Outdoor Walking Access Report to the Minister for Rural Affairs

Appendix C: Glossary

Accretion: The process by which soil, sediments and other matter accumulate, increasing the area of land. This process is the reverse of “erosion”. The term accretion is usually applied to deposits formed in river valleys and deltas.

Access strip: A statutory easement made under Part 10 of the Resource Management Act 1991.

Biosecurity: The protection of a territory from the invasion of unwanted plants, animals, micro-organisms or diseases.

Cadastral data: Information defining the legal dimensions of land, including property boundaries.

Cadastral maps: Maps representing cadastral data in graphical form.

Crown land: Land vested in Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand that is not set aside for any public purpose (such as a national park or conservation land) and not held in private title.

Disability-assist dogs: Defined in the Dog Control Act 1996 to include “seeing eye” dogs, hearing dogs for the deaf and other dogs certified for assisting people with disabilities.

Erosion: The process of gradually wearing away land, commonly by the action of water.

Esplanade reserve: A strip of water margin land vested in a local authority under Part 10 of the Resource Management Act 1991.

Esplanade strip: A statutory easement along a water margin made under Part 10 of the Resource Management Act 1991.

Landholder: Includes owners of land, lessees, licensees, sharemilkers, trustees and other persons who have authority to grant access permission.

Marginal strip: A strip of land along a water margin reserved by the Crown on the disposal of the adjoining land by the Crown. These were originally made under various Land Acts and were fixed in location irrespective of movements in water margins. Since 1987, they have been made under the Conservation Act 1987, and those made since 1990 move with any change in the location of the water margin.

Mobility device: A vehicle that is designed and constructed (not merely adapted) for use by persons who require mobility assistance due to a physical or neurological impairment and is powered solely by a motor that has a maximum power output not exceeding 1500 W or any other device that meets the definition in the Land Transport Act 1998.

Paper road: A commonly used expression for an unformed legal road. See “unformed legal road”.

Queen’s Chain: A commonly used expression for a strip of land (usually 20 metres wide) reserved for public use alongside a water margin, including the sea, lakes and rivers.

Rāhui: A declaration by a Māori person with authority to do so that a specific area of land is tapu. See “tapu”.

Tapu: Restricted; forbidden; set apart; sacred.

Territorial authority: A city council or a district council recognised as such under the Local Government Act 2002.

Topographic map: A map that shows a limited set of features, but including at the minimum information about elevations or landforms. Topographic maps are common for navigation and for use as reference maps. They have a specified scale.

Unformed legal road: Land legally set aside as being road, but not formed as road. That is, it may be unsurfaced, unfenced and often indistinguishable from the surrounding land but it is still subject to all the legal rights and obligations that apply to formed roads, including the right to pass and re-pass with or without vehicles and animals.

Vehicles: Cycles, horses, motorbikes, four-wheel-drives, cars, etc.

Wāhi tapu: A particular category of ancestral land or water that is held in the highest regard by Māori. It can include places, sites, areas or objects that are tapu, sacred and special to an iwi.

Walking access: The right to pass and re-pass on foot, which includes the use of mobility devices and disability-assist dogs.

Water margin: A general term referring to the point at which the water in a sea, lake or river adjoins dry land. For legal purposes, more specific terms are used, such as mean high water mark or mean high water springs.