Forest & Bird Magazine 337 Aug 2010 by Forest & Bird

ISSUE 337 â&#x20AC;¢ AUGUST 2010 www.forestandbird.org.nz

MINING

U-TURN A win for nature

Native snails on ice PLUS

Awesome Aotearoa

Backyard conservation

Mackenzie heartland

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Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. General Manager: Mike Britton Advocacy Manager: Kevin Hackwell Services Manager: Julie Watson North Island Conservation Manager: Mark Bellingham South Island Conservation Manager: Chris Todd Communications Manager: Marina Skinner Central Office: Level 1, 90 Ghuznee St, Wellington. PO Box 631, Wellington 6140. Tel: (04) 385-7374, Fax: (04) 385-7373 Email: office@forestandbird.org.nz Web: www.forestandbird.org.nz Auckland Office: 34A Charlotte Street, Eden Terrace, Auckland, PO Box 108 055, Symonds St, Auckland 1150. Tel: (09) 302 0203, Fax: (09) 303 4548 Email: n.beveridge@forestandbird.org.nz Christchurch Office: 190-192 Hereford Street, Christchurch PO Box 2516, Christchurch 8140. Tel: (03) 366 4190 Fax: (03) 365 0788 Email: c.todd@forestandbird.org.nz KCC Coordinator: Ann Graeme 53 Princess Rd, Tauranga 3110. Tel: (07) 576-5593 Fax: (07) 576-5109 Email: a.graeme@forestandbird.org.nz Forest & Bird is a registered charitable entity under the Charities Act 2005. Registration No. CC26943.

ISSUE 337

www.forestandbird.org.nz

Contents 2 Editorial

Nature in the balance

5 Letters 6 Soapbox

Sharks in charge

Amazing facts about...

Barry Wards on the true value of conservation

Forest & Bird and Irrigation NZ trade perspectives about water

8 Conservation News

Mokihinui legal appeal, mining U-turn, Valder conservation grants, Forest & Bird annual report, Honda grows trees, International success, Canterbury’s troubled waters, in brief, junior albatross campaigners, endangered sea lions

Cover story: An unfortunate experiment

The future looks grim for rare native land snails moved from Stockton coal mine to a West Coast fridge

Awesome Aotearoa

An Englishman celebrates New Zealand’s biodiversity

22 Tearing up our heartland Nicola Vallance has a personal reason to save the Mackenzie Country from intensive dairying EDITOR: Marina Skinner

PO Box 631, Wellington. T (04) 801-2761 F (04) 385-7373 E m.skinner@forestandbird.org.nz DEPUTY EDITOR: David Brooks

T (04) 801-2763 E d.brooks@forestandbird.org.nz DESIGNER: Rob Dileva, Dileva Design

E rob@dileva.co.nz PREPRESS/PRINTING: Kalamazoo

Wyatt & Wilson (NZ) Ltd ADVERTISING:

Vanessa Clegg T 0275 420 337 E vanclegg@xtra.co.nz Karen Condon T 0275 420 338 E mack.cons@xtra.co.nz Membership & Circulation T 0800 200 064 F (04) 385 7373 E membership@forestandbird.org.nz

• August 2010

Backyard conservation

Broadcaster Graeme Hill breeds native admiral butterflies

Cats no good for bats

Precious Paparoa

Puketi forest

Conservation pays dividends

The high casualty rate at one bat roost

Paparoa National Park’s special qualities

The Government is making things tough for natural New Zealand

The fishing industry’s rush of blood

Kiwi

44 Going Places

Forest & Bird’s lodge at Piha

The land’s great healers

In the field

Darlings of the Chathams

One of us

Rangatahi

Branching out

Book reviews

Parting shot

Manuka and kanuka no longer in the shadows

Rhythm of the seasons

Chatham Island tui make an impact

Stan Butcher looks back 70 years

Morgan Waru speaks up for rivers

Bellbird release, Kaimai-Mamaku update, Forest & Bird’s heroes, Pestbuster winner, Golden Spade winner, Helen Bain planting, AGM

The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean, Bateman Field Guide to Wild New Zealand, Beyond the Scene

Craig McKenzie’s jewelled gecko

The slow recovery of a far north forest

Old ways of economic thinking on natural resources should be ditched COVER SHOT Life for this Powelliphanta augusta snail family is confined to a bed of sphagnum moss in an ice cream container. Rod Morris photographed them at a storage fridge in Hokitika for his story about the snails’ progress since Solid Energy removed them from their last remaining habitat on Mt Augustus at the Stockton Mine site on the West Coast.

Forest & Bird

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editorial High price to pay for conservation errors I congratulate the Government for listening to Forest & Bird and New Zealand on the proposal to mine Schedule 4 conservation land. More importantly, I congratulate the Society for forcing the Government to back down. We need to ask ourselves: What does this decision mean? Have we changed the Government’s position and attitude for the future? Many of the conservation and environmental problems of today are a result of decisions made by our forebears 30, 40 and 50 years ago, or longer. The classic examples are the decisions to import mammalian predators to control other mammals that were brought in to establish hunting or fur industries. Similarly, some of the freshwater issues facing Canterbury, in particular, are a result of decisions to capitalise on New Zealand’s ability to produce milk. My fear is that we have failed to learn from the past – the decisions we make today will result in impacts we have not considered or anticipated in 30, 40 and 50 years. We need to be more concerned that many of the conservation and environment issues Forest & Bird faces are imbued with the concept of “value”. We hear phrases such as “conservation economy” and “ecosystem services” and banter around the costs and benefits of recreation services when applying “value” to the conservation estate. Underneath all this, we’re losing ground on many of the struggles to protect indigenous flora and fauna and the wild natural areas essential for their survival, as arguments rage around whether these areas earn their place in our society for the value they provide. However, we still know appallingly little about our threatened biodiversity, and this should be of greater concern before we discuss ways to extend capitalising on it. As advocates for conservation, Forest & Bird is very good at providing glossy images and descriptions of our native flora and fauna and highlighting the threats to their survival. But, too often, members struggle with how to get that message across in a way that delivers both impact and an impetus to do “something”. If advocacy doesn’t result in a “something” then we have failed miserably. All our banknotes are excellent advertising tools for our native biodiversity and wild places. My wife doesn’t let me have too much control over the bigger denominations, but I would encourage you to whip out a few notes next time you need to highlight the value we give to our native plants, animals and places. In addition to the distinctive hoiho, the $5 note shows a Campbell Island scene, sub-Antarctic lilies, a Campbell Island daisy and bull kelp. The $10 note shows Parahebe catarractae, only found in Fiordland, mountain kiokio and whio. The $100 note (I’m not allowed near any of these!) shows the endangered mohoua, red beech forests and the South Island lichen moth in Fiordland. Next time you visit your local MP, reach into your wallet and show him or her what “value” is!

50 years ago

The need for [national] parks will be much greater in the future, when the population is much greater and there is much more leisure time because of labour-saving devices. For this reason it is imperative that we should carefully guard every single acre, and this need should be apparent to every thinking person. It is difficult to understand the attitude of those who oppose our efforts to save our greatest national park [Fiordland] from commercial exploitation [by damming Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau]. Editorial, Forest & Bird August 1960

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. (Founded 1923) Registered Office at Level One, 90 Ghuznee Street, Wellington. PATRON: His Excellency the Hon.

Sir Anand Satyanand, GovernorGeneral of New Zealand NATIONAL PRESIDENT:

Barry Wards DEPUTY PRESIDENT:

Barry Wards • Forest & Bird President

Andrew Cutler NATIONAL TREASURER:

Graham Bellamy EXECUTIVE COUNCILLORS:

Lindsey Britton, Mark Hanger, Alan Hemmings, Peter Maddison, Craig Potton, Ines Stager, Jon Wenham. DISTINGUISHED LIFE MEMBERS:

Forest & Bird is published quarterly by the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society. Forest & Bird is a member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and is the New Zealand Partner of BirdLife International. Opinions expressed by contributors in the magazine are not necessarily those of Forest & Bird. Forest & Bird is printed on chlorine-free paper made from wood fibre sourced from sustainably managed forests. The magazine is bulk mailed in Reverte oxo-biodegradable plastic made from oil by-products. It is waterproof but will break down into CO2, H20 and biomass, and does not leave petro-polymer fragments in the soil. *Registered at PO Headquarters, Wellington, as a magazine. ISSN 0015-7384. Copyright. All rights reserved.

| Forest & Bird

Bill Ballantine, Stan Butcher, Ken Catt, Audrey Eagle, Alan Edmonds, Gordon Ell, Philip Hart, Hon. Sandra Lee-Vercoe, Stewart Gray, Joan Leckie, Peter Maddison, Sir Alan Mark, Gerry McSweeney, John Morton, Margaret Peace, Guy Salmon, Lesley Shand, Gordon Stephenson, David Underwood.

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letters Forest & Bird welcomes readers’ letters and photographs on conservation topics. Letters should be no longer than 200 words and must include the writer’s full name, home address and daytime phone number. We don’t always have space to publish all letters or publish them in full. The best contribution to the Letters page of the November 2010 issue will win a copy of Classic Walks of New Zealand by Craig Potton. Please send letters to Editor, Forest & Bird magazine, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140 or e-mail m.skinner@forestandbird.org.nz by October 1, 2010.

Kea encounter

Warning to tourists

This morning I had a memorable encounter with kea. As I sat outside Tarn hut, on the flank of the Puketeraki Range, a flock of birds flew towards me from over Lilburne Hill to the north, calling and playing. I counted 14 kea. They passed backwards and forwards above the hut, dropping lower each time. Finally, they all landed around me, walked across and stood in a semicircle, looking at me, and quite silent. I felt like I should make a speech of welcome, but could only manage “Morning, kea.” I half expected them to appoint a spokesman to make a speech to me but the leader just hopped across to take a peck at my boot. After a long inspection of the visitor to their territory, they suddenly all took off. I can’t help thinking the encounter meant something, but I’m not quite sure what.

I am an expatriate New Zealand writer living in California. I’ve observed changes in Kiwi social values on return visits to my birth country. A significant change, and one that resonates strongly with Americans, many of whom are considering New Zealand vacations, is a growing concern for New Zealand’s environmental treasures. International tourism contributed $15 billion last year to New Zealand’s economy, or 9.1 per cent of GDP. In light of the Government’s recent proposal to consider mining in national parks and the degradation of habitat that would inevitably entail, I think I should revise my latest book to warn potential American visitors that the cherished wilderness they have come to expect is about to be compromised.

Paul Mosley, Christchurch (This letter is the winner of The Best of New Zealand Geographic)

Myth of economic growth The recent debate about mining on conservation lands is yet another example of the tension between economic development and conservation. It horrifies me that in “The big dig” (Forest & Bird, May 2010) the organisation’s Kevin Hackwell says, “In the search for economic growth, we need to focus on our strengths ...” Please leave such advocacy to short-sighted politicians. Economic growth, along with overpopulation, degrades nature and causes extinctions and loss of ecosystems. We should be lobbying for a new economic mindset so that New Zealand and the world can build a steady-state, no-growth economy. Has Forest & Bird been captured by the myth of “growth” or, worse, “sustainable growth”? If so, I shall resign. John Rhodes, Wairarapa

Maureen Eppstein, California, US

Consumer power on dairy Congratulations on your recent articles highlighting the destruction of our streams and rivers and the proposed irrigation of the Mackenzie Basin by our dairy industry. It is shocking a “developed” nation such as New Zealand would need to cause such damage in the pursuit of (temporary) economic gain. We should all be reducing our consumption of milk products until we can consume them with a clear conscience. Let’s start a name and shame campaign. Resource consent breaches are readily available from councils so let’s name farmers who repeatedly breach their conditions. Forest & Bird could produce a clean dairy guide, similar to the Clean Energy Guide and Best Fish Guide. Amelia Geary, Lower Hutt

Pohutukawa peril

Why do you get so hysterical over some issues (“Mining New Zealand’s green heart”, February 2010) and always emphasise the worst-case scenario? If you could choose a more reasoned, balanced approach and not the rabid stance, sometimes you may get more support from thinking people.

The article entitled “Seeing red” (Forest & Bird, May 2010) caught my attention with its discussion on pohutukawa damage and possum invasion in Northland in the 1960s. My father for years tried to analyse what was damaging the pohutukawa at Bream Tail, and established that the damage was being caused by possums. The beach south of Langs Beach, previously dripping with coastal pohutukawa, has been reduced to the struggling remains of one or two.

Geoff Sherwood, Hamilton

Dianne Blumhardt, Thames

Hysterical Forest & Bird

Forest & Bird

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soapbox

Irrigation – threat or opportunity

Forest & Bird and Irrigation NZ trade perspectives on the great water debate. By Forest & Bird South Island Conservation Manager Chris Todd.

he irrigation industry in New Zealand has had an exhilarating ride for more than two decades and become a major foreign exchange earner. The Government has responded by “doing its bit to prime the pump” for irrigation, Agriculture Minister David Carter proudly announced in April. Government support for irrigation has come through a taxpayer-funded ETS holiday, Sustainable Farming Fund grants, the “ECan Act” in Canterbury to accelerate irrigation, publicly funded research and promises of irrigation infrastructure funding. During the same period, in areas of agricultural intensification the water quality in lowland rivers and aquifers has dramatically declined, according to Ministry for the Environment figures. Two-thirds of our 35 native fish species are threatened; river-dependent bird populations have crashed and some species are headed for extinction; and Landcare Research has revealed that in the past decade native vegetation loss due to intensification has occurred at the highest rate since European colonisation. Unless irrigated agriculture dramatically reforms its environmental performance, the future for the industry also looks bleak. Why? Global retail chains, such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco, demand audited market quality assurance standards from paddock to plate – and this trend is growing. These standards, especially in the European Union, include biodiversity, wildlife and nitrate leaching. A kiwifruit grown in New Zealand returns on average 130 per cent more than a kiwifruit grown in Italy, and 230 per cent more than one grown in Chile. This is not only down to good branding and good supply chains but to New Zealand’s early adoption of market assurance schemes to satisfy global retailers. Because we can’t compete as a bulk commodity food producer, New Zealand may have only five years before South America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe scale up production enough to undercut the international prices of bulk animal protein.

We have no choice but to reposition at the high-value end of the market to survive. Highvalue produce must be formally accredited as environmentally sound. International threats to our brand affect prices for our goods. An Interbrand valuation for the 100% Pure New Zealand brand in 2005 was US$13.6 billion. This is more than the annual value of all New Zealand meat and dairy exports. When Arabic news network Al Jazeera phoned last year to say they wanted to make a film about dairying and water quality problems, I knew the brand was in trouble. Domestic pressure is also mounting for changes in agricultural irrigation. Fifty-six per cent of New Zealanders now attribute declining water quality to agriculture, a rise of 8 per cent since last year, according to Lincoln University’s Professor Ken Hughey. The two biggest protests in Canterbury for decades have been about the Government’s handling of water management. The public want stronger regulation and they want the industry to account for its greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, recreational amenity loss and drinking water treatment costs. Stronger regulation and water charging to offset some of these costs seems inevitable. Evidence points to the need for New Zealand irrigated agriculture to push the environment less to gain higher export premiums. Forest & Bird would love to work with New Zealand’s irrigated food producers to become accredited as the most environmentally sustainable in the world. That would mean higher export prices, clean streams and flourishing populations of native plants and animals. Only by working together can we achieve both.

