Author: Kayla Hickman / Source: Good News Network
The borders of this beautiful New Zealand park have been expanded by 158,000 acres (64,000 hectares), making it the largest addition of land to a national park in the nation’s history.
Kahurangi National Park is located on the northwestern coast of New Zealand and is known for its diverse landscapes of high plateaus, freshwater swamps, and coastal forests.
The news of the national park’s expansion, which now includes an area known as the Mōkihinui lands, was praised by national conservation groups who have been advocating for the national park to include the Mōkikinui River catchment.
The fight for the protection of the Mōkihinui River began in 2008 when Merdian Energy proposed a hydroelectric dam that would have completely fragmented and flooded part of the river and forest. Due to a large opposition campaign led by the conservation organization Forest & Bird, the development project was cancelled in 2012.
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The cancellation of the dam was a huge win for the organization, but they knew that their fight to protect the river was not over; the organization felt…
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