Public access easements over crown forests
Public access easements (PAEs) are a specific form of public access created under the Crown Forest Assets Act 1989 to establish and protect public access rights.
The easements were over Crown Forest Licences, which were established in the early 1990s. These licences enable the Crown to grow and sell its commercial forestry and also keep the land for future Tiriti o Waitangi settlements. The two ministers responsible for implementing this legislation are the Minister for State Owned Enterprises and the Minister of Finance.
When the land transfers from the Crown to an iwi, the iwi controls all the decisions about the land. The public access rights usually remain, even if the iwi sells the land.
Identifying public access
Each Crown Forestry Licence states whether a PAE exists. These were usually created to allow public access to and from conservation areas. All the Crown Forestry Licences and the PAEs are registered in Landonline.
Our mapping system can only show the PAEs that have been digitised. PAEs were originally surveyed prior to 2005 on physical paper plans. Copies of these can be found on the Land Record Search page in Landonline.
Terms of public access
PAEs generally permit public access on foot, bicycle, motorcycle, or light motor vehicles, although this can vary from forest to forest.
The licensee or landholder may close the access:
- during the hours of darkness
- for safety reasons
- to protect trees, buildings, plant equipment or related items on the land.
Management of public access easements
Although most PAEs lead to or adjoin public conservation land, the Department of Conservation is not legally responsible for them. However, it may have individual agreements for managing them.
A PAE can be closed for legitimate reasons, such as licence terms. It is good practice to check to see if public access is open—this can be done by checking online or with the forestry manager, licensee, or landowner (please note that the forestry manager can be different from the landowner or licensee).
Herenga ā Nuku can also help with enquiries.