and add background that provides an introduction for readers. I would set this above the entries about individual species. I will have a go at paraphrasing and summarising pages 23 to 26 of the Kahurangi National Park Management Plan. This may take a few days !! Marshelec (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like a really good plan and I am happy to add additional references/sentences to that once you've done it. I've just done all I can for the species list based on the Salisbury report. I've re-emailed my contacts at DOC to see if they have a full list. I don't know if you really want a list of all 67 endemic plants to the park in this article (!) with a citation for each one (!), but I argue it might be nice to have since such a list cannot be easily found online yet and this is one of the really important aspects to the park. Stitchbird2 (talk) 04:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

If there's that many, I wonder whether there would be enough grounds for a separate list article? Or might that not be notable enough? Turnagra (talk) 04:52, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Article now in wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124366481 Stitchbird2 (talk) 05:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

IHi @Marshelec, I heard back from my contact at DOC. He says the only published article/list he knows of is in this article from 1998 https://www.nzbotanicalsociety.org.nz/newsletter/NZBotSoc-1998-53.pdf which does not cover the park exactly and is a bit out of date, but it is citable and should have good info. I have put into wikidata and will print out and start working through it soon. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124434319 Stitchbird2 (talk) 06:29, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Marshelec, I have now finished going through the 1998 list. I have added two more Veronica (thanks for finding the duplicates in the previous batch... I thought one of those looked familiar!). Once you alphabetize these last two, I will run this by my DOC contact for comment and any other suggestions. Stitchbird2 (talk) 04:43, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Feedback requested

This article is now around 8 times larger (in kB) than when improvements began in early January. I have asked for topic expert input for the Flora section, and approached a knowledgeable person for assistance with preparing a section on Geology - this is crucial for this article. While I wait for these inputs, I plan to expand the Geography section to cover other notable regions of the park (Mt Owen, Cobb Valley etc). I note that there are a lot of rivers in the park, and perhaps there could be a summary section on these ? I also plan to expand the Access section - including content about helicopter access.

Feedback would be great - especially about content areas that could be added, expanded or improved. Also, it would be good to have suggestions for the photo in the Infobox. What subject / image might best represent the park ? Marshelec (talk) 19:03, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Regarding rivers, that's a tricky one. What would the inclusion criteria be? Should it be every "river" (as opposed to "stream") that originates inside the NP? For example, the Owen River, but presumably also Fyfe River as one of its tributaries. If so, we could start in the south (the Owen River is a good one to start with) and then go clockwise until we've got them all. Schwede66 20:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@Schwede66For the rivers, I have an idea. I could add a sub-heading for rivers, then add brief content about the larger or more notable rivers, but draw the readers attention to a category list of the rivers of Kahurangi National Park using the category see-also template, beneath the subheading. I would need to first create a new category and add all the rivers, but that wouldn't take long. A possible further benefit of doing this is that the en:Category:Kahurangi National Park currently includes 26 rivers. Moving them to a new sub-category makes the Kahurangi NP category easier to navigate. I have found a precedent here: en:Category:Rivers of Yellowstone National Park. Thoughts ? Marshelec (talk) 03:42, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, good approach. It's a pity that Kahurangi is split across two regions, hence you'd had to categorise each river according to the region it's in, rather than the river parent category being in a region category.

Note that the Buller River goes across the West Coast / Tasman boundary somewhere in the Buller Gorge. In fact, the regional boundary south of the Buller Gorge is a dead-straight line, which was drawn on a map when the Nelson / West Coast boundary was adjusted during the West Coast gold rush days; the gold fields fell into two provinces and that was an administrative nightmare. But they had no idea where the boundary should go (regional boundaries usually follow watershed boundaries but nobody had been into the interior, hence the straight line). Schwede66 04:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

View towards Lookout Range from John Reid Hut; Michal's only Featured Picture of Kahurangi National Park

Regarding a photo, the challenging part is that Kahurangi NP is incredibly varied, and hence it won't be possible to find one photo that is a good representation. For city articles, we usually provide a collage to convey that variety; why don't we do the same here?

With regards to where to look, well, we have User:Podzemnik who spends much of his spare time in the South Island's backcountry, and he's a brilliant photographer. He has no fewer than 134 Featured Pictures and 3,958 Quality Images. I managed to identify one FP of Kahurangi. He has dozens of FPs of Kahurangi and here is a selection of ones that may be appropriate. First some panoramas, then other images. What appears to be missing are West Coast images from the Heaphy.

