The West Coast of the South Island is New Zealand’s wild, rugged, and notoriously wet coast. Hemmed in by the snow-capped Southern Alps rising steeply in the east and the surging Tasman Sea in the west, this narrow strip of land is different from any other in the country.

The shore is rocky, the beach driftwood-strewn, the forest impenetrable, the surf hungry, the wind noisy, and the air forever filled with moisture. A lush green blanket of temperate rain forest flows down the mountainsides decorated with vibrant southern rātā flowers like red baubles on a Christmas tree. Wafts of mist cling desperately to the treetops and waterfalls fed by the persistent drizzle and heavy downpours plunge down steep mountain slopes.

On a fine day, the West Coast is the most beautiful place on earth. On a rainy day, it is too, once you’ve learned to appreciate its ruggedness. But nothing compares to this brief moment of pure magic when the clouds temporarily relinquish their grip and the sun breaks through and shines brightly on innumerable drops of dew and rain that sparkle like diamonds on this green canvas.

Considering the long history of exploitation of the area’s natural resources – gold, coal, and native forest – and the continued struggle between conservation efforts and economic interests, the West Coast looks surprisingly remote and untouched.

I was glad to learn that 84% of the West Coast region’s total area is conservation protected land managed by the DOC but somewhat astounded to find out that one can actually still apply for a permit to prospect, explore, or mine on public conservation land and that such permits are still being granted. In what way then is conservation protected land actually protected?

I realise the difficulty of the issue when hundreds of jobs in this sparsely populated area depend on mining but is it not hypocritical to claim the importance of conservancy and sustainability to the West Coast by simply referring to mining areas as conservation land and to approve yet more mining activities on such land that even require the felling of native forest when there’s a momentary economic benefit?

Hundreds of more jobs depend on tourism, which is why the Covid border closure affects the West Coast more than most regions in New Zealand, its glacier destinations Franz Josef and Fox Glacier in particular. The same communities that struggle with the recent absence of overseas visitors have faced challenges of a different kind for years – the long-term retreat of the glaciers brought about by climate change has made them less accessible to visitors on which both townships depend.

The first time I visited “Franz” was more than twenty years ago. The glacier almost reached the sea then. We walked on the ice and I was fascinated by the incredible size of this giant, heavily crevassed bulk of ice. At the time the glacier was one of the few in the world that still grew but this trend has been rapidly reversed in recent years.

Since 2008, the glacier has retreated by 1.5 kilometres and since 2012 it is no longer accessible by foot.

You can still walk to viewpoints on the Roberts Point and Alex Knob tracks but both hikes require hiking experience and don’t cater for the majority of tourists. Also, helicopter tourism clearly takes precedence over hikers and you can expect the rotor noise to drown out all sounds of nature. We thought it was intolerable even in 2021, when the restaurants in town collected donations for out-of-work helicopter pilots and I wonder how residents in Fox and Franz Josef dealt with the noise pollution pre-Covid when a helicopter was taking off every minute.

It is well known that greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of global warming and glacial retreat and aggravate the problem these communities face and yet they choose to respond to this challenge by flying hundreds of people onto what remains of their golden goose every day. Hopefully post-Covid this approach will change.