Please send your views about irrigation and the environment to Editor, Forest & Bird magazine, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140 or e-mail m.skinner@forestandbird.org.nz by September 15, 2010. 8

| Forest & Bird

By Irrigation NZ Chief Executive Andrew Curtis.

ou’ve heard it before – New Zealand has abundant freshwater resources, with an annual average run-off of 80,000 cubic metres per person compared with a global average of 7100 cubic metres. Water is to New Zealand what gold is to Australia. It is our key strategic advantage and will guarantee us a clean, healthy and prosperous future. I imagine Forest & Bird members thinking: “We know New Zealand has plenty of freshwater that could make us wealthy but we must use this resource in a sustainable manner. Can irrigators minimise their environmental footprint to long-term socially acceptable levels?” Irrigation NZ (INZ) is confident the answer to this question is yes. For a start, New Zealand has world-leading irrigation technologies that are continuously improving. It helps to understand why farmers need irrigation. New Zealand has abundant water but water is not always at the right place at the right time. One of the main drivers of irrigation expansion is modern food production. If farmers want to compete, particularly in highvalue environmentally conscious markets, they need to supply consistent amounts of quality produce. Traditional variable weather patterns coupled with climate change impacts mean extreme weather events have become more prevalent. The boom and bust scenarios of traditional dryland farming do not cut the mustard in these markets. To even be in the market, farmers need certainty, and certainty means irrigation. To ensure our farming systems are truly sustainable, we must use technology and good management practices. Having a reliable water supply drives efficiency. Water supply to homes is usually 100 per cent reliable. You turn on the tap and water comes out. When your water is cut off, you fill up the bath, buckets and saucepans to get through. Of course, a fair bit gets poured away when the water returns. Irrigation takes from rivers, with their risk of cut-offs, makes irrigators behave the same way. They keep the soil topped up so they can get through the dry times. When water for irrigation is reliable, farmers run their soils a bit drier, hoping rain might top them up for free. If you know the water will be there when you need it, you leave it in the river (or the well or dam) until the last minute. Uncertainty

drives a less efficient, precautionary approach, whereas certainty equals an efficient one. Reliability has massive flow-on effects. Certainty allows investment in better, more expensive technology and a change to “justin-time” management. This reduces power requirements, pumping – which uses energy – and pressure on river flows, so there is less water abstraction for each hectare irrigated. Greater efficiency also results in less nutrient leaching and run-off because more water and nutrients are retained in the rooting zone to be used by the plant. Other benefits include the ability to grow more diverse and higher-value crops, and greater added-value through processing, such as turning potatoes into bags of frozen chips. To lift New Zealand’s agricultural productivity and maintain and enhance natural systems, we need water storage, a term likened to blasphemy in current times. Preferably, we need a few large water storage dams. This would give irrigators reliability while protecting most of New Zealand’s iconic rivers that we all know and love. Alongside water storage, the industry has to have management systems that protect the environment and penalise non-performance, through loss of water supply. This is already part of several new irrigation schemes. There will be some habitat adjustment for water storage. Some areas will be damaged or lost while others will be created or enhanced. When irrigators are prosperous, most invest considerably in their environment restoration, enhancement and efficiency. When they are not prosperous, they can’t. Storage creates opportunities for all. The question INZ would like to put to Forest & Bird members is: If the irrigation industry can give assurance around its future performance, is the loss of some habitat acceptable if we can restore and create other habitats, and greatly improve water quality and biodiversity on a much broader scale? INZ appreciates this opportunity to write in your magazine. Breaking down misinformation barriers between irrigators and environmental groups is important for us all to move forward.

The braided Wairau River in Marlborough. Photo: Craig Potton Forest & Bird

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conservation

news

Mokihinui legal appeal gears up F

orest & Bird expects its appeal to the Environment Court to stop a massive dam being built on the Mokihinui River to be heard in the middle of next year. The appeal is to overturn a decision to grant Meridian Energy consent to dam the West Coast river. The proposed dam would be 85 metres high, and would inundate 330 hectares of near-pristine public conservation land and riverbed. Commissioners appointed by the West Coast Regional Council and the Buller District Council issued their decision in April. Two of the commissioners thought the proposal should proceed because of the power generation benefits from the hydro dam. The third commissioner disagreed, given the significant harm to the ecology of the Mokihinui River. The Mokihinui River is a remarkably intact ecosystem, which provides habitat for a huge variety of indigenous plants and animals, both common and endangered. The river drains five mountain ranges and borders Kahurangi National Park. Only in its lower reaches is it bordered by anything other than conservation land. The river’s isolation and lack of human disturbance mean it has extremely high natural character. It is home to a diverse native fish community, and the surrounding catchment, with its relatively pest-free mature indigenous forests, supports native birds including whio, bats and invertebrates – including Powelliphanta snails. Meridian’s dam would entail the largest inundation of conservation land since the proposed Manapouri scheme in the 1960s. Forest & Bird played a leading role in saving Manapouri. Forest & Bird is one of the key organisations that have appealed the commissioners’ decision to the Environment Court. Whitewater NZ and WC Environmental Network Photo: Craig Potton

10| Forest & Bird

have also appealed, as well as the Director-General of Conservation (DOC). DOC’s involvement is very important because it has the expertise and resources to provide a full answer to Meridian in the Environment Court. As well as the resource consents (under the Resource Management Act) Meridian needs to build and operate the dam, it also needs permission from the Minister of Conservation under the Conservation Act to use the land. Meridian had previously lodged applications for that permission, either by a concession – basically a permit to use the land – or through a land exchange – Meridian would exchange some non-conservation land for the Mokihinui land so Meridian would become the owner of the dam site. However, Meridian has since withdrawn those applications, and it is unclear whether, or when, new applications will be lodged. The Minister’s decision must be in line with the purposes of the Conservation Act. It is hard to see how granting permission could ever meet that test, given the huge loss of indigenous biodiversity that would result. n Erika Toleman

How you can help Write to Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson to ask her to protect the Mokihinui from damming. Visit the Mokihinui River to appreciate its pristine beauty. Donate to Forest & Bird’s Mokihinui campaign to help pay the estimated $100,000 legal costs of the appeal. See www.forestandbird.org.nz or post to PO Box 631, Wellington.

Mining U-turn a win for nature F

orest & Bird members and supporters should be proud that their efforts – and those of many thousands of other passionate New Zealanders – have ensured the threat of mining in our most valuable conservation land has been overcome. After one of Forest & Bird’s most important campaigns of recent years, Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee has bowed to public demands to leave alone the country’s most precious conservation areas. Forest & Bird snatched the initiative in March by making the difficult decision to release the details of the Government’s plans ahead of their official release. The news of the Government’s plans to allow mining in 7000 hectares of core conservation land protected under Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act – in Paparoa National Park, Coromandel and Great Barrier Island – led to an outpouring of support for our wild landscapes and endangered animals and plants. The Government was left in no doubt about the political consequences of ignoring the voices of up to 50,000 people who marched in Auckland and thousands of others who took to the streets in other centres. Almost 38,000 people made submissions on the proposals, one of the biggest responses to a government consultation in recent years. Mr Brownlee had no choice but to back down and on July 20 he announced: n No mining on Schedule 4 land – the most valuable 13 per cent of New Zealand in conservation terms n Future national parks and other areas that qualify for Schedule 4 status will be awarded it automatically n Future applications for minerals access to conservation land will have to be publicly notified Further battles lie ahead as the Government eyes opportunities for mining in the 60 per cent of the conservation estate not in Schedule 4. Mr Brownlee announced plans for aerial surveys of conservation land in Northland and the West Coast to check for mineral prospects and announced other changes that could make mining easier. Economic benefits will have to be taken into account in deciding on future applications for minerals access to conservation land and the Energy and Resources Minister will join the Conservation Minister in signing off on those applications. It is clear the Government still has hopes of digging up more areas of conservation land but, importantly, the most precious areas under Schedule 4 will remain out of bounds. n David Brooks

Valder conservation grants Grants in memory of Lilian Valder are awarded each year for conservation projects. Each grant is usually $1000-$2000, and can be awarded to individual or group projects. Lilian Valder was a significant donor to Forest & Bird’s Waikato branch. The closing date for applications is 30 September 2010. For more information and application forms, contact The secretary Waikato branch Forest & Bird PO Box 11 092 Hillcrest Hamilton 3216 Grants made last year: n Cambridge Tree Trust – to plant native trees and develop walkways beside Waikato River. n Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust – to monitor 75 hihi released in March 2009 Catherine Bryan – for Waikato epiphyte study. n Darren le Roux – for long-tailed bat monitoring equipment in Hamilton. n Rapanui Grey-Faced Petrel Trust – for care of Xcluder fence n Stacey Foster – towards field studies of rats on Rahui Island in Te Urewera National Park

Forest & Bird 2010 annual report For a copy of Forest & Bird’s 2010 annual report and accounts, please contact Nicole Seminiuk at PO Box 631, Wellington 6140 or n.seminiuk@forestandbird.org.nz The annual report can also be downloaded at www.forestandbird.org.nz

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conservation

news

Honda grows trees N

ative trees are shooting up in Auckland thanks to Honda’s TreeFund charity. Honda New Zealand and Auckland Regional Council (ARC) joined forces in 2005 when the TreeFund became sponsor of the council’s Environmental Initiatives Fund (EIF). The fund combines the technical expertise of the ARC and the financial backing of Honda to give community groups, schools, iwi and individuals the opportunity to restore the region’s native ecology. TreeFund also sponsors plantings with regional councils in other parts of New Zealand. Many of the projects involve planting native trees and, since 2005, TreeFund has sponsored 354 grants worth $630,000. What’s more, for every new Honda car sold, TreeFund pays to plant 13 native trees – that’s more than 420,000 nationwide since it began in April 2004. These trees are helping to counter environmental threats by providing natural corridors for birds and insects, preventing erosion and improving air and water quality. Honda New Zealand managing director Graeme Seymour says: “The TreeFund is our way of contributing to improving biodiversity, water quality and other local environmental concerns within New Zealand rather than simply offsetting the greenhouse gases that our products emit in daily use by our customers.”

Forest & Bird field officers are now driving the most fuel-efficient Honda Civic hybrid cars, thanks to the generosity of Honda. “Honda’s contribution to Forest & Bird makes our conservation work easier to achieve, and keeps our carbon footprint as small as possible,” Forest & Bird General Manager Mike Britton says.

From left, Graeme Myer, Graeme Seymour and Akira Makino from Honda New Zealand get stuck in at Duder Regional Park, in Auckland, during a TreeFund planting.

International success stories F

orest & Bird’s international organisation – BirdLife – has recently made great strides in forest protection in Indonesia and Brazil. In Indonesia, a massive forest restoration project has been extended by 50,000 hectares, after the Indonesian Government gave the go-ahead in June. Harapan rainforest is one of the last remaining areas of dry lowland Sumatran forest and is one of the most threatened rainforests in the world. It is home to the critically endangered Sumatran tiger, of which fewer than 300 remain in the wild, 55

mammal species, including the globally threatened Asian elephant and Malayan tapir, as well as the world’s rarest stork – storm’s stork. A project to plant more than five million trees has begun in the most degraded areas of the forest to link up the remaining fragments of rich forest. Illegal logging has been reduced and forest fires, which once released significant carbon dioxide emissions, have largely been stamped out. A BirdLife group, including the Indonesian partner, Burung Indonesia, the British RSPB and BirdLife International Secretariat, is running the project. In Brazil, a network of new national parks and nature reserves covering 87,000 hectares along the Atlantic coast was announced in June, after years of campaigning by BirdLife partner SAVE Brasil. The new protection offers hope for many threatened and endemic plants and animals in an area where more than 80 per cent of original forests have been lost to sugar cane and cattle ranches. SAVE Brasil identified the most threatened Important Bird Areas, or IBAs, in south-west Bahia state, which has lush montane Atlantic forest and semi-arid caatinga vegetation. At another IBA site, a new national park was created – Serra das Lontras National Park, where 16 globally threatened bird species occur. Storm’s stork – the world’s rarest stork – is being helped by a BirdLife project in Sumatra.

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Canterbury’s troubled waters O

n June 13 Christchurch’s Cathedral Square sprouted a giant rock cairn and thousands came together for the Reflections on Water rally as part of the Our Water Our Vote campaign. The rally came exactly two months after the introduction of the controversial Environment Canterbury Bill. This surprise bill ejected Environment Canterbury’s 14 elected councillors and replaced them with seven Governmentappointed commissioners. Forest & Bird South Island Conservation Manager Chris Todd says the reflective and atmospheric rally was in reaction to the bill. “It has removed our democratically elected council, changed the laws so that Environment Minister Nick Smith has the power to override the Resource Management Act should he wish, and has weakened national water conservation orders substantially.” Stones were collected from the Waimakariri and other rivers around the South Island to build a two-metre tall rock cairn in Cathedral Square. “It’s the symbol of the campaign,” Todd says. “It was built by the crowd, which was a great thing, passing the stones hand to hand.” He says the sixtonne structure will stay in the square “for a very long time”. “We got permission to put up a temporary structure and it will stay there until we get our councillors back. The funny thing is that with this thing sitting right in the middle of the square, there has not been a murmur from a politician or local councillor.” In the run-up to the rally, volunteers distributed 150,000 leaflets in and around Christchurch. Todd says it was the biggest meeting in the square for a long time with some 3000 people turning out. Anglican Bishop Victoria Matthew blessed the cairn with water from the Waimakariri, and farmers, poets and musicians took the stage to share their views. Among the speakers were veteran Coast to Coast race campaigner Robin Judkins, media studies student Morgan Waru, farmer Brian Deans, poet laureate Brian Turner, Maori vocalist Ariana Tikao, and mountaineer Lydia Bradey, all of whom urged the return of Canterbury’s democratic rights. In other news, in late June, Lincoln University ecology professor Ken Hughey was appointed to a new Canterbury water committee after Forest & Bird forced a selection turnaround. He is one of seven members of the HurunuiWaiau zone committee – the first set up under Canterbury’s water management strategy. Forest & Bird publicly criticised Environment Canterbury for stacking the new river group by excluding anyone with environmental expertise. And on July 21, Environment Minister Nick Smith agreed to the Environment Canterbury Commissioners placing a moratorium on new water takes from the Hurunui River and its tributaries from August 1 to October 1 next year. To watch video of the event, read some of the speeches and learn more about the campaign visit www.ourwaterourvote.org.nz n Sophie Bond

In brief Ruapehu lodge: Forest & Bird’s new Ruapehu lodge has opened, almost two years since it burned down. Some finishing touches are still needed, but bookings can now be made. Work began on building the new 32-bed lodge in February, with Forest & Bird Executive member Jon Wenham overseeing the project. The lodge was built in an environmentally friendly way. A modular construction process was used, in which panels were pre-made in Matamata then assembled onsite, to reduce the amount of waste produced at the site. The lodge has double-glazed aluminium windows and is well-insulated. The outside cladding is locally grown lawson cyprus, which is more durable that radiata pine. Thank you to all Forest & Bird members and branches who have donated to the lodge appeal. Bookings: office@forestandbird.org.nz

Forest & Bird on facebook: Forest & Bird now has almost 2000 followers on Facebook, the free social media website. We are posting information on conservation issues, which are reaching many nonmembers. The Facebook page has increased visits to our website. You don’t need to be a Facebook member to see our page – go to www.facebook.com/forestandbird Magazines for sale: Back issues of Forest & Bird magazine are for sale at $7.50 each. To order copies, please go to the shop at www.forestandbird.org.nz or phone 04 385 7374. Uphill pest control: Forest & Bird member and Wellington vet Andy Maloney is raising funds for the UK Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) project to get rid of the kiore (Pacific rat) on Henderson Island, near Pitcairn Island. He begins a sponsored walk and bike ride from Wellington to Mt Ruapehu in October. See http://killtherats.homestead.com Forest & Bird

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conservation

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Junior albatross campaigners A

n Antarctic adventure has inspired Auckland twins Maiya and Sophia Wells to campaign for better protection of albatrosses. The nine year olds travelled on a small cruise boat from South America to the Antarctic Peninsula and nearby islands with their Mum, Audrey, and aunt, Sue, last summer. They saw colonies of albatrosses and learnt more about the ocean wanderers while on board their cruise boat. Many thousands of albatrosses are killed every year when they are caught in fishing long lines, and the twins would like to see better fishing methods used to reduce albatross bycatch deaths. When they returned home, they started raising money for albatross protection through sausage sizzles and other events. They created a display to show people the threats to albatrosses. In June, the girls visited Forest & Bird’s Wellington office to present a cheque for $1280. It will go towards Forest & Bird’s campaign to improve fishing practices to save albatross lives. Forest & Bird Senior Fundraiser Kerin Welford said she was grateful for Maiya and Sophia’s fundraising work, and

was delighted to see a new generation of professional fundraisers in the making. “I want to fundraise, I want to study nature, and I want to make a difference,” Maiya says.

