Recreation reserve
type of New Zealand protected area
A recreation reserve is a type of New Zealand protected area owned by the New Zealand Government and reserved mainly for sporting or recreational activities. Many provide public access to coastlines, lakes and rivers. Some are administered by the Department of Conservation.
Each recreation reserve has been established "for the purpose of providing areas for the recreation and sporting activities and the physical welfare and enjoyment of the public, and for the protection of the natural environment and beauty of the countryside, with emphasis on the retention of open spaces and on outdoor recreational activities, including recreational tracks in the countryside".
There were 2,842 recreation reserves in New Zealand in 2015, covering total of 255,750 hectares. Land Information New Zealand listed 599 recreation reserves on its website in 2022.
Most recreation reserves are smaller than 1000 hectares, but some are much larger. Te Paki in Northland, for example, covers nearly 19,000 hectares of coastal landscape. Pūponga Farm Park, at the western end of Farewell Spit, is also larger than most. Other well-known recreation reserves include Pelorus Bridge and the reserves of the Marlborough Sounds, and Five Mile, Whakaipo, and other reserves around Lake Taupō.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Recreation reserve” is type of New Zealand protected area. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Recreation, reserve and type, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “type of New Zealand protected area” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q112161186. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2022 and 1000.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Recreation reserve”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Recreation reserve primary sources, Recreation reserve archive and Recreation research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Recreation reserve” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.