Image: Samuel Ferrara | Creative Commons
Mountain lake in Fiordland National Park.
Assessing the value of public conservation land
We commissioned two pieces of work to understand the value New Zealand gets from public conservation land and waters. This includes tourism.

These reports:

  • provide important information on the value delivered each year to New Zealand from public conservation land (PCL)
  • will support DOC in advising the Government on the costs and benefits of activities and/or initiatives to protect and restore nature
  • help New Zealanders understand the benefits of conservation and nature to both our economy and our wellbeing.

The value of public conservation land – an ecosystem services assessment

This report increases our understanding of the value that public conservation land contributes to the overall wellbeing of New Zealanders.

Summary

  • The estimated net value of ecosystem services provided from PCL is $10.9 billion per year, with about $4.2 billion of this relating to National Parks.
  • Ecosystem services from PCL play a big part in the wellbeing of New Zealanders, for example, water management, disturbance regulation, and waste treatment.
  • The value of natural and physical capital (assets) on PCL is $134 billion.
  • National Parks have a non-use (intrinsic) value of 12.6 billion. 
  • The value of recreation activities linked to PCL is estimated at almost $500 million per year.

How do these values contrast to what DOC spends?

To put all of these values in context, DOC was funded $335.9 million in the 2024/25 financial year for natural heritage and regional pest management work.

In 2024/25, $235.8 million was funded for recreation, search and rescue and cultural heritage work.

The availability of data limited what could be valued

NZIER was not able to value cultural heritage or the cultural benefits of ecosystem services. While we expect these to be important aspects of the total value of PCL, the data is not available to capture them. The provisioning and cultural services for Egmont National Park were also unable to be estimated.

Other components of ecosystem services not able to be estimated because of data limitations include food production on PCL and genetic resources.

No value was able to be estimated for the stocks of minerals, soil, or water, or the non-use value of PCL outside of National Parks.

For a full list of the technical insights and findings view the report below:

The value of public conservation land – an ecosystem services assessment 2024 (PDF, 1,429K)

Tourism economy on public conservation land and waters

We have completed research to estimate the value of economic output (GDP) associated with tourism on public conservation land and waters (PCLW).

Summary

  • The average value added from tourism on PCLW per year was $3.4 billion in 2019/20-2022/23. While this declined from a pre-Covid high of $4.3 billion in 2015/16-2018/19, this is still a significant part to the tourism economy.
  • The regional insights of tourism value added on PCLW in 2019/20-2022/23 are as follows:
    • The Southern and Eastern South Island region was the largest contributor, providing 52% of the total value.
    • Auckland contributed 5% of the total tourism economy value.
    • The North Island contributed 33% of the total tourism economy value on PCLW, and the South Island and Rakiura/Stewart Island contributed 67%.
    • In the Northern and Western South Island region, 51% of tourism activity was on PCLW, contributing an estimated $0.5 billion to the economy.
    • Although the Auckland and Northern North Island regions contributed $4.9 billion of value added of tourism, little of this was on PCLW. In the Auckland region, only 4% of tourism activity was on PCLW.

For a full list of the insights and findings view the graphic below:

Tourism economy on public conservation land and waters 2024 (PDF, 506K)