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900-HECTARE QUEENSTOWN STATION GIFTED TO QEII TRUST

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December, 2020

The owners of a landmark farm near Queenstown are giving 900
hectares of their property to the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust
(QEII).
Remarkables Station owners Dick and Jillian Jardine announced at a
ceremony on the property recently that the freehold land, which sits
between the Remarkables Range and Lake Wakatipu, will be gifted to
the trust in 2022 to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of their
familys ownership.
The property would be placed under a covenant in the coming months
that would protect it from development.
The gifted land represents nearly all of the station, with the couple
keeping only a small part of it to live on.
Mr Jardine said his family had owned the land for nearly a century, and
had endeavoured to improve and enhance it over that time.
"Having QEII as the caretaker of this property gives us the comfort and
assurance to proudly pass over this gift for all New Zealand to enjoy and
appreciate.'
In a media statement, trust chairman Bruce Wills said the gift was
exciting and a huge responsibility.

This is an extraordinarily generous gift to New Zealand, and one that
will endure long after we are all gone.
The statement said it was very rare for the trust to take on the
ownership of a property, and its usual practice was to assist landowners
to protect their properties with a covenant.
QEII considered the Jardines wishes very carefully, and agreed to take
it on based on the incredible importance of this piece of land and the
expectation that it will be economically self-sustaining as a farming
operation for the foreseeable future.
It would protect the propertys valuable native biodiversity, and hoped
to provide more opportunities for public access.
Open landscapes in the Wakatipu Basin had come under increasing
pressure from subdivision and commercial development, driven by the
twin pressures of population growth and tourism.
It was an opportunity for the trust to demonstrate the integration of
pastoral farming, conservation, public access and landscape protection
on a prominent and accessible site.
The land was now leased as a working farm, and that would continue for
the foreseeable future.
In 2016, the Jardines gifted their former home and the four-hectare
lakefront site it sits on to the University of Otago for use as a research
retreat.

Source: Otago Daily Times