Above, Maiya and Sophia Wells on their Antarctic cruise, which opened their eyes to the plight of albatrosses. Right, Maiya and Mum Audrey.

We’re still killing our sea lions N

ew Zealand sea lions now have the Department of Conservation’s highest endangered ranking – “nationally critical” – after a review of marine mammals. There has been a sharp decline in sea lion pups born in recent summers, and the total sea lion population has dropped to an estimated 9800. Forest & Bird wants the Government to take greater steps to protect sea lions from being killed in squid fishing nets. In June, 40 sea lions were estimated to have been killed in squid fishing nets, before the last season was finished.

Every year the Minister of Fisheries sets a limit on the number of sea lions that can be killed in the squid fishing season around the sub-Antarctic islands where sea lions breed. Last year it was set at 76. “Sea lions are now in the same category as kakapo and Maui’s dolphins,” Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Nicola Vallance says. “We wouldn’t allow 76 kakapo to be killed by an industry. One sea lion death in a squid net is too many for a species that is heading at breakneck speed towards extinction.” Forest & Bird would like the sea lion kill quota to zero for the next squid fishing season. The sea lion population would stand a better chance of recovering if the marine mammal sanctuary around the Auckland Islands was extended and if a sanctuary around Campbell Island was created. This would exclude trawlers from the main feeding grounds of the sea lions during this critical time each year but allow other fishing. New Zealand sea lions were once found around mainland New Zealand coasts but now breed in a few colonies on sub-Antarctic islands and a few individuals breed on Otago beaches. They have been classified as a threatened species since 1997. In 1998 the World Conservation Union (IUCN) elevated their threat status by listing them as being in decline.

A sea lion pup in the sub-Antarctic islands.

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HON3554A/FOREST

Every day Aucklanders cart tonnes of soot into the city. How clean is your city? Each year in Auckland vehicles travelling to and from the city release an estimated 390 tonnes of contaminants into the air. We’re only using Auckland city as an example, the problem is nationwide. The smog is a toxic mix of Hydrocarbons (HC), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), and fine particulates, this vehicle pollution is attributed by the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand to be “responsible for 400 deaths annually.”

combined HC and NOx than Euro IV standards for petrol vehicles. Put simply, if all vehicles on Auckland roads achieved the Euro IV petrol standards then emissions would fall to just 4% of current levels. What can you do about it? Well, when the time comes to replace your vehicle, you can make a significant difference by choosing one that meets the Euro IV Petrol, Euro V Diesel, or the more stringent US LEV II standards.

So make a change and we can all move more Although technology has improved in this area, NOx distribution in Auckland quickly towards a future where we can breathe there remains a distinct difference in the levels of easier. All new Honda vehicle emissions fall within the combined HC and NOx emitted by petrol and diesel engines. US LEV II standards. Accepting this reality EU regulators allow diesel vehicles, under the Euro IV diesel standards, to emit 5.6 times more Honda, the world’s largest engine manufacturer.

How smoggy is your area? Find out at www.honda.co.nz/environment Call 0800 255 666 Monday – Friday 8am – 5pm

unfortunate 1 16

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The state mining company thought it could rehome rare native land snails so it could carry on mining at Mt Augustus on the West Coast. Rod Morris finds the move has not gone well, and the snails are dying.

EXPERIMENT A

pparently no one knew there was a rare giant land snail living on Mt Augustus at the Stockton opencast mine near Westport until six empty shells were found by a visiting group from the Nelson Botanical Society. In 2003, when the shells were examined more closely, they were found to be a new species, and one of a handful of worm-eating snails that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to live on the acidic soils above coalbearing sedimentary rocks. You would think the discovery of such a species would be a biologist’s dream, but it was about to become an environmental nightmare. Department of Conservation scientist Kath Walker, who identified those empty shells, visited the mine the next year to search for the snail, later named Powelliphanta augusta. But years of strip mining in the area had destroyed about two-thirds of its habitat. Walker found a small population of snails surviving on the last unmined stump of what had once been Mt Augustus. The snails’ last corner of habitat was on the sedimentary rocks right on top of a seam of premium 1 New Zealand’s largest native land snail – Powelliphanta superba prouseorum – and one of our rarest. Photos: Rod Morris 2 A digger perches on the western edge of the Stockton Plateau, removing all that remains of Mt Augustus.

bituminous coal. This coal, low in ash and sulphur, was mixed in small volumes with other coals from across the Stockton Plateau, and produced a blend of coking coal highly sought after in the steel-making industry. When told of the snails, Solid Energy’s response was that the coal was already contracted to longstanding overseas clients. The rest of Mt Augustus would be mined. Environmentalists were angered that this newly found land snail might lose its last remaining habitat to mining. Solid Energy was taken to the Environment Court for endangering absolutely protected wildlife under the Wildlife Act. The court concluded that “Solid Energy gave no serious consideration to avoidance of the snail habitat in its mining programme”, and that the mining was “an action which is noxious”. The Environment Court judges also said “we think there is little doubt that from the scientific and environmental point of view, the snails should not be moved”. These were strong words from the Environment Court judges, but unfortunately they had no jurisdiction over the state-owned coal company. Stockton Mine was operating under an old coal mining licence predating the 1991 Resource Management Act (RMA). If the RMA had applied, it could have protected the snails. This loophole for Solid Energy allowed any mining activity required to extract the coal on the Stockton Plateau – until 2027. Forest & Bird

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In May 2005, Solid Energy asked for a permit from the Department of Conservation to translocate some snails, though the company planned to begin mining regardless of whether the permit was granted. In December 2005, Forest & Bird obtained a declaration from the High Court under the Wildlife Act requiring Solid Energy to get permission from the Minister of Conservation and Minister of Energy for this translocation, as well as any transfer of heavy machinery and any impact on habitat. Permission was granted in April 2006 for a translocation that was much more rigorous than Solid Energy had originally proposed. Solid Energy presented its plan to the Minister of Conservation to remove all the snails by hand and hold the snails in safe storage until they could be released somewhere else. Using a vegetation direct transfer technique, the company said diggers could scoop up the habitat and transfer this magic carpet of biodiversity on the back of trucks to another site of prepared ground. The Department of Conservation would be involved as consultants, and benefit in other ways as new snail research programmes were started – all funded by Solid Energy – involving snail surveying, monitoring and translocation, as well as a captive breeding and rearing. The then Minister of Conservation, Chris Carter, issued a Wildlife Permit to Solid Energy to remove the snails and put them in captivity so mining could resume. It was calculated at first that about six refrigerators would be needed to house the 600 or so snails remaining

in the wild. But the snails collected were 10 times that number. A total of 6139 live snails were collected, along with 8057 empty shells and 1116 snail eggs – enough snails to line three large refrigerated containers, each stacked to the ceiling with two-litre containers, each holding one snail. The higher numbers of snails created a huge amount of extra work for DOC. I sometimes visit the captive facility when I pass through Hokitika. There is always someone carefully weighing and measuring the snails, and new research projects are always under way at the facility – the latest looking into optimal temperature and humidity requirements to induce mating and egg-laying in captivity. Now there are only about 1600 snails and 300 odd eggs remaining in the captive facility because the rest have been moved. In 2006-2007 many were returned to the wild. About 1600 went to an area just north-west of the original wild site. Another 2300 snails and 399 eggs went to two sites at Mt Rochfort, south of the Stockton mining area. In each release site, about 50 snails had transponders on them. The sites were intensively monitored for the first 18 months. The average death rate of tagged snails was 30 per cent. Landcare Research computer modelling predicted that with such a high death rate, the snails would not survive in the wild. I wonder if DOC continues to keep so many snails in the Hokitika fridges because people fear for the snails’ future in the outside world.

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have a personal interest in Powelliphanta. I have read many stories over the past four years and I was interested in forming my own opinion about how things have progressed. I requested, through DOC, a visit to the mine to see for myself. I raise the following points in the interests of a free and open exchange of ideas, rather than any public criticism. At the oldest vegetation direct transfer site about 800 metres north of the snails’ original habitat, larger trees with deep roots damaged during the transfer process are dead or struggling. It’s a harsh environment and for many of the plants the shock of the direct transfer has been too much. No doubt physically scraping deep-rooted shrubs off shallow rocky ground with only shallow soils is difficult. Among the natives that have survived, fast-growing “weedy” species predominate, especially mountain flax whose seedlings are taking advantage of the disturbed ground and lack of competition. Scattered throughout this transfer site are introduced weed species such as the rush Juncus squarrosus and gorse. It’s just not working. The once complex mosaic of dense, low sub-alpine scrub and deep undisturbed litter essential for the snails has gone. A researcher has collected many different species of native earthworms – all new to science. Yet the number so far collected is still a fraction of the species the wild snails find to eat – we know there are more from the genetic material in the snails’ faeces. So our knowledge of earthworm biodiversity on the plateau is likely to double,

perhaps even treble, as this research progresses. I found the discussion fascinating, but while we scratch at the surface of biological knowledge, the massive earth-moving equipment of a full-scale, open-cast mining operation ploughs on. It is destroying the untold riches of a complex earthworm fauna in these “poor” acidic soils. Our little bit of knowledge has come at a great cost – a Faustian bargain. Open-cast mining is about as destructive as it gets – it is soul destroying. This is not what we should be doing to our biodiversity. Efforts at habitat restoration for Powelliphanta augusta at Stockton Mine are unlikely ever to succeed. The disturbance caused by shifting the original habitat has effectively destroyed it, and disturbing the ground to considerable depth beneath the new site will have destroyed an earthworm fauna essential to the snails’ survival. It has the air of an unfortunate experiment.

3 Chris Gerraty monitors each snail’s progress in captivity at DOC’s Hokitika fridges. 4 The sumo wrestler of snails, Powelliphanta superba, about to make dinner of a native earthworm on the forest floor. 5 Four years after this snail habitat was shifted by Solid Energy’s vegetation direct transfer technique, larger trees are dead or struggling. Photos: Rod Morris

MT AUGUSTUS WESTPORT

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Empty shells

Bleak future

Most of us will never see a giant native land snail in our lifetime, but it is possible to find an empty shell beside a track in the bush. The shells are distinctive – large and often patterned in beautiful shades of red, brown, yellow and black. The chances are any shell you find will bear signs of a predator – either sucked dry and squashed flat by a feral pig, gouged around the entire outer rim by a possum, or gnawed and rasped by a rat. The animal inside – some as rare as kakapo and kiwi – will have been eaten.

Other Powelliphanta habitat is threatened by projects including: Mokihinui Dam (Meridian) By flooding colonies: Powelliphanta lignaria unicolorata Powelliphanta lignaria ruforadiata Powelliphanta lignaria lignaria By associated road widening and transmission line construction Powelliphanta lignaria rotella Powelliphanta lignaria lusca Powelliphanta patrickensis

Ship rats with a finished meal of Powelliphanta. The shell shows classic rat gnawing.

Stockton Mine (Solid Energy) Powelliphanta patrickensis Cypress open-cast coal mine at Happy Valley (Solid Energy) Powelliphanta patrickensis Denniston Plateau open-cast coal mine (L&M) Powelliphanta patrickensis Rewanui open-cast coal mine (Solid Energy) Powelliphanta gagei Kirwans Hill – tungsten and gold extraction (Auzex Resources) Powelliphanta “Kirwans”

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society

CONSERVATION CALENDAR 2011

NEW ZEALAND CONSERVATION DIARY 2011

New Zealand

Conservation Calendar

NEW ZEALAND

Conservation Diary

2011

By purchasing this calendar you are contributing FOREST to conservation work in New Zealand & BIRD

R O YA L F O R E S T A n d B I R d P R O T E C T I O n S O C I E T Y | 2 0 1 1

Stunning photos of New Zealand’s native flora and fauna taken by some our leading nature photographers. Envelope supplied; weight less than 200 gms for economical posting.

includes post and packaging

This beautifully produced diary includes photographs of New Zealand landscapes, plants and wildlife. It includes ‘week to view’ pages and is spiral bound so it will lie flat when open.

includes post and packaging

Both calendar and diary are available now. Send orders with cheque and delivery details to: Craig Potton Publishing, PO Box 555, Nelson 7010, New Zealand PHONE +64 3 548 9009 FAX +64 3 548 9456 EMAIL maree@cpp.co.nz WEB www.craigpotton.co.nz To order by credit card, refer to the Forest and Bird website: www.forestandbird.org.nz

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Awesome

PART

Aotearoa 1

Sometimes it takes a foreigner to make us realise how much we take for granted New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique native plants and animals. Englishman Julian Fitter is so impressed with our variety of life that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s written a field guide to it. Forest & Bird

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PART 1

he plants and animals of Aotearoa New Zealand are incredibly special. Not only are about 80 per cent of all New Zealand’s native species found nowhere else on Earth, but the variety and mix are amazing. Despite this, most Kiwis are unaware of the special nature of our wildlife. Seventy-five million years ago, a small chunk of the supercontinent of Gondwana detached itself from what was to become Antarctica and Australia. It drifted west at a steady 25 millimetres a year. Seventy-five million years later that chunk of Gondwana is still moving west towards South America, and is now known as Aotearoa or New Zealand, a land of birds, reptiles, of forest and mountains, a land of lichens, ferns and insects, of giant snails, braided rivers, glaciers and volcanoes. It was the last major land mass to be found and settled by that ironically named species Homo sapiens. I discovered New Zealand far too late in life, and when I did it took me a while to appreciate the uniqueness of the country and its native inhabitants. Many New Zealanders do not appear to understand or appreciate the amazing diversity of native plants and animals. Just look at the Tourism New Zealand website and see how little prominence it is given. Adventure sports, volcanics and scenery feature, but the only wildlife are the dolphins at Kaikoura. This seeming indifference to the real New Zealand is maybe in part due to familiarity. I have the advantage of a being a newcomer. I have experienced and appreciated the natural history of Europe, Africa and South America, including isolated archipelagos such as the Galapagos, the Falklands and Tristan da Cunha. Wonderful though much of the wildlife is in these places, it does not really compare with what we have in New Zealand. My time here has been a voyage of discovery as I have gradually become familiar with kakapo and kokako, with powelliphanta snails and tuatara, and with pittosporums and podocarps. It look me a while, even after I had

started to research my book on New Zealand’s wildlife, to appreciate that what we have here is the most remarkable and unusual biodiversity found almost anywhere on Earth. New Zealand has the highest level of endemism of any major land area. Here, 80 per cent of native species are endemic, or found only in New Zealand. This is largely because the islands have been isolated for so long. High-profile places such as Hawaii (50 per cent) and the Galapagos Islands (30 per cent) trail far behind. The largest single reason for New Zealand’s amazing wildlife was the separation of New Zealand from Gondwana, so only the species already on board, or able to cross the gradually widening Tasman Sea, would be here. Since then, two events probably had more impact than most – the Oligocene Drowning 25 million years ago, which reduced the country to a collection of islands, and the last ice age, which, as recently as 20,000 years ago, lowered sea levels by more than 100 metres and joined all three islands into a single land mass. The most significant feature of the biodiversity is the almost complete lack of native land mammals. Recent finds indicate that small rat-like mammals were here some 16 million years ago, but in recent history there have been only three native land mammals – all bats. In the absence of mammals, birds were the top predators and the chief herbivores. They did not need to fly, and plants did not have to find ways to protect themselves from hoofed herbivorous mammals that consumed not just grasses and herbaceous plants but entire trees and shrubs. This has resulted in what in other parts of the world would seem like a very unbalanced wildlife. But it’s what makes New Zealand so amazing. PART 2 of Awesome Aotearoa will appear in the November Forest & Bird magazine Book review, page 63 3

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Only in NZ Since New Zealand left Gondwana 75 million years ago, only species already here or that have been able to cross the ever widening Tasman Sea have become established. New Zealand has some huge points of difference. It is not just individual species that are found only here – the genus, family and even order of some plants and animals is found nowhere else in the world.

