The Common Skink is one of the native lizards which exist on a plot of land in Geraldine purchased by the Nature Heritage Fund for $285,000

A section of land owned by a Geraldine family for than 130 years has been purchased by the Government for $285,000 in a bid to protect its outstanding natural features.

The purchase, by the Nature Heritage Fund (NHF), allows for the formal protection of 19 hectares of uncultivated land, five kilometres north east of Geraldine. It was purchased from the Ellery family who have owned the site since 1886.

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said the family offered the land to the NHF for purchase after it was declared a significant natural area under the Resource Management Act and they wanted it properly protected for the future.

It exists on part of the Coopers Creek flood plain which lies between the Rangitata and Orari Rivers. It has now been transferred to the Crown for protection as conservation land.

The Ellery family's decision to sell this land to the Nature Heritage Fund is much appreciated and means this very special site will be preserved," Sage said.

"The land is a rare example of a flood plain where native mosses, herbs, grasses and shrubs have been able to survive or recolonise. The fact that the land hasn't been cultivated or subjected to intensive land use makes it ecologically important.

"Less than 20 per cent of New Zealand's native vegetation has survived the arrival of humans so it's important to save sites like this one, which is home to one of the largest known populations of the threatened native plant, leafless pohuehue. "

John Ellery said the family had been grappling with the best means of protecting the land since the Timaru District Council declared it as a significant natural area.

"We had come to the conclusion that we could not give it the level of protection it deserves. The best way to do so, we decided, was to offer it to the Crown for ownership, and leave it to the district council to administer," he said.

Ellery said the selling price was significantly less than what it would have been worth as productive land.

"However, I am comfortable with the sale. It means that the area will be protected in perpetuity."

Timaru District Council parks and recreation manager Bill Steans said the land was a significant remnant of pre-development South Canterbury plains vegetation.

"It might not look much at first, but you would be surprised at what you could find there," he said.

Steans said the council and NHF would work together in looking after the land, particularly when it came to fencing and ensuring the removal of any pest plants.

Native plants at the site include creeping pohuehue, scrub pohuehue, patotara, small kowhai trees, mahoe or porcupine shrub and blue wheat grass.

Sage said the site also provides good habitat for native lizards, in particular common skink, which have suffered widespread habit loss on the Canterbury Plains, while native birds found at the site include riroriro/grey warbler, kahu/swamp harrier and karoro/southern black backed gulls.

The NHF was established in 1990 to help protect the indigenous ecosystems of New Zealand through direct purchase or covenant on a willing buyer/willing seller basis.

To date, over 343,000 hectares has been approved for protection through the fund.