Biggs Tops panorama from Biggs Tops Route, Kahurangi, New Zealand

Iron Lake, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand 08

Lake Sylvester during the sunrise, Kahurangi, New Zealand

Panorama of Biggs Tops Route, Kahurangi, New Zealand

View from John Reid Hut, Kahurangi, New Zealand 10

John Reid Hut, Kahurangi, New Zealand 08

John Reid Hut, Kahurangi, New Zealand 09

Sylvester Hut, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Tent Camp, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand 19

Kendall Valley from Biggs Tops Route, Kahurangi, New Zealand

Lockett Range - the main ridge between Iron Hill and Mt Benson, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Lookout Range from Chummies Track, Kahurangi, New Zealand

Mt Peel from Cobb Valley, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Pool on Wangapeka River, Wangapeka Track, Kahurangi, New Zealand 07

Red mistletoe, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand 09

Ridge of Iron Hill, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Ruby Lake, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Track from Chaffey Hut to Trilobite Hut, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

View East from Lake Sylvester, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Wangapeka River, Kahurangi, New Zealand 05

Wangapeka River, Kahurangi, New Zealand 18

Xenicus Peak, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

A green tent with a tramper by Iron Lake, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Above the bushline, Biggs Tops Route, Kahurangi, New Zealand 04

Biggs Tops, Biggs Tops Route, Kahurangi, New Zealand 17

Cobb River Valley Track, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand 12

Diamond Lake, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand

Flat camping areas by Helicopter Flat Hut, Wangapeka Track, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand 15

Schwede66 21:33, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

These photos are beautiful. It would be great to add an image gallery with at least some of these! Uninspired Username (talk) 21:57, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm unsure about a collage as that seems to be out of step with other national parks, even places like Yosemite or Yellowstone have just a single pic in the infobox (as an aside, I'm amazed to see how far down the Yellowstone article you need to get for a pic of Old Faithful or the Grand Prismatic Spring). With that said, I'm not sure whether the image we've currently got is the best option for the park - I've used this one on the National parks of New Zealand article, but I'm also a big fan of this one and think it would be a good option for the infobox. Turnagra (talk) 07:07, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@TurnagraYes, I really like that image of Lake Sylvester as well. However, this discussion raises an interesting question. Looking at WP:GALLERY this says: "Generally, a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text." Personally, I like a gallery of good images, but if we are going to get the articles to GA standard then we probably need to comply, and not include one. There might be a possible justification for a "special case" for gallery in the Kahurangi article because of the vast range of landforms and flora in the park, but I wouldn't want to push this with a GA reviewer who took a strict line. By the time the Geography, Flora and Fauna content is filled out a bit more, we may be able to select good images to include in the relevant sections, and not include a gallery. Any other thoughts about a gallery ?Marshelec (talk) 08:06, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If we've got enough in the article that one's not needed then that would be great. I think we could already have some in there, and some of the images might suit particular images (eg. one of John Reid Hut in a section about the tramping in the park). Turnagra (talk) 18:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Potential new pages

There are a few non-English pages about features of the park, that could potentially be expanded into English language articles:

• Bohemia Cave (Q9176285)
• Kahurangi Point Lighthouse (Q15822438)
• Stormy Pot (Q17127568) --Prosperosity (talk) 06:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Status of improvements - update

There is still a long way to go before this article has the breadth and depth of coverage that would meet the GA standard. This is partly because of the large area of the park and the wide diversity of geology, landforms and climate. Sections that require further expansion include:

• Geology - I have a friend who has a background in geology and at my request, has done a lot of research finding sources and writing up the rather complex geology of the region. This work is progressing but as with all volunteer contributions, is limited by availability and competing interests. However, I am optimistic that this large amount of work will eventually be ready for publication - possibly as a separate article that can be linked from this main article.
• Flora - the existing material lacks a suitable broad overview of the flora of the park
• Fauna - this section needs general expansion
• Pest control - expansion needed
• Huts in the park - needs some coverage. Not an exhaustive list, but perhaps a summary with mention of a few of the more notable huts, such as those on the Heaphy Track

I will aim to restart my efforts in improving this article (and prompt my geologist friend for progress)._Marshelec (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

This is on my watchlist (and all of the other New Zealand national park articles). I notice this article is part of the NZ national parks project and would like to be more involved here. Content re 'access' could be improved and would help it achieving GA quality. I have expanded the lede today and will continue to edit this and other articles I am interested in. Alexeyevitch^(talk) 22:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alexeyevitch The topic of Access in this article was discussed as an example, when I was seeking feedback about the coverage of Access in all the National Parks articles. See: National_parks#Access_section_of_national_park_articles. On the basis of that discussion, I suggest that Access in this article may not need much more coverage. However, as outlined in my post above, there are lots of other content areas that do require expansion._Marshelec (talk) 23:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I would only describe notable roads (such as State Highway 80) and airports in the national park. Kahurangi is huge with lots of road access so not much expansion is required for roads. Alexeyevitch^(talk) 23:43, 15 August 2024 (UTC)