Order endemic Tuatara – Sphenotidae

Family endemic Kiwi – Apterygidae 5

Similar but different Many species develop from a single ancestor. One of the best-known examples is Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands. Darwin found 14 species have evolved from one original species. In New Zealand, five species of kiwi are all geographically distinct. The fernbird has five sub-species in different parts of the country, as does the tomtit, and there are four sub-species of bellbird. This phenomenon – called adaptive radiation – is also found with native skinks and geckos, with new species still found regularly. Weta have really gone to town, with at least 110 species of this distinctly New Zealand insect. In the plant world, there are more than 100 species of hebe, some with very limited distribution.

Kokako, saddleback – Callaeadidae Rifleman, rock wren – Acanthisittidae Lesser short-tailed bat – Mystacinidae Archey’s, Hamilton’s, Maud island and Hochstetter’s frog – Leiopelmatidae All geckos, at least 46 species – Hoplodactylus and Naultinus

Genus endemic Kakapo – Strigops Stitchbird – Notiomystis Fernbird – Bowdleria Yellowhead, whitehead, brown creeper – Mohoua Rock wren – Xenicus Peripatus – Peripatoides Giant land snail – Powelliphanta

1 A pair of rifleman nesting in a tree hollow. New Zealand’s smallest bird belongs to an ancient endemic family, Acanthisittidae. Photo: Rod Morris 2 The tuatara has its own endemic order. Photo: Michael Hamilton 3 The lancewood belongs in an endemic genus. It matures into a mop-top of leaves. Photo: Craig McKenzie 4 The juvenile lancewood’s leaves have a different shape and angle. Photo: Craig McKenzie 5 New Zealand has more than 120 species of hebe.

Win a book

We have three copies of Julian Fitter’s Bateman Field Guide to Wild New Zealand to give away to readers. To enter the draw, please put your name and address on the back of an envelope and post to Field Guide Draw, Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington. Or email your entry to draw@forestandbird.org.nz Please put Field Guide in the subject line and include your name and address in the email. Entries close on September 30.

Leaf-veined slug – Pseudaneitea Black mountain ringlet butterfly – Percnodaimon Cabbage tree moth – Epiphryne Giant weta – Deinacrida Sooty beech scale – Ultracoelostoma Kawaka, pahautea – Libocedrus Pink pine – Halocarpus Kahikatea – Dacrycarpus Tanekaha, toatoa, mountain toatoa – Phyllocladus Nikau palm – Rhopalostylis Grass trees, 30-plus species – Dracophyllum Puriri – Vitex Lancewood – Pseudopanax Pohutakawa, rata (11 species) – Metrosideros Karo, kohuhu, black maipou – Pittosporum (22 species) Tree daisies, 46 species – Olearia Hebe, 120-plus species – Hebe Tree fern, 3 species – Dicksonia Vegetable sheep, 25 species – Raoulia Forest & Bird

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Tearing up our

heartland Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Nicola Vallance grew up in the wild expanses of the Mackenzie Country, so she has a personal drive to save it from intensive dairy farming.

he Mackenzie Country is one of those special places that make us proud to be New Zealanders. Tawny tussocklands, the white spires of the Southern Alps and fresh blue lakes add up to a big sky country. As New Zealanders we know it’s special, so does the tourism industry, the international film industry and the thousands of overseas visitors who flock to these sweeping vistas. Artist Grahame Sydney describes our landscapes as the “theatre of our dreams”, and scores of our finest painters and poets draw on the Mackenzie for inspiration. I, too, have a personal reason for being such a passionate proponent for the Mackenzie. I grew up there, and spent a wonderful childhood shooting rabbits, riding horses and rambling across the wide open landscapes. This semi-arid basin is the driest region in New Zealand, and at first glance can appear devoid of life. But beneath those shimmering tussocks and scattered across those

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braided rivers are a huge range of plants and animals. Imagine the tussock as a forest canopy, and you will understand the scale of the native plants and animals living in the Mackenzie. Tucked within the tussock are incredible examples of endurance – weta that can freeze and thaw out again to go about their daily business. Vegetable sheep cling to rocky outcrops that even the most hardcore climber would shy away from, and in spring, tiny pinhead-sized bouquets of alpine flowers burst forth in celebration. The Mackenzie Basin is a treasure chest of our special native plants and has the dubious honour of being home to 40 per cent of Canterbury’s threatened plant species, with 68 species found in this vast landscape. Fourteen species of native fish follow the twists and turns of the braided rivers and any significant change to water flows could leave them high and dry. Eight species of New Zealand’s threatened birds are found here, including the critically endangered kaki, or black stilt. Many of those birds can only exist on the wide, open gravel fans of the braided rivers, so any change to the habitats means that the birds have nowhere to go – except extinction. Despite more than 100 years of pastoral farming, the area retains the largest array of interconnected tiny refuges of dryland flora and fauna.

1 A massive irrigated circle encroaches on the natural Mackenzie Basin. Looking towards Lake Ohau, an ecologically significant outwash plain is to the right, with Ben Ohau top right and a series of lagoons and tarns to the left. Photo: Peter Scott 2 Nicola Vallance growing up in the Mackenzie. 3 The weta Hemiandrus found in the Mackenzie. Photo: Warren Chinn 4 White caltha (Psychrophila obtuse). Photo: John Barkla

MACKENZIE COUNTRY

5 Ranunculus sericophyllus. Photo: John Barkla 6 The Mackenzie’s little beauties … yellow snow marguerite (Dolichoglottis lyallii). Photo: John Barkla

The tourism industry describes the Mackenzie Country as “one of the jewels in New Zealand’s crown”, with the value of high-country tourism estimated at $4 billion a year to our economy. According to the Tourism Industry Association, the area “represents a unique opportunity for New Zealand to nurture and showcase an environment that is nationally and internationally significant”. Threats to the Mackenzie Country are real. Thousands of wilding pines march across the tussocks, rabbits destroy vast areas of the valley floor and invasive weeds such as hieracium have made their mark. Despite this, native plants and animals have endured, and the landscape looks much as it did when the first Europeans arrived. The greatest threat to New Zealand’s desert dwellers – the often tiny, yet tenacious inhabitants of the Mackenzie Country – is new development, such as irrigation. Huge pivot irrigators are a great tool for dairy farmers, allowing complete control over the environment. However, they annihilate native plants and animals by creating a monoculture of pasture, without any refuge for dry-adapted native wildlife. By soaking the land, fertilising the pasture and creating vast bright green circles of grass and crops, the ancient dun-coloured landscape is being stained a lurid shade of green. This is no place for native wildlife. The northern Mackenzie area, between Lakes Pukaki and Tekapo, remains in Crown-owned pastoral leases. This has some of the best examples of relatively unmodified golden tussock landscape, all in the shadow of our highest mountains. Aoraki/Mt Cook, Mt Sefton and

Mt Tasman stand sentinel over the sweeping changes occurring below. The onslaught of subdivisions, development and intensive dairy farming are an insult to these ancient guardians.

Going, going, gone Five Crown pastoral lease properties in the Mackenzie Basin are currently under tenure review. Farmers who lease this land have chosen to negotiate with the Crown so that some of the land is transferred to the Department of Conservation and the farmer gets freehold title to the rest. These properties range from Lakes Pukaki to Tekapo, which is heartland Mackenzie Country. The Department of Conservation recommended this area as a tussock drylands park. However, early indications suggest that more than 31,000 hectares will instead be freeholded, with only 6000ha recommended for protection in Crown ownership and a further roughly 6000ha in private QEII covenants. The area that may be freeholded, or privatised, is about the size of 192 Hagley Parks. Past experience in other high country areas shows that once land is freeholded, it tends to become subdivided, developed, or intensively farmed – after more than a century of relatively low-intensity land use for grazing sheep or cattle. With more intensive farming comes large-scale irrigation and corporate dairy farming, including indoor cubicle dairy farms. Wildlife that survived on grazing land vanishes. Forest & Bird

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Admiral of the

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BACKYARD conservation

butterfly fleet Broadcaster Graeme Hill risks personal injury to help a declining native species. By Mandy Herrick.

uckland broadcaster, nature nut and butterfly breeder Graeme Hill has a special loathing for the paper wasp. “I hate paper wasps,” he steams, and balls up his hands. “It’s almost personal,” he boils. “I skulk around the garden rooting out nests then I gleefully record my body count.” Defending defenceless butterflies, he admits, is waging an unwinnable war. “Paper wasps are long-legged, and their undercarriage hangs down – they’re like German fighter planes over Poland. I’m here to protect this ghetto of butterflies. And it’s not just Nazi paper wasps that we’re up against, there’s a whole army of introduced pests that charmingly eat them from the inside out.’’ This ghetto is in fact a well-furnished home for butterflies, complete with all varieties of nettles from European and New Zealand forest nettle to the more lethal native ongaonga (Urtica ferox). It’s an unfortunate fact that our endemic red admiral butterfly (Vanessa gonerilla) and our native yellow admiral (Vanessa itea) breed on nettles. In the late 1920s red admirals were described as very common. But by ripping out nettles, we’ve put the caterpillars on a starvation diet, and now the butterflies rarely grace our skies. To feed red admirals (kahukura in Maori) and yellow admirals (kahukowhai in Maori), Hill started growing nettles five years ago in his Grey Lynn garden, and built a wire mesh cage to house caterpillars and pupae. So far, he has released more than 500 yellow admiral butterflies. Disappointingly, very few red admirals have laid their eggs on his nettles – the reds being more abundant in the south. He advises any aspiring butterfly breeder to research the different types of nettle then source caterpillars from local enthusiasts. Hill has a special affection for ongaonga. “It’s the big, nasty one. It killed a tramper in 1967, and paralysed his partner for a while.” Hill has felt its sting but remains unfazed. “It’s like a quarter of a bee sting. It’s one of those few native plants that fights back. It’s a warrior. And it’s a tremendous security device.”

Hill has launched an “Operation nettle” campaign to help admirals. He offered listeners on his radio show free native nettle seed and a pamphlet about the plight of admirals, and hundreds took up the offer. As well as breeding butterflies, Hill is the recent owner of two Auckland geckos and, when he’s not eliminating paper wasps, he’s netting flies for this lovestruck duo. Hill grew up surrounded by native bush and a menagerie of animals, so animal husbandry comes naturally to him. He was on the home straight of a zoology degree when a chainsaw accident and illness stopped him in his tracks. A music career flourished, but now broadcasting allows him to marry his two passions – natural history and the arts. On Radio Live’s airwaves, Hill has backed many Forest & Bird campaigns, and he’s fought his own campaign to raise the profile of the grey warbler. “New Zealand is utterly unique. We’re as good as Madagascar in terms of natural history. We are the last place on earth to be inhabited by humans, barring Antarctica, but we’ve only got a tiny slice of what we had left. We’ve lost the piopio, the huia and Adams mistletoe.” For Hill, breeding butterflies and geckos is an act of patriotism. Graeme Hill 10-2pm Saturdays and Sundays on Radio Live Environews 11.30am every Saturday

1 A red admiral deftly avoids the stinging spines of native ongaonga. Photo: Rod Morris 2 Graeme Hill in his backyard with red admiral caterpillars. Photo: Crispin Anderlini

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How to breed red and yellow admiral butterflies in your backyard By Graeme Hill

Most admiral action takes place from spring to late autumn. In the winter they mostly hibernate on the warm side of trees.

DIY conservation

Read up on our butterflies and get to know how they live and what they do. Eliminate as many paper wasp nests that you can spot without annoying your neighbours. Annoy your neighbours if necessary. More southern climes are not so afflicted by these particular beasts but there is suite of nasties that eat admirals, from egg to chrysalis.

Join the Monarch Butterfly Trust so you can ask questions and share information. Egg and caterpillar stock are generously shared. Source locally, though some of our stock flies in from Australia.

Get some nettle and grow it outside. All nettles sting. Use gloves if you don’t like the stings. I find them a minor annoyance. A chrysalis hanging safely in Native nettle is, Graeme Hill’s garden. strangely, harder to Photo: Graeme Hill grow in the backyard. European nettle is vigorous and easy to transplant if you take some earth and roots with it. It is found on semi-shaded rich pasture edges, but it is officially a weed so wear a balaclava. Native nettles can be bought from Oratia Native Nursery in Auckland. The Chatham island version has leaves as big as cabbages.

Build a protected cage for caterpillars. A box of any sort will do as long as the caterpillars can’t get out and nasties can’t get in. Airflow and some sunlight are important so a fine insect mesh should be used on at least two sides. The bigger the box, the more caterpillars it will accommodate. I keep a dozen or more caterpillars in a 60cm x 40cm x 40cm wooden affair and top it up as they pupate.

Put growing potted nettle in the cage or cut branches and put them in water just like you would with a bunch of flowers. They stay fresh for days. Add caterpillars.

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Give them plenty of food and clean out their poo regularly. They should crawl up to the roof of your box when they’re ready and hang like a J and then turn into a chrysalis. They will hatch in a couple of weeks. Don’t despair if there are failures. Some can get stuck trying to emerge and they’re gonners if they can’t fly well.

Release the butterflies when hatched and flapping about. You might want to tempt them with a little fruit juice to set them off fuelled up. Keep an eye out for eggs and little caterpillars on your outdoor nettles. They make little tents out of the leaves and like to chew from the inside. You will probably spot their little black dot poos first. Return to point 5.

Cats make jellymeat of

bats

It’s not surprising that bat numbers are in decline when they are such easy targets for introduced predators. By Ruth Nichol.

epartment of Conservation staff had to mount a CSI-style investigation to identify the killer of 102 short-tailed bats in a series of attacks on the southern slopes of Mt Ruapehu in March. When the Ohakune-based staff first came across the grisly aftermath of the first attack – the wings and bodies of about 43 bats scattered on the ground – they assumed the culprit was a stoat, which are known bat predators. But despite trapping a stoat near the “Notre Dame” roost in the Rangataua Forest where the massacre took place, the death toll kept rising. Eventually, thanks to tests carried out by a Massey University pathologist, they fingered their criminal – a feral cat, which they caught in a trap near the roost. “When we first sent samples to Massey, the pathologist told us it couldn’t be a stoat that killed the bats – they said it was either a cat or a ferret,” says DOC scientist Jess Scrimgeour. “So we put out a cat trap and caught a tiny male tabby. We sent hair from the cat to be analysed, along with hair we found on some dead bats, and there was a match.” She says the attacks provide clear evidence of the danger cats pose to our native wildlife. “I don’t think many people realise what skilled predators cats really are”. Scrimgeour was particularly shocked by how many bats the cat killed – more than 100 in just seven days. “In terms of the total population of the colony it wasn’t too bad but if we hadn’t trapped the cat, who knows how many more it might have killed. It would have been even worse if it had been a maternity roost, where all the

females go to one big tree with their vulnerable pups.” The cat carried out its deadly activities even though Scrimgeour and her colleagues were filming the roost at night as part of a bat-monitoring project. “We never saw the cat at all during that time.” The monitoring project continues work started in the area by Forest & Bird bat surveys officer Brian Lloyd. He says that despite working in the Rangataua Forest for almost 10 years, he never saw any signs of cats killing bats, nor any evidence of cats in the forest. However, he says that finding a short-tailed bat roost would not be difficult for a cat. “They wouldn’t just stumble on it – the noise and smell of an active colonial roost would be enough to bring a predator in from considerable distances.” No one is sure how the cat caught the bats. It could have climbed the tree and hooked the bats with its paw as they flew out of their roost, or it could have climbed inside a tree cavity and up to the roosting bats. Scrimgeour says the incident is an example of the damage that can caused when people dump their unwanted cats. “The cat we found was about 7 kilometres away from the nearest township. It must have been left or dumped there in the first place, or been bred from the feral population, which usually starts from other unwanted or runaway cats.” Cat owners should have their pets neutered. “If no domestic cat has a chance to breed then they cannot add to the wild population, and the problems of cat predation for our native wildlife would become more manageable.”

