In the mid 1990s, the Crown instituted a process of tenure review, considering that the system of pastoral leases had outlasted its usefulness as a means of protecting land and promoting agricultural development (Clayton 1982:65). Tenure review aimed to ‘achieve…productive economic land-use and conservation outcomes in the South Island high country’ (<http://www.linz.govt.nz/home/index.html>). Tenure review was widely supported by farmers, recreation and environmental groups (Brower 2006:27). Farmers and environmentalists had different reasons for wanting tenure review, but there was general agreement that it was required:
High country lessees wanted to have the management and investment flexibility that comes from freehold title. The Crown wanted to get out of the uneconomic business of being a landlord. And the Environmental pressure groups, along with the Crown, wanted land with significant inherent values (SIVs) to go into the conservation estate. (<http://www.highcountryaccord.co.nz/>)
Under the terms of the 1998 Crown Pastoral Lands Act, leaseholders have the opportunity to convert to freehold part of their land—that considered to have economic values—in return for which land with significant historic, scientific, ecological or cultural characteristics is restored to full Crown ownership, and, in reality, to Department of Conservation (DoC) management (<http://www.linz.govt.nz/home/index.html>).
Tenure review is initiated by individual leaseholders and, through consultation with the Department of Conservation, Fish and Game,[2] iwi [3] and the general public, individual properties are divided into freehold and conservation land. Tenure review is a voluntary process and leaseholders or the Crown can withdraw at any time (<http://www.linz.govt.nz/home/index.html>). The results of tenure review will vary by property. In some cases, all of the land of a particular lease might go to conservation and, in others, all of the land might be converted to freehold (<http://www.linz.govt.nz/home/index.html>). As of August 2007, 47 lessees had settled with the Crown, with another 13 in the final stages, and 115 properties had not entered the process (<http://www.linz.govt.nz/ home/index.html>). To date, about 162 000ha of land have been converted to freehold and about 117 500ha have been added to the conservation estate, with an additional 45 500ha being bought outright from lessees (<http://www.highcountryaccord.co.nz/>). Officials estimate that, by the end of the tenure review program, 50 per cent of pastoral lease land will become freehold and 50 per cent will become conservation land (<http://www.linz.govt.nz/home/index.html>). To date, the split has been closer to 60/40 in favour of farmers (Brower 2006:3).
At present, tenure review seems to be stalling. Farming, conservation and recreation groups have begun to voice serious doubts about the outcomes of tenure review and are lobbying hard to change the outcome. Tenure review has become contentious because what is at stake is not just ownership of land, or even conservation, but control over the way in which the high country and New Zealand as a nation is imagined. Two web sites, produced by farmer lobby group High Country Accord (<http://www.highcountryaccord.co.nz/>) and conservation/recreation lobby group Stop Tenure Review (<http://www.stoptenurereview.co.nz/>), give insight into how the different groups understand the issues and the discourses they deploy to make their respective cases.