Kahurangi National Park is on its way to becoming a dark sky sanctuary with an application accepted by Dark Sky International.
Dark sky advocate Sean Walker spoke in Nelson during Conservation Week, saying that while acceptance by the certifying authority for dark sky places means the park is a candidate for sanctuary status, it can typically take from one to three years to complete.
He says it is apposite during Conservation Week to be considering what excessive lighting is doing to the environment.
“These artificially generated photons are becoming like the nano plastics in our oceans - silent and infinitesimal but accumulating and pervasive - an unnoticed pollution.”
His involvement with the sanctuary project dates back a decade, when he stepped out of a caravan one night at Puponga Beach near Cape Farewell into pitch black. With time, night vision improved and he realised how much more connected he became with his environment.
“Night vision is so precious but used less and less in our increasingly artificially-lit world.”
Since then, he has worked with Wai-iti Dark Sky Park, and proponents have engaged with iwi, local and central government, plus organisations such as Forest and Bird and Maritime New Zealand. A small group of volunteers regularly head into the park at night to take night sky quality readings.
A sanctuary is the highest level of certification, and Sean says the application is about providing protection into the future, education, and stewardship. He says the park has the widest ranges of biodiversity of all New Zealand national parks, including a number of threatened nocturnal species.
