Tourism and resource development conflicts on the Kawarau and Shotover Rivers,Otago, New Zealand

The Kawarau and Shotover Rivers are in the heart of Southern New Zealand's premier tourist region, focused upon Queenstown in Central Otago. Over the last fifteen years they have become important as the venue for a variety of adventure activities, principally jet boating and white water rafting. These have grown rapidly to become a major part of the regional tourism product. During the same time period, proposals for hydro electric power development on the Kawarau threatened to eliminate white water rafting and severely modify jet boating; during the last five years a revival of the region's gold mining industry, which was founded in the 1860s, has threatened rafting on the Shotover River. This paper examines the ways in which these conflicts were assessed and managed, and points to a new threat, namely that of overcrowding.