1 Rats, stoats and cats are the main predators of short-tailed bats. Photo: Brian Lloyd 2 A feral cat caught more than 100 bats at a bat roost in Rangataua Forest, near Ohakune, over seven days, leaving wings and bodies at the base of two trees almost daily before being captured. Photo: DOC

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Precious

Paparoa

Conservationists worked hard to create Paparoa National Park – and they fought just as hard to protect it from mining. By Dave Hansford.

here is still a place you can go and see Aotearoa the way it used to be. It’s called Paparoa, and it stands on the South Island’s West Coast, squarely in the path of sodden, slate-grey clouds that rumble off the Tasman Sea. They run aground on the Paparoa Range and rupture; rain gauges tell of deluges that add up to six metres every year. On Paparoa’s limestone mantle, water becomes a mild acid, etching the rock into fantastic forms. Over millennia, it has created canyons and caves, bored tunnels and chambers beneath the land. Streams vanish into the Earth, only to re-emerge kilometres distant. If this karst landscape is young and dynamic, there is antiquity here too. The granite of Paparoa National Park’s 30

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highest point, Mt Lodge, is the oldest in the land. Paparoa is to a geologist what a rainforest might mean to a biologist; these 30,000 lush hectares are an exposition of rocks and forms and features unlike anything else in New Zealand. For Peter Lusk, Paparoa is so special that he devoted a decade to getting it protected as a national park. When he began in 1977, national parks were about tourist drawcards, like glaciers, or volcanoes, or fiords. But Paparoa was all about an emerging concept - biodiversity. “Not many people got it,” he recalls. “There was a feeling among a lot of West Coast people that there was nothing here ... you know; ‘Where’s the glacier?’ ‘Where are the high peaks? Nobody will come.’ ”

2 Lusk, a member of Forest & Bird and the Buller Conservation Group, says limestone – the compacted corpses of trillions of tiny marine animals – beneath the park nourishes a rich mosaic of forest types. “There’s some wonderful beech/podocarp forest, grading through to pure beech – red and silver – in the eastern blocks, and in that limestone country you get wonderful huge kahikatea.” Those forests support creatures “from little blue penguins to falcons, because you go from a warm coastal strip to high alpine tussock fields in a very short distance”, Lusk says. The Westland black petrel breeds nowhere else, and Paparoa is one of a few strongholds for the great spotted kiwi. Whio, or blue duck, still ply the park’s white water. When the western part of Paparoa Range was declared a national park in 1987, Lusk figured his work was done. In 2002, four more blocks on the park’s eastern boundary – Whitecliffs, Pell Creek, Perseverance and Rosemount – were added to the park in the Timberlands Accord after the Labour government put an end to state native logging on the West Coast. In 2008, thanks to their high conservation values – tracts of red and silver beech and tall podocarps – the blocks were added to Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, which theoretically put them beyond the reach of miners. But in March, the National Government announced its now shelved plan to strip those eastern Paparoa forests of Schedule 4 protection to allow for a minerals “stocktake”. The blocks sit above a very small corner of the vast Inangahua coalfield, estimated to hold nearly six million tonnes of recoverable coal, and stretching from north of the Buller Gorge south almost to Reefton. The field supports five mines – operating on land outside Paparoa National Park – that produce about 120,000 tonnes of various grades of coal every year. Four current permits cover parts of the eastern Paparoa blocks: a prospecting permit for all minerals that overlaps Whitecliffs and Perseverance; one for coal exploration – held by state coal miner Solid Energy – that overlaps Rosemount and Pell Creek; one for open-cast coal mining in Whitecliffs; and another for mining gold, garnet and gemstones in Whitecliffs. Solid Energy says the area covered by its permit could hold more than 40 million tonnes of coal. But letting the miners back into Paparoa, says Lusk, would have been a huge step backwards for New Zealand. “You only have to look at a map to see how little lowland forest is left; to see that it’s a precious place.”

Forest & Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell says there’s plenty of coal outside the national park. “But the reason they wanted the coal on public land was they wouldn’t have had to pay to get at it.” Eighty per cent of the eastern Paparoa blocks is unlogged, protected by high cliffs left by retreating glaciers. Loggers walked off the remaining lowland terraces decades ago, and they now nourish healthy beech forest, offering valuable sanctuary to some of the country’s most threatened wildlife - great spotted kiwi, kaka, yellowcrowned kakariki and kereru. DSIR bird counts from the 1970s showed these and other species flee the chill uplands every winter, swarming into these lower, warmer eastern blocks from nearby forest, much of it unprotected. “Those blocks are vital to the ecological integrity of the entire Paparoa Range,” Hackwell says. The blocks’ topography practically prescribes open-cast mining, meaning much of their forest cover would have been destroyed and the crystal streams polluted. In Parliament on 4 May 2010, Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee said the Inangahua blocks were added to Paparoa “against the advice of the local conservation board and against the advice of the Department of Conservation at the time”. He neglected to add that, as revealed by a DOC briefing obtained by Forest & Bird under the Official Information Act, the blocks were considered to have high conservation values but weren’t recommended because of their “considerable mining potential”. Forest & Bird Distinguished Life Member Gerry McSweeney was part of an expert panel that assessed the ecological values of all the former Timberlands forests, including the Inangahua blocks, in 2001. The eco-tourism operator and long-time conservation campaigner says

1 A tranquil wetland in Paparoa National Park’s Rosemount block. Photo: Debs Martin 2 Limestone beneath the park nourishes a rich mosaic of plants and fungi. Photo: Debs Martin

3 Yellow-crowned kakariki are found in Paparoa National Park.

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The diverse plant life found in the Pell Creek block of Paparoa National Park. Photo: Debs Martin

they found “high and medium” conservation values in the blocks. The panel recommended they be added to Paparoa, and the Labour Government and the New Zealand Conservation Authority agreed. “Minister Brownlee is wrong in his claim that these areas are not suitable as national park,” says McSweeney. “His claims show his poor understanding of the process. “Unfortunately, for those of us in the nature tourism industry, the damage to New Zealand’s reputation and environmental credibility has already been severe. Shortsighted ministers like Mr Brownlee and Tourism Minister John Key have no idea how bad it is to have The Guardian and The Economist slamming our green credentials,” McSweeney says. Forest & Bird Executive member Craig Potton

remembers the 10-year battle to win protection for Paparoa. “I’m angry that, within my own lifetime, we’re cynically re-litigating what was a very public, democratic process. To reopen that wound... it’s anathema to me.” Potton says the Government’s proposal to remove areas from Schedule 4 protection represents a gross breach of faith with New Zealanders, and a blatant attempt to privatise their birthright for the benefit of private companies. Kevin Hackwell says mining in Paparoa could have been a Trojan horse that ended up before the gates of every national park in the country. “Thankfully, the Government has realised that national parks shouldn’t be traded away to mining companies. The people have saved Paparoa National Park.”

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PAPAROA NATIONAL PARK & PAPAROA WILDERNESS AREA

Public conservation land

Paparoa National Park

Paparoa Wilderness Area

A split national park Plans to mine Paparoa National Park have highlighted another serious issue for the park, says Kevin Hackwell. “It’s reminded us that this is the most fragmented national park in the country. The boundaries are a nonsense,” he says. Paparoa is perceived as a coastal park, but the area of coast in park protection is very small. Many of the qualities we associate with Paparoa lie largely outside its boundaries. “We fought for the entire range to be a national park, right across to the Inangahua Valley, but what we got instead was the Barrytown syncline, and that was about it,” Hackwell says. “The rest remained a wilderness area. We also have the Buller Scenic Reserve, lots of stewardship land and, after the Timberlands decision, we finally got the eastern blocks, but while these areas are contiguous ecologically – wildlife comes

and goes between them – they’re not all protected equally.” The Paparoa Wilderness Area includes the catchments of the Ohikanui, Ohikaiti and Blackwater rivers in the northeast and the Otututu (Rough) River in the southwest – nearly 32,500 hectares of beech, broadleaf and podocarp forest rising to sub-alpine scrub, tussock grassland and herbfields. It is home, too, to great spotted kiwi, kaka and whio, but was left out of Paparoa National Park. “These nonsensical boundaries are an accident of history,” Hackwell says. “This is the opportunity to redraw Paparoa into a logical national park, which could actually be ecologically and economically useful. Unless we give these tracts the proper protection they deserve, they’ll always be at risk.” n Dave Hansford

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Trusting in

Puketi

A far north forest is very slowly returning to life. Dean Baigent-Mercer ventures into a New Zealand jungle.

mahuta and Puketi forests are joined as one of the last great kauri-podocarp forests left north of Auckland. They cover 17,000 hectares between the Hokianga and Bay of Islands. At the end of the 1990s, forest life in Puketi/Omahuta was in peril. By 1979, logging had ended but possums had just arrived and years went by before pest control began. Rats, stoats, cats, pigs, possums and goats took their toll. In the mid-1990s, entrenched opposition and sometimes violent protests against the use of aerial 1080 in the far north had sabotaged the Department of Conservation’s most effective and economic tool for pest control. The kokako population had plummeted to 15 or 16 birds by 1997 and only one was female. She disappeared in 2000. Kiwi and kukupa (or kereru) populations were dwindling, too. However, Rod Brown of the Far North branch of Forest & Bird had a vision. He talked about creating safe areas where pests were controlled or eliminated from islands in the Bay of Islands and the heart of Puketi. DOC had been bringing kokako back, but pest control was limited to near release areas. Forest & Bird had been lobbying for the necessary pest control for kokako to survive. Four female kokako transferred from Mataraua in 2000/2001 were all killed by predators after they left pest control areas.

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Members of Forest & Bird’s Far North branch were central in creating the Puketi Forest Trust in 2003. They recognised that any change in community feeling towards 1080 would be slow, and urgent action was needed to avoid total forest collapse. The trust has focused on trapping and fast-acting poisons, such as cyanide, that pose little threat to hunting dogs. “The korowai [cloak] of Puketi must not be lost,” says kaumatua Wiremu Wiremu, a Puketi Forest trustee of Piki Te Aroha Marae. “It has become a little ragged, but with the trust and DOC and all of us working together we will revive it. We need each other to make this happen. But before we bring the chicks home, we need to clean up the cradle.” Dr Gary Bramley from the local Forest & Bird branch was instrumental in designing the first ambitious five-year management plan. It sought to rid an area within Puketi of pests and keep their populations low enough to allow reintroductions. Protecting life in the dinosaur forests is not for the fainthearted. Puketi is mostly steep, with a gradient of more than 27 degrees. It’s the closest thing to jungle that we have. Before the army went to East Timor, soldiers trained here and have since. Nearly 100 kilometres of pest control tracks have been cut. Ten lines of stoat and cat traps now cover 5500 hectares.

1 Puketi Forest trustees, from left, John Dawn, Wiremu Wiremu and Dr Gary Bramley. “We obviously support the idea of a national park centred on kauri forest in the north, and think it should include Puketi as well as Waipoua,” Dr Bramley says. Photo: Keri Molloy/The Bay Chronicle 2 The Puketi haresfoot fern (Davallia tasmanii subspecies cristata) lives on a bluff 500 metres long and about 100 metres wide in the Northern Puketi Management Area. This is the whole known world population and has resulted in the fern being listed as Nationally Critical at risk of extinction. Goat browsing is the main threat. Photo: DOC 3 Towering kauri giants of Omahuta/Puketi forest. Photo: Keri Molloy/The Bay Chronicle

Puketi Forest

Restoration Area

Kerikeri

Russell

Paihia

Embedded within this is a protection area of 648 hectares with ramped-up pest control for rats and possums. The air force helped out by dropping in large packages of rat traps into dense bush as part of a training exercise. Right now the rat traps are baited with peanut butter or Ferafeed paste. “Only certain people could handle the work,” DOC biodiversity ranger Dan O‘Halloran says. “It’s repetitive, dangerous, unpleasant, very cold and wet. You’ve got to open a rat trap that’s had a dead rat in it for two weeks, then 25 metres down the track there’s the next one. And you know you’ve got another 1299 more to do.” 2

The trap line around the perimeter of this area is nearly 20 kilometres long and takes four days to complete. The terrain has an elevation range of 450 metres up and down, broken by streams, supplejack-filled gullies, kiekie and Gahnia sedge. It‘s rugged and wet and consequently quite slippery. The work is paying off. “You used to walk into Puketi and occasionally hear a fantail or a myna,” Bramley says. “But now you hear and see birds everywhere. It’s not yet deafening like Kapiti but, compared to what it was, it’s a totally different forest.” The re-awakening of Puketi was boosted by the reintroduction of 30 North Island robins last June and another 30 at Easter this year. At least eight robin chicks have fledged so far. Rifleman and kokako are next in line to return. “We would like to expand the area under rigorous pest control, but that’s dependent on funding support,” Bramley says. “The thing that’s been really gratifying for me is the interest from outside the area. One man was stationed at Puketi during the war at the army training base came up from Taupo and could remember a healthy population of kokako, flocks of pigeons and kiwi because they were camping up here living right in amongst it.” Puketiti was the forest’s original name. “Puke” refers to a hill, “titi” to the cabbage tree. It’s an old name originating from when Maori used the leaves and cylindrical trunks of cabbage trees to slide, drag and roll the Mataatua ancestral waka over land from the Hokianga to the Bay of Islands. Forest & Bird

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Bang for bucks Of the 17,000 hectares that make up Omahuta/Puketi forests, 16,500ha has no rat control, 13,500ha has no possum control and there’s no cat and stoat control in 12,000ha. Fur trappers carry out some possum control near easy access roads but the terrain is mostly too hard for them and uneconomic. Ground-based pest control is very labour-intensive. Current ground control that targets possums costs DOC $45-$60 a hectare. Aerial 1080 drops are $25-$45 a hectare and knock down more pest species. Effectiveness of pest control is measured across the country with a standardised method. It has shown that 6-30 per cent of possums remain after ground control methods are carried out. After an aerial 1080 operation, possum numbers are down to 0-10 per cent, probably because the tops of giant trees and rough terrain aren‘t missed. Testing using the same system has shown possums have been reduced to an impressive 6 per cent in the 648-hectare Puketi core management area by ground control. But large areas of native forest with little or no pest control could benefit were there little opposition to aerial 1080.

Grey warbler. Photo: Craig McKenzie

Warming to Puketi While camping at the Puketi Forest Headquarters, get up before dawn and head down the track to wooden boardwalks beneath the huge kauri. In warm clothes, lie on your back to look up at the ancient spreading kauri crowns. The first rays of sunlight spotlight the hanging gardens: clumps of orchids, spindly tawhirikaro (Pittosporum cornifolium), pendulous ferns and perching kahakaha. As weta, bats, ruru and kiwi head off to rest, you’ll hear early bird tui telling everyone the morning news and weather forecast. The dayshift is in full swing as the squeaky wheelbarrow song of grey warblers begins. If you‘re lucky, you might see a small flock of kukupa, as kereru are called in the north, or tomtits. Eventually you’ll even feel warm…

www.puketi.org.nz 36

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Discover your own backyard

Join the Kiwi Conservation Club Kiwi kids learning about and exploring New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wild life and wild places. Get five issues of our magazine Wild Things from just $19 a year. Join us at www.kcc.org.nz

Conservation pays dividends

It’s time to ditch old views about how to make money from our natural resources. The conservation estate should be treasured as the foundation of our $21 billion tourism industry, Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Nicola Vallance argues.

n the International Year of Biodiversity, clean, green New Zealand is in a biodiversity crisis. We also face some severe economic realities. In a climate of financial concern, the Government has created its own economic rationale for a continual assault on our most precious natural resources. By saying “but it’s good for the economy” and “the economic reality means...” ministers are chipping away at frameworks that for many years have protected native plants, animals and wild places. New Zealanders treasure these for their intrinsic worth. They are part of our national identity, not to mention our international brand. The Government is talking about the old economy. This was based on extractive, one-off uses of our natural resources. Ministers don’t seem to understand that New Zealand is at the forefront of a new economy in which a strong natural environment with strong environmental protections is the backbone.

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Taking a narrow, short-sighted approach to making money through extractive and damaging industries has severe consequences for the wider economy. The single largest industry in New Zealand today is tourism. It outperforms the dairy industry, and it underpins our international brand, which we use to promote our other exports. Tourism is worth $21 billion a year, and almost totally relies on our clean, green image. The public conservation estate covers a third of the country and is the bedrock for the tourism industry. Seventy per cent of tourists come to New Zealand for naturebased activities and to enjoy our natural landscapes. To damage our national parks and other core conservation areas through an old economic approach of extraction and exploitation of natural resources is simply killing the goose (or kiwi) that laid the golden egg. We’ve seen it with the plan to remove areas from Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act to free them up

for mining exploration. Fortunately, the Government has ditched these plans. Forest & Bird commissioned a report from independent economist Geoff Bertram for its mining submission to the Ministry of Economic Development. Bertram found the potential impact of the Government’s plan to remove national parks and other significant public conservation land from Schedule 4 protection would have had severe economic consequences. The projected damage to our tourism brand and decline in visitor numbers would have been about 1 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP, which is similar to the combined contribution of all mining and quarrying in New Zealand. Other sectors of the economy that also market their products using our clean, green, 100% pure branding would have been harmed. Any extras mining might have contributed to our economy would have been far outweighed by the damage to our international branding. The sweeping tussock lands of the Mackenzie Country – much of it publicly owned – are a massive money-spinner for our tourism industry. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says high country tourism is worth $4 billion to our economy. Tourists do not travel to the high country to see pivot irrigators, filthy waterways and lurid green paddocks full of cows. But it’s not just about the tourism dollar. Our natural environment provides ecosystem services that make an economic contribution. For example, the Te Papanui Conservation Park in the Lammerlaw Range behind Dunedin provides 60 per cent of the city’s clean water supply, and is worth about $136 million a year.

Ministers don’t seem to understand that New Zealand is at the forefront of a new economy in which a strong natural environment with strong environmental protections is the backbone.

2 Canterbury has seen a frightening example of this oldfashioned attack on natural resources. The controversial “ECan Act” sacked the democratically elected council and – worse – weakened Canterbury’s water conservation orders, which give national park-like status to rivers recognised as nationally outstanding. Forest & Bird has obtained official documents and communications showing that Ministers simply wanted to accelerate large-scale water storage dams and irrigation in Canterbury. This move follows a Landcare Research annual report showing that intensive farming has led to the highest rate of native vegetation loss since European colonisation. One of our few remaining wild rivers, the stunning Mokihinui, which flows through public conservation land near Kahurangi National Park on the West Coast, is in danger of being destroyed by a giant hydro development. It would create a dam 85 metres high and drown 330 hectares of river gorge and forest. It seems nothing is sacred in the search for a quick buck. Despite conservation’s contribution to our most lucrative industry, there’s been little investment in the sector. The Department of Conservation – which has the hefty responsibility of managing one-third of New Zealand’s land area and all offshore islands and marine reserves, as well as maintaining the huge network of huts and tracks used by hundreds of thousands of people a year – in 2009 had $54 million shaved off its budget over four years. The department has a budget about the same size as North Shore City Council. It’s time decision makers stopped thinking of conservation of our natural heritage as a cost and realised it is an essential investment, with environmental and social benefits, and huge long-term economic benefits that far outweigh short-term financial gains from an extractive industry.

1 A thatch of New Zealand nikau palms – the world’s most southern palm. Photo: Craig Potton 2 A blue duck, or whio. Photo: A Reith

3 Mountain beech flowers. Photo: DOC

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Nature in the

balance In the Government’s headlong quest for economic gain, natural New Zealand is suffering. By Nicola Vallance.

he Government seems hell-bent on modifying, weakening or even removing protection of our most precious forests, oceans, rivers and other natural areas. Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson says she loves New Zealand’s wild places. “It’s impossible to come away from a visit to any of our national parks without feeling an emotional attachment to it,” she said recently. Yet she signed the discussion document with Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee to open up vast areas – initially almost half a million hectares of Schedule 4 land – of public conservation land to mining. A quick look at the Minister’s priorities in this year’s Department of Conservation Statement of Intent reveals not one mention of protecting threatened native wildlife. Apart from aiming for a kauri national park, the priorities include working with the Ministry of Economic Development to identify mineral prospects and conservation values on public conservation land, establishing a commercial business unit in DOC to “improve DOC’s ability to deliver positive commercial outcomes”, continuing development of cycle ways and increasing campsites. The Statement of Intent continues with a theme of “balancing both conservation and economic goals”.

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At Forest & Bird’s AGM this year, Ms Wilkinson said her priorities were simply above and beyond what DOC does as its core work. How can a department already operating on 3 per cent less baseline funding than the previous year afford to take on new priorities with an economic focus that do not reflect its legislative mandate? The Conservation Act determines the work of the department, and it refers to protecting land for conservation purposes, advocating and promoting the benefits of this land, and to foster the use of natural and historic resources for recreation and to allow their use for tourism. The Conservation Act is not about balancing conservation and economic goals, and nor should it be, because when it comes to balancing the economic benefits against the intrinsic values of nature in pure economic terms, the economic benefits will always win. The Conservation Act was put in place to protect our natural taonga from economic pressures. Ms Wilkinson should not be directing DOC work on the basis of economic rationale because it is not consistent with the Act. Most worrying is the Government’s lack of vision. There’s no obvious strategy for how we want to position ourselves as a country and the focus for our protected areas. Yet tools such as national policy statements could form a framework to protect some of our most crucial natural resources and

Most worrying is the Government’s lack of vision. There’s no obvious strategy for how we want to position ourselves as a country and the focus for our protected areas. guide local authorities on how to manage or protect them. This would get rid of regional inconsistency. Some national policy statements have been drafted but the Government shows little desire to implement them. The coastal policy statement was the outcome of hundreds of submissions and two years of work by four commissioners. However, it has essentially been buried in the Conservation Minister’s office, prompting one commissioner to break ranks and release the report. The coastal policy statement would make it difficult for coastal development so the Government has simply ignored it. The freshwater national policy statement has been with Environment Minister Nick Smith since January but apparently the farming industry has lobbied against it. It has been put to one side until the outcome of the Land and Water Forum, which aims to get agreement on managing our freshwater. Remember we are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis. Even Dr Smith says biodiversity is one of the Government’s highest environmental priorities. However, he says a much-overdue national policy statement on biodiversity “is not about advancing protection beyond that provided currently”. That means sticking with the status quo – and declining native flora and fauna. Every time a Minister utters the current mantra: “This is about balancing economic benefits with environmental concerns”, he or she is really saying an environmental concern will be traded off for an economic benefit. This might be acceptable once. But cumulatively our natural environment is being whittled away. If we take a little here today and a little here next year, eventually we will be left with nothing. 1 A wood pigeon, or kereru. Photo: DOC 2 Red beech mistletoe. Photo: Aalbert Rebergen

YOU CAN’T CUT DOWN A FAMILY TREE Leave a gift in your WiLL that WiLL Last forever A gift in your will can help make sure our native trees will be here for generations. Help us continue the work of protecting and nurturing all our indigenous animals and plants for many years to come. Bequests can be made to “Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Incorporated”. For a copy of our bequest brochure or to discuss leaving a gift in your will, please contact Kerin Welford, Senior Fundraiser. • • • •

0800 200 064 k.welford@forestandbird.org.nz PO Box 631, Wellington, 6140 www.forestandbird.org.nz

Help give nature a voice. Help Forest & Bird Forest & Bird

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Sharks in charge of the aquarium

As fish stocks decline, there is a worrying shift to focus more on profits from commercial fishing and even less on the marine environment. By Ruth Nichol.

ew Zealand’s marine environment is under threat because the fishing industry and the Government are more interested in making money from fishing than they are in managing our fisheries properly, according to Forest & Bird Marine Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles. “There’s a storm brewing and it doesn’t spell good news for our marine environment,” she says. “There’s been a big shift to focusing on economic development, which is part of the Government’s drive, but without ensuring that environmental limits and controls are being put in place.” She says a recent suggestion that the commercial fishing industry could start regulating its own activities is another example of the industry putting economic considerations ahead of environmental concerns. The Seafood Industry Council unveiled the proposal – called Managing Our Own Ship – at its conference in May. It included suggestions that the commercial fishing industry could decide when and where some fish could be caught,

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and even start carrying out its own research into whether quotas are sustainable. According to the council, the strategy could increase the quota value of the industry by $2.5 billion. Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley gave the proposal a tentative thumbs up, saying self-regulation was “an excellent goal” for the industry but that the Government would continue to monitor its activities closely. Managing Our Own Ship is still in its early stages, but Knowles says it is another worrying example of the new focus on income from commercial fishing without considering the long-term impacts of the industry on our marine environment. Forest & Bird has long campaigned against over-fishing, and the damage caused to the sea floor by methods such as bottom trawling. Bycatch is also a big problem in the commercial fishing industry – Hector’s dolphins, sea lions and seabirds are all victims of commercial fishing.

More recent developments such as aquaculture, marine bio-prospecting and offshore mineral exploration are also putting increasing pressure on our marine environment. Concerns came to a head in August last year when the Ministry of Fisheries released Fisheries 2030, its strategic vision for the next 20 years. The focus was so weighted in favour of economic development that environmental organisations – including Forest & Bird – put aside their historical differences with recreational fishing groups and formed an alliance to campaign for better environmental management of our fisheries. Trish Rea, a spokeswoman for Option4, one of the members of the alliance, describes the proposals in Managing Our Own Ship as “laughable”. “It’s like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.” She says Option4, like Forest & Bird, is concerned about the current focus on economic profitability in commercial fishing. “Instead of sucking every fish out of the water, why not leave some for future generations to enjoy – we need to leave some for Hone and his kids standing on the beach.” Knowles says the focus on economic development, rather than environmental regulation, not only puts our marine environment at risk, it also threatens New Zealand’s clean green reputation. “Our management systems have been praised internationally, but what’s happening now is so serious that it’s going to dramatically reduce the quality of New Zealand’s fishing management system and our international reputation.” The backlash is already starting, with British supermarket chain Waitrose’s recent decision not to stock hoki – one of our biggest fish exports – because they are caught using bottom trawling. Knowles is disappointed that neither of New Zealand’s two main supermarket chains are interested in making a similar stand on unsustainably caught fish. However, she is pleased that other seafood retailers, such as takeaways and restaurants, are starting to buy more sustainably caught seafood. She believes that consumers can also make a big difference by using Forest & Bird’s Best Fish Guide to make informed decisions about what fish they buy. “We’re not saying that you shouldn’t eat fish, but we want consumers to makes decisions that will change the market.”

Not sure what fish to buy? Forest & Bird’s Best Fish Guide can help make the decision easier. It ranks commonly available fish and seafood according to their ecological sustainability. At the top of the list are those with a green ranking – which means they are a sustainable choice – such as anchovy, kina, kahawai and skipjack tuna. In the middle are those with an orange ranking – fish about which there are some concerns but are still considered acceptable to eat – and at the bottom are those with a red ranking. Red-ranked fish, such as southern bluefin tuna, orange roughy and porbeagle shark, are species to avoid. The rankings take into account several factors. These include the state of the fish stocks, how much bycatch, such as seabirds, marine mammals and non-target fish, is associated with catching the fish, and how environmentally damaging the fishing methods are. Contact Forest & Bird for a Best Fish Guide wallet card – 04 385 7374 – or download a copy from the Forest & Bird website – www.forestandbird.org.nz/what-we-do/ publications/-best-fish-guide

Best Fish Guide 2009-2010

www.bestfishguide.org.nz

1 Common dolphins caught with other fish. Photo: Ministry of Fisheries 2 Red-ranked orange roughy. Photo: Peter Langlands

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Fishing for a compliment

apuku (groper) and turbot (flatfish) are off the menu at upmarket Wellington restaurant Logan Brown. They’ve been removed because, as red-ranked fish in Forest & Bird’s Best Fish Guide, they do not fit with the award-winning restaurant’s commitment to being as eco-friendly as possible. As well as removing fish not responsibly caught – reluctantly in the case of turbot, because it is one of their favourites – restaurant owners Steve Logan and Al Brown are committed to recycling, reducing their waste and lowering their carbon emissions. They also donate $2 from every maincourse fish meal they sell to the Last Ocean Charitable Trust, which aims to get the Ross Sea made into a marine protected area. “We’re living in this world, and we have a responsibility to try and make a difference – if we can make changes, we should,” Logan says. “By trying to sell only responsibly caught fish and supporting the Last Ocean Trust,

we are helping to make our customers aware they are not only doing something for the New Zealand environment, they are also doing something for an environment they have less control over.” Logan Brown is just one restaurant that has made a stand on sustainable fishing. Fast food outlets, too, are becoming more aware of sustainably caught fish. In July last year, Burger Wisconsin’s 24 outlets replaced deep water dory in their fishburgers with tarakihi – a decision that has won them a special endorsement from Forest & Bird. Forest & Bird is turning its attention to fish and chip shops, and several have already expressed interest in joining the endorsement programme, which has two levels of endorsement – amber for outlets that are working towards selling only sustainable seafood, and blue for those that do sell only sustainable seafood. Steve Logan, from Logan Brown restaurant, is making a stand about sustainable fishing.

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Nature Tours Australia and beyond!

Amazing facts about…

KIWI By Emma Clegg

K • • • •

Informative naturalist/birding leaders Small groups (6 - 14 participants) Scheduled tours or private charters Fully accommodated or camping tours

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Tour; Western Australia’s Mid West Anne Beadell Highway Outback Expedition; Christmas & Cocos Islands Tour; Lord Howe Island Tour; Borneo Wildlife Tour.

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iwi have a distinctive odour – a peculiar earthy smell – and their faeces have a similar pungency. They deposit these in prominent places (on logs and tracks) to advertise their presence and mark territory. This smell may identify individual kiwi and could play a role in social communication, as with many mammals. This adds weight to the theory that kiwi fill the niche of small mammals in New Zealand. Other features of their reproduction and physiology are more like mammals than birds, too. Kiwi grow slowly (which is typical of mammals). Relative to adult weight, kiwi appear to be the slowest growing of all known birds. Kiwi have a very highly developed sense of smell, with their nostrils at the end of their bill – unlike any other bird. Birds that forage by probing must often use senses other than vision to detect movement by burrowing prey, and kiwi tend to rely on smell and remote touch. It is thought that, apart from some shorebirds, the kiwi is the only bird to use remote touch in this way. North Island brown kiwi chicks hatch fully-feathered, with their eyes open and they receive no food from their parents, apart from a residual store of yolk, absorbed from the egg just before hatching. Young kiwi are easy prey to rats and stoats during their first year, until they become too large (more than 800 grams) for these predators. Without pest control, up to 95 per cent of chicks are killed in their first year. Adults between 1.3 kilograms and 3 kilograms are generally too large to be attacked by rats and stoats, and their eggs are too large and heavy for rats. There are five species of kiwi, with at least 11 distinct taxa or groups. The species include: n Four varieties of brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) in the North Island n Rowi (A. rowi) at Okarito in Westland n Four varieties of tokoeka (A. australis) in Fiordland, Haast Range and on Rakiura/Stewart Island n Great spotted kiwi, or roroa/roa (A. haastii) in the northern South Island n Littled spotted kiwi (A. owenii) on offshore islands. Sadly, all kiwi species are considered threatened to varying degrees. www.savethekiwi.org.nz

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going places

Auckland’s It’s easy to let your imagination run wild on a coast with an explosive past. By Mandy Herrick.

n our West Coast beaches, for most of the year you might see a hunched figure in the half-light, or hear the squawk of a territorial oystercatcher, or torea, but chances are you’ll be its sole occupant. When I went in search of a beach away from the hum-drum of Auckland, the beach made famous by Jane Campion’s movie The Piano instantly flicked into my consciousness: Piha. Come summer, this raging West Coast beach becomes home to half of Auckland: die-hard surfers tackling the canoe-breaking waves; hoppity blister-footed beachgoers, sun-worshippers and dogs, dogs, dogs. In winter, the place is quite different. The air is filled with the crash and roar of the ocean, and comes laced with a thick helping of salt as the wind ushers you to unwanted places. Nature hijacks all five senses. If you walk the beach, you’ll find those hunched figures are few and far between. The black–sand beaches of Piha are set against a lush

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podocarp forest that is regenerating after years of ruthless milling in the 1910s. The centrepiece of this beach is the 110-metre Lion Rock, which can be climbed in a brisk 15 minutes. One of the last vestiges of volcanoes that stretched from the Waitakere Ranges to Waipoua, this geological feature is a volcanic neck – a piece of solidified magma. So lying prone on the summit is quite something, especially if you imagine the day when this volcano blew its top. As I delicately tiptoed back on to the black-sand fallout, I journeyed straight into the forest, which is equally rich in dramatic history. One of the most spectacular and easily accessible walks is the winding path through nikau groves, puriri and regenerating kauri to the three-tiered Kitekite falls. The 45-minute loop track leads to a raging Waitakere waterfall – a white, thundering torrent of water that gets its frothy character from the high rainfall in the region (almost double that of Auckland’s rainfall). In summer, the pool at the bottom of this 40-metre

2 PIHA

Getting to Piha: Piha is 38 kilometres northwest of Auckland. To get to Tai Haruru Lodge, descend into Piha, cross Glen Esk Road and the bridge and bear left, passing the store. Immediately take the right fork into Garden Road. Tai Haruru is past the duck pond, on the left hand of the road at Number 92. Price (lodge): $ 65-$85 a night (sleeps 6) Price (flat): $45 a night (sleeps 4) Bookings: Jean and Peter King, 09 812 8065, hop0018@slingshot.co.nz Activities: Surfing, fishing and more than 23 walks (from 15 minutes to 2½ hours) weave throughout the coastline forest. 1 One of the last vestiges of an ancient volcanic range, Lion Rock, set against Piha’s famous rolling surf. Photos: Mandy Herrick 2 Piha – made famous by Jane Campion’s film, The Piano. 3 The bay from Piha Road.

4 Forest & Bird’s Tai Haruru Lodge.

waterfall plays host to gutsy swimmers (as well as our threatened longfin eel). Come winter, there are no frolickers to be seen – just a resolute group of toe-dippers lining the edge of the pool. Stretch your head back and sharpen your imagination, and you can almost conjure up the driving dam at the top of the waterfall that flushed kauri logs to the timber mill. Like much of the native forest around the Waitakere Ranges, the forest has been denuded of its kauri trees, after an 11-year operation that stripped the area of these magnificent trees. Now the only reminders of the timber mills are the old bullock track, the scarred rock of the former Glen Esk dam and the remnants of an old tramway. And as you pass groves of stumpy regenerating kauri, it is easy to curse the short-sightedness of these axe-men. But it wasn’t just tree fellers who looked to profit from this region. In 1915, an entrepreneurial timber-mill owner set out to

turn around his fortunes by building a huge dam that would flood the valley to 38 metres to sate Auckland’s growing demand for water. Mayors and councillors were wined and dined but prohibitive costs stopped the project going ahead. It was a short walk down a pohutukawa-lined track to the home comforts of Forest & Bird’s Tai Haruru Lodge. And after three invigorating cuppas on the balcony, I was beachward bound again. A brisk five-minute stroll past bird-filled kowhai, pohutukawa and nikau, and I was greeted by an abrasive southerly wind. The sepia seascape was quite different from the intensely hued beach of the afternoon. The only thing missing from this cinematic scene was a stooped, gnarly figure. At the northern end of the beach were figures neither menacing nor sinister – a waddling troupe of little blue penguins (korora) heading home after a hard day’s fishing.

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The landâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great 48

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Manuka and kanuka are nature’s Cinderellas – scrub plants that don’t appear to sustain much. Dean Baigent-Mercer tells the true story of these remarkable native plants.

o some eyes, manuka and kanuka are a worthless nuisance and, at best, firewood. But these plants are often the beginning of a forest cycle that lasts millennia. The seed pods of manuka and kanuka look like pixie hats. As the capsules age and dry, slits appear, to release small dust-like seeds light enough to be blown to some site of recent disaster. Just as manuka products can be used medicinally to heal people, the plants are first on the scene when the land is wounded – torn by slips, burnt or cleared by bulldozer. A carpet of seedlings appears and starts to stabilise the ground. As each individual plant competes for light, water and nutrients, some die and others surge ahead. As branches form and meet, so too do the roots, creating an underground interlocking jigsaw puzzle that stabilises the earth. Landcare Research scientists studied kanuka’s hidden talents in reducing erosion by stabilising land with steepness gradients from 30-40 degrees. They found most lateral roots were “distributed asymmetrically around the stump, growing predominantly up and across the slope”. Manuka and kanuka also rate very highly for root strength, allowing them to hold their ground and literally bending over backwards in windy spots to provide formidable protection against erosion. Their fine, densely spaced leaves break falling rain, and a remarkable mass of leaves falls each year, building humus. There is more going on in the canopy of manuka than you’d guess from the springtime buzz of honey bees collecting nectar for lucrative manuka honey and medical products. The canopies of manuka –also known as tea tree – are home to a huge diversity of native wasps, moths, beetles, spiders, cockroaches, cicadas, flies and lizards. On a single manuka branch last summer I watched a large spider hunting for prey and the silhouettes of stick insects mating at sunset. Very romantic! Birds eating tree-top bugs often drop seeds out the other end. In the humidity and shade beneath young tree ferns, rewarewa, tanekaha, kahikatea, totara, rimu, kauri, miro and matai begin to make their way towards the sky. Manuka and kanuka physically change depending on an area’s climate, gene pool, soil type, altitude and latitude. For example, at the top of the North Island, the manuka that grows at Spirits Bay is festooned with large pink flowers and has large silvery hairy leaves. On Rakiura/ Stewart Island, manuka has small white flowers and short, spiky leaves with no visible hairs.

2 WHAT’S IN A NAME? Maori did not use the names “manuka” and “kanuka” as we do now. Dr Peter J de Lange of the Department of Conservation found that Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander – the botanists on board Captain Cook’s voyages – recorded the name “kahikatoa” for what we now know as manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) and “manuka” for the plant we know as “kanuka” (Kunzea ericoides). William Colenso recorded the name “rawiri” in Northland and East Cape for what we call “kanuka”. He also noted that as a rule Maori called Kunzea ericoides, “manuka”. Botanist Thomas Kirk also knew this. “The name ‘kanuka’ seems to have appeared as a vernacular in the 1930s and its usage can be traced back to Bishop Williams’ Maori dictionary,” says Dr de Lange. “Where the Bishop got it from is not clear. As far as can be determined, old-time Maori never used the name ‘kanuka’ for this tree but it seems that since the 1930s we have become stuck with using ‘manuka’ for Leptospermum and ‘kanuka’ for Kunzea.”

1 Kanuka has already pushed out lower-growing manuka and now dominates the canopy. Beneath, a diversity of native forest plants return. Some species will grow taller than kanuka and live for many hundreds of years. Photo: Dean Baigent-Mercer 2 Close-up of manuka flowers. Photo: Dean Baigent-Mercer

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“As time passes fewer and fewer people will remember what rawiri, rawiritoa, rawirinui, manuoea and makahikatoa are, or were. Place names recording these distinctive trees remain fixed on our maps, perhaps to puzzle future linguists. It’s a shame, as Maori were very perceptive people and their names refer to distinctive forms of Kunzea that recent research has shown are distinct species in their own right.” Dr de Lange’s doctoral research on kanuka recognises 10 species of kanuka in New Zealand and seven in Australia – none are shared between the countries. Of the 10 New Zealand species, Maori had already recognised five of them and Western botanists, four. What about the humble manuka? So far, no one has seriously studied manuka. The diversity of manuka is just waiting for investigation to unveil new discoveries. TIDES OF TEA TREE Tea tree cover across the country has moved like tides through the decades. Returned soldiers from World War I were given land packages under the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act of 1915, often with difficult terrain in remote areas. But the

3 hardship of isolation and sheer difficulty to clear and farm steep land meant the hardest areas were abandoned. Over the following decades, manuka and kanuka claimed back the “broken-in” land. After World War II, food shortages across Europe meant New Zealand could make healthy profits from beef and milk products. Again land was cleared for greater agricultural production. The tide of manuka and kanuka receded as areas were slashed and burnt.

How to tell them apart KANUKA (Kunzea ericoides)

MANUKA (Leptospermum scoparium)

Leaves: Finer, whispier and soft to touch compared with manuka. Flowers: Small and numerous flowers late spring/ early summer. Flowers most heavily after manuka. Bark: Greyish-tan. It peels off in small strips. Wood: White. Life length: Generally up to 60 years, but some kanuka trees have been recorded over 200 years old. Height: Up to 30 metres. Location: Usually on less fertile ground that is well-drained.

Leaves: Prickly to touch. Flowers: In spring. Has white flowers, except in Northland, where pink flowers are common. Bark: Reddish brown that can peel off in strips, sometimes infected with sooty mould fungus. Wood: Red-brown. Life length: Generally up to 30 years before it has reached maximum age or is pushed out by other species. Height: 2-5 metres but can reach 15 metres. Location: Highly adaptable, from wetlands to dry ridges. Often grows with longer-living kanuka which, after about 30 years, becomes dominant.

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The New Zealand Farm Forestry Association notes that in the late 1930s an introduced Australian scale insect was discovered killing manuka. By the 1960s farmers had spread it on infected twigs throughout the country. But by the mid1950s a parasitic fungus that dispatched the scale insect appeared, allowing manuka to recover from the parasite in most areas. In the fervour of following decades, “tea tree scrub” was flattened by roller crushers, poisoned by Governmentsubsidised DDT and 245-T, slashed and burnt. By the mid-1980s government subsidies that encouraged land clearance were axed. The economic pendulum has swung again, and intensive dairying has pushed regenerating native forest off land where farming companies believe they can squeeze a profit. This has coincided with cheap Chinese herbicide containing the active ingredient metsulfuron flooding the New Zealand market. The low price has helped make it economically viable to spray regenerating native forest by helicopter.

Depending on soil fertility and the age of the manuka and kanuka, 7 to 9.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide a hectare can be stored each year, according to Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry estimates. Regenerating native forests can be financially rewarded for their ability to store atmospheric carbon and counter climate change. This gives another value to manuka and kanuka. Areas larger than 100 hectares can be registered as permanent carbon sinks with Landcare Research (see www. ebex21.co.nz for criteria) and gain an annual income from domestic carbon trading markets.

4 Kanuka leaves and seed capsules, left, are smaller than manuka’s distinctive larger seed capsules and prickly leaves, right. Coppercoloured manuka seed is pictured here spilling out of split seed capsules. Photo: Dean Baigent-Mercer

CARBON CAPTURE As tea tree grows, it holds carbon in trunks and roots.

5 Wind-sculpted kanuka near Wharariki Beach, Puponga Farm Park, shows kanuka‘s contortionist abilities in extreme conditions. Photo: Dean Baigent-Mercer

3 An undescribed lizard species endemic to the upper Aupouri Peninsula and nearby islands, Northland. Populations of this species can reach surprisingly high densities in suitable habitats such as manuka and kanuka shrubland and creviced clay banks. Photo: Simon Chapman/Boffa Miskell Ltd

Manuka and kanuka also rate very highly for root strength, allowing them to hold their ground and literally bending over backwards

Forest & Bird

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in the field

Timing is everything Ann Graeme finds that time and tide wait for no ragworm.

t is 10.30 in the morning. My watch tells me so. It is the 21st day of June, the shortest day of the year. The calendar says so and it also tells me it is five days to the full moon. We live in a world of rhythm: seasons change; days, months and years follow an endless cycle. People now use clocks and calendars to measure these cycles but other species respond to them without technology and with astonishing accuracy. Can a worm tell the time and the days of the year? The palolo worm can. It is a ragworm that lives in burrows in the coral reefs of the Pacific Islands. At a precise day of the year, at a precise time in the night, these worms back out of their burrows and detach their end segments. Guided by their rudimentary eyespots, the segments swarm to the surface of the sea. Like dancing spaghetti they twist and writhe until they burst, freeing the eggs and sperm to begin the new generation of palolo worms. The palolo worms set their clocks by the moon, not by the sun. In Samoa they spawn seven days after the full moon in October. Every so often they spawn in November because they are following the moon’s calendar of 13 lunar months, rather than our 12-month calendar. In the Manu’a Islands they appear at 2am. We know about the accuracy of the palolo worms’ timekeeping because they are so good to eat. At two in the morning the villagers of the Manu’a Islands will be waiting

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with lanterns to attract the wriggling swarm and nets to scoop them up. But the worm’s clock probably begins with an earlier phase of the moon, which stimulates the sex organs to ripen. This sets the stage for spawning, which will happen even if clouds obscure the moon. The smaller ragworms that burrow in the mud of our estuaries behave just like their relations in the islands. As winter passes, the worms develop tail segments filled with gametes (eggs or sperm). Then on a few nights after the full moon in October and November, they wriggle up to the surface of the mud to emerge just as the tide creeps over them. The worms thrash about, their tail segments breaking off and bursting to release such quantities of eggs and sperm that the tide margin turns milky. The fertilised eggs float in the tide, some to settle back on their home mudflat, some to drift far away and colonise new shores and many others to be eaten. This behaviour is built into the genes. The worms must synchronise their spawning to ensure that their tiny eggs have the best possible chance of being fertilised by their even tinier sperm. Woe betides the worm that gets the timing wrong. Its gametes will be wasted and its incompetent genes will be lost from the gene pool. Natural selection is a stern taskmaster. The cycle of the moon also determines the cycle of the tides. The highest tides are linked to the full and the

Illustration: Pamela Robinson

new moons. This is critical in the life cycle of whitebait like inanga. They spawn all together in autumn, two or three days after the full or the new moon. These little fish swim out of the swamps and gather in the river or estuary to wait for the spring tide. As it floods high up the grassy banks and among the rushes, the inanga leap in the moonlight, shedding their eggs and sperm among the vegetation. Then they swim back home. Stuck to leaves and stems, their fertilised eggs are marooned by the falling tide. Weeks later when the next spring tide floods the banks and rushes, the eggs hatch and drift out to sea to begin a new generation of whitebait. Eels too gather to spawn but not here in New Zealand. Both our eels, the native shortfin and the endemic longfin, make an epic journey of 2500 kilometres to spawn in the deep-sea trenches near Tonga. But they only do it once in a lifetime, and that lifetime is as long as our own. The female longfin eel may be more than 60 years old when she matures into a silver eel and leaves her home, far up the river. On a dark night when the moon is new and rain has swollen the river, she will join the silver eels swimming down the river and out to sea to begin the journey. Nearly all the silver eels migrate on one or two nights in February and March. Under cover of darkness they wind their way downstream, out to sea and away across the Pacific Ocean. All living things respond to the eternal cycles of our

planet but life on land responds to the sun rather than the moon. As the sun warms the earth in spring, seeds germinate and animals have young in anticipation of the summer ahead. Flowers bloom, some in spring as the days lengthen, some as the daylight shrinks in autumn. What about us? Does the moon affect how we live our lives? It seems not. The word “lunatic” comes from Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon but there is no hard evidence to support the myths that moonlight and madness go together.

Swimming against the tide Dams spell death for eels. A quarter of a million eels live above the proposed West Coast Mokihinui dam – one of the healthiest populations left in New Zealand. If the 85-metre-high dam goes ahead, it will block their migration. In mitigation, some eels will be netted above the dam then released below it. But most will have to take their chances over the spillway. As for the small elvers trying to swim up the smooth dam face, only help from humans will allow any to survive and renew the population above the dam. The future looks bleak for eels in the Mokihinui River.

Forest & Bird

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Darlings of the

Chathams

The return of tui to the main Chatham island has been good news for the birds and good news for the people. By Cathie Bell.

uper-sized tui have won the hearts of Chatham Islanders in their new home on the main island of the Chatham group after a daring translocation of 14 young birds from South East Island/Rangatira in March last year. The translocation of the tui was organised by the Taiko Trust, a Chatham conservation organisation, and funded by BirdLife International’s Community Conservation Fund, which is administered by Forest & Bird. Chatham Island tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae chathamensis) are 30 per cent larger than their mainland counterparts, and became extinct on the main Chatham island late last century. The birds have many predators, including cats, rats and possums. Taiko Trust chairwoman Liz Tuanui says possums are thought to be the main cause of tui extinction on the main Chatham Island. “The birds survived the introduction of other pests and forest removal on the island, but you can track their decline and extinction – and that of other bird species - against the arrival and spread of the possums from 1911.” All 14 transferred birds survived the first winter in their new location in Awatotara. Transfer chief Mike Bell says the tui transfer has had some surprises. “We’re learning heaps about the birds since their move. A lot challenges what we know about Chatham Island tui, for example, in the past, we thought they only bred when the flax flowered. If it didn’t flower, they didn’t breed. But that seems to be an artefact of South East Island, their old habitat. 54

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“Our birds bred in their first year in their new habitat, two months earlier than ever known before. One bird appeared to have four clutches. It’s testament that the first birds in the Awatotara covenant are doing better than where they came from.” Liz and Bruce Tuanui, who own the land where the new arrivals live, monitor and feed the tui sugar water each day to encourage them to stay in the Awatotara/Tuku area, where there is predator control. Predator control is funded by the Department of Conservation’s Biodiversity Condition Fund. Tuanui says the islanders have given the tui a huge welcome. “There’s a whole generation of people on the Chathams who grew up without having tui there. It’s only the very older people who remember them. There were tears when we were letting them go. “The birds go visiting, especially to the older people – eight went to the Ratana church service at one person’s house. They really do seem to get around more on a Sunday!” Bell says the change in community feeling towards conservation is the biggest thing in his 20 years of working on the Chathams. “I’ve never seen islanders as interested in a conservation project.” “Within weeks, the birds were seen in many parts of the island. It’s great to have tui back on the main island – we’ve restored tui to the forest. But the real lasting legacy is that of community involvement. It’s the biggest outcome. Locals

are ringing up asking what trees do they need to plant, what predators do I need to kill, and maybe I should fence my bush?” Liz and Bruce Tuanui’s land adjoins the Tuku Reserve, a 1000-hectare block of bush gifted to the Crown by Bruce’s parents, Manuel and Evelyn Tuanui, after the taiko, or magenta petrel, was discovered there by David Crockett in 1978. The Tuanuis have six covenants and seven private reserves on their land, and have a real commitment to boosting conservation awareness on the islands. The diversity of bush on their land enabled the tui to be brought back. It’s likely to be a catalyst for much more protection work throughout the main Chatham Island now. The Taiko Trust has another project in its sights – bringing back the Chatham Island tomtit to the main island from South East Island. Again, the project is funded by BirdLife International, and it is waiting on DOC approval. It has been hard work and the tui transfer cost about $4000 a bird when volunteer hours are counted. Liz Tuanui spent $600 on oranges and bananas for the birds alone. But the result is priceless, she says. 1 Chatham Island tui are 30 per cent bigger than tui on New Zealand’s mainland. Photos: Dave Boyle. 2 The tui have thrived in their new home, and are encouraged to stay in areas with predator control with feeding stations.

A special offer for Forest & Bird readers Wild Encounters Our popular Going Places articles and other naturethemed travel stories from Forest & Bird magazine have been collected together in a handy book edition, Wild Encounters, published by Penguin. From the rocky shore to dense rainforests, from braided riverbeds to alpine meadows, Wild Encounters is a handy guide to the best place to experience New Zealand’s wildlife and wild places. Wild Encounters will retail in shops for $40, but Forest & Bird readers can purchase this book for just $35, including post and packaging, with $10 from each copy ordered going towards Forest & Bird’s important conservation work. That means you will receive this beautifully illustrated guide and get to help nature in New Zealand. Please send a cheque for $35, or provide your credit card details in the form below and send to: Wild Encounters Forest & Bird PO Box 631 Wellington

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one of us

A nature nerd 70 years on S

tan Butcher’s views about the future of New Zealand’s environment haven’t changed much over the past 70 years. Just as he did when he was 17, he still believes we are not doing enough to protect our environment. In 1940 he wrote an impassioned essay for the Napier Boys’ High School magazine, The Scindian, in which he described the previous 100 years as a “period of unparalleled calamity” for New Zealand’s environment. The essay ends with a plea for New Zealanders to do better in the next 100 years. “The last century should have taught us a lesson,” the young Stan wrote. “Will that lesson be taken to heart? If not, then all is lost!” It’s a lesson the Forest & Bird Distinguished Life Member has taken to heart in his own life. Since retiring from teaching in 1981 Butcher has devoted huge amounts of time to Forest & Bird, including raising and planting native seedlings with other members of the Lower Hutt branch on Matiu/Somes Island, and at Pauatahanui Wildlife Reserve. The results have been gratifying: the bare paddocks on Matiu/Somes are now reverting to their original state. But ask Butcher if he feels any more hopeful about the future of the environment now than he did when he was a schoolboy, and his answer is “No”. “The destruction we have done in the 70 years since I wrote that essay has just been huge,” he says. “Huge areas of original bush have disappeared, and, while some areas of native bush are now growing back, that does not compensate for what has been lost.” On a global level, he feels even less hopeful. “It feels good to be planting a specific spot, like Matiu/Somes Island, but every day areas of a similar size somewhere in the world are being felled and are just disappearing. I feel particularly concerned about my great-grandchildren – by the time they get to my age, I don’t think the world will be in a very good shape.” Butcher’s strongly held opinions aren’t surprising, given the views he held as a teenager. Even allowing for youthful enthusiasm, his 1940 essay is unusually eloquent and it is forcefully expressed. “From a land covered in virgin bush and tussock grass she has been reduced, in a single short century, to one of barren hills and parched plains,” he wrote. “From a land teeming with birds, two-thirds of whose species are unique, she has fallen to the depths where the land is stocked with aliens which are ousting the native birds from their habitats and threatening them with extermination.” He went on to describe the havoc created by other introduced animals such as the European black rat, stoats and weasels, and by plants such as blackberries, gorse and broom. Despite his concerns, Butcher still believes in the possibility of change – providing everyone does their bit. It’s that belief that drives his commitment to Forest & Bird.

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“You can do a little – and you definitely shouldn’t do less.” Butcher joined Forest & Bird in the 1940s but it wasn’t until 1981, when he retired, that he became an active member and joined the Lower Hutt branch committee. He was chairman for 10 years, and he is now secretary. When his wife Gloria died in 1994, he stepped up his involvement even more. Butcher, who taught himself how to grow native plants from seed while he was teaching at a rural school in the Wairarapa, became a regular member of the planting parties to Matiu/Somes Island in 1981. He planted for many years at Pauatahanui Wildlife Reserve, and he still works in the nursery there every second Monday. He was one of the driving forces behind the preservation of the historic homestead at Bushy Park in Whanganui. He’s resisted the lure of computers. Instead, he uses his trusty Panasonic W1025 word processor. Butcher admits that his refusal to move into the digital age partly reflects his age. But it also seems fitting for a man whose philosophy has always been one of putting the environment first. “One of my great concerns is that our consumption is going up and up,” he says. “We think it’s a good thing, but it’s unsustainable – it can’t last forever. It’s not going to be OK in another five or 10 or 15 years.” After 70 years, it seems, his youthful passion remains. n Ruth Nichol

Stan Butcher at Pauatahanui Wildlife Reserve. Below, at 17, Stan was worried about the future for nature.

Rangatahi

Kiwi: Dick Veich, Ruru: Ian Gill/DOC

Speaking up for rivers M

organ Waru doesn’t see herself as a greenie, so when the 17-year-old student heard that Environment Canterbury’s regional councillors had been sacked, it wasn’t her green conscience that spurred her into action. Instead, she investigated the issue and discovered that nitrate pollution and increasing demand for water for farm irrigation was bad news for Canterbury’s rivers. The sacking in March of the regional councillors and the undermining of water conservation orders for Canterbury rivers has taken away the voice of locals to protect their rivers. Morgan was driven to speak out to protect the waters that flow through her home province. “It scared me because it told me that the Government wasn’t thinking about my generation. Instead, they sacked an elected council and are encouraging a series of water schemes to take our water away from us.” Morgan was approached to speak at the Reflections on Water event in June, a Christchurch gathering of people who shared her views on protecting Canterbury rivers. Morgan stood in front of thousands of supporters in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square to express her concern about what is happening to the rivers she has grown up around. “The Heathcote/Opawaho River runs on the boundary of my school. As a child I remember setting walnut boats afloat across it. There are now signs saying Pollution. Do not come into contact.” Morgan was buoyed by the experience. “Seeing that people were willing to go out of their way to show that they cared about what was happening restored my faith that the issue wasn’t being ignored.” In her last year at Christchurch Rudolf Steiner School, Morgan wants to turn her inquiring mind to making films and documentaries. She’d like to promote environmentally friendly lifestyles and show people how to solve environmental and social problems.

Morgan wants to make people aware of how the smallest actions can make a big impact if it becomes normal behaviour. “It’s like cleaning your room. If you put things away as you go it’s not a big effort but if you ignore the mess it gets worse and it’s a big effort to clean up. That’s how I see many of our social and environmental problems.” n Jenny Lynch

The Environment Canterbury sacking scared me because it told me that the Government wasn’t thinking about my generation.

Christchurch student Morgan Waru spoke in defence of Canterbury’s waterways to 3000 people in Cathedral Square.

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Forest & Bird

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branching out

Third time lucky for bellbirds I

“ n 1859 this bird was very abundant here, in 1860 it was less numerous, in 1862 it was extremely rare, and from 1863 to 1866 I never saw but one individual. It now seems entirely extinct in this district.” In 1888, quoting the words of a trusted Whangarei correspondent, W L Buller was convinced that the bellbird (Anthornis melanura, aka korimako or makomako) was doomed. For reasons unknown, the honeyeater suffered substantial decline across the country. Fortunately, the population ultimately recovered in most parts of New Zealand, with only a few areas where they remain stubbornly and puzzlingly absent. The 2004 Atlas of Bird Distribution in New Zealand shows they are locally extinct in the Auckland-Northland region, parts of the Manawatu, Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury and Central Otago. Although present on forested offshore islands in the north, they have never returned to many of the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, including Waiheke. It has been a long-held dream of Mike Lee, Waiheke resident and Auckland Regional Council chair, to bring bellbirds back. They are important in dispersing seeds and pollinating in a healthy forest ecosystem. In 1988, as the chairman of the Hauraki Islands branch of Forest & Bird, he persuaded the authorities to attempt a reintroduction. It failed. The birds fluttered into the trees on the island’s eastern end but soon disappeared. “We learned a rather bitter lesson,” Lee says. The birds are intrepid fliers and had possibly simply dispersed but it was assumed they had fallen prey to rats, which thrive in northern forests. A second attempt was made in the 1990s, and again the birds disappeared. Lee was haunted by the failures but, with the regional council’s own termination looming, initiated another attempt. “There have been huge advances in wildlife management in the past 20 years: the success of mainland islands, of radio telemetry, monitoring and management techniques made us feel that the time was right,” he says. He sees a successful translocation as a taonga, a parting gift from the Auckland Regional Council to the people of the gulf and Hamilton.

1 Bellbird. Photo: Craig Mckenzie

On a slightly damp and intermittently sunny Sunday in May, an enthusiastic crowd including MPs Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Ardern, Auckland City councillor Denise Roche and Waiheke Community Board chair Tony Sears trekked into the Waiheke bush to witness the bellbirds’ release. The birds were barely visible olive blurs as they streaked from the cages but were greeted with cheers and applause, especially when one graced the occasion with a scatter of song and a brief pose for the cameras. In all, 200 birds were moved to four sites: to predator-free Motuihe Island, to Whakanewha Regional Park and Fenwick Reserve (both on Waiheke Island), and to Hamilton Gardens. The project, led by Dr Tim Lovegrove, involves ARC park rangers and DOC staff as well as a large team of volunteers and members of Forest & Bird’s Hauraki Islands branch. Local landowners Rob Fenwick, Chris Reeve, Bruce Plested and Bryan and Wendy Saward are playing a critical part by implementing high levels of predator control on properties near release areas. The birds are from two gene pools, from Tiritiri Matangi and from Tawharanui Regional Park, the latter recent emigrants from Hauturu/Little Barrier. The highest level of technology and scientific expertise is being employed, with a third of the birds in each release contingent being tracked by transmitters weighing less than a gram woven into their tail feathers. These little songsters even get to listen to iPods – at dawn and at dusk their calls are relayed through speakers high in the trees at the Whakanewha and the Hamilton gardens sites to anchor them to their new homes and to make monitoring easier. Feed stations offer added sustenance while the birds become accustomed to their new territories. Above all, the release zones are being intensively trapped and baited to keep predators at wing’s length. The outcome of the translocation will not be known for some time. “No bellbird release in the north has ever succeeded. Nothing is 100 per cent guaranteed,” says Lee — but this will be the best shot yet. n Janet Hunt

2 More than 100 people crammed into the bush in Whakanewha Regional Park to witness the bellbirds’ first flights in their new homes. From left: Mike Lee, MP Nikki Kaye, Tony Woodroofe and MP Jacinda Ardern. Photo: Janet Hunt

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Building a forest for birds T

he Kaimai Mamaku Campaign (KMC) is making headway in its project to restore biodiversity to the Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park The regional project was launched last November, and brings together seven Forest & Bird branches – Rotorua, South Waikato, Tauranga, Te Puke, Thames-Hauraki, Waihi and Waikato. The Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park Park’s 37,000 hectares of native forest were saved from chainsaw, fire and conversion to pine plantation and farmland in the 1970s. The chair of the Save the Kaimai Campaign of that era, John Howard, says: “We saved the forest – but we never thought to protect it.” More than three decades years later, the usual suite of pests has proliferated. The forest is still green, and looks healthy on the surface. A more informed study shows a different story. There’s been a loss of diversity, and it’s a forest where few birds sing. Forest & Bird’s Tauranga branch showcased the ill health of the forest at Aongatete, one of the most degraded areas. Members in 2006 began a 200ha pest-control programme. The two regional authorities, Environment Waikato and Environment Bay of Plenty, and the local Department of Conservation conservancy have recently signed an agreement to work together with the community to protect the natural resources in the water catchment area. KMC and this Kaimai Catchment Project recognise that the forest does not stand in isolation and are concerned with the whole catchment from the summit to the Waihou River in the west and the Tauranga Harbour in the east. This initiative is a step forward. DOC has little funding for biodiversity work in the park, with only one area of pest control, centred on the Opuiaki kokako population in the south. Elsewhere, funding goes to recreation and industrial heritage work. Late last year the campaign initiated two bird counts, to raise awareness and gather data about birds in the forest.

Obituary Ross Beever

Kokako. Photo: Simon Fordham.

The first was the Everybirdy Survey, a simple bird count everybody could do. The second survey was more rigorous. Reliable observers carried out standard five-minute bird counts on a grid throughout the park. Over time, trends will be monitored. Publicity is important. An eye-catching display on the campaign’s concerns and aims has been created. The highprofile launch in Tauranga attracted many people to hear keynote speaker conