Declaring Land to be Held as an Ecological Area West Coast Pursuant to section 63 of the Conservation Act 1987, the Minister of Conservation declares that the area of land described in the Schedule hereto, is hereby held as an ecological area under section 21 of the Conservation Act 1987. Schedule Nelson Land District Buller District Orikaka Ecological Area 14,500 hectares, more or less, being all of the land shown on S.O. Plan 14749, situated in Blocks X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI, Orikaka Survey District, Block IX, Lyell Survey District, Blocks II and IV, Inangahua Survey District and Block IV, Ohika Survey District. Dated at Wellington this 28th day of September 1998. NICK SMITH, Minister of Conservation. (Files: DOC H.O. ECA 00002, CO Hokitika SPA 0215) Explanatory Notes The Orikaka Ecological Area is held for conservation purposes to protect indigenous intrinsic natural values and resources, ecological and evolutionary systems, and in particular to protect the values specified in these explanatory notes. The Orikaka Ecological Area, in the Ngakawau and Buller Ecological Districts, protects landforms, geological and soil features and extensive unmodified forest in an altitudinal sequence from the Buller River to the Glasgow Range. It features cedar-podocarp-beech forest in the upper basin, pakihi shrubland and dwarf/low forest ecosystems on coal measures, alluvial and swampland forests around Lake Rahui, and extensive mixed beech forests on dissected hill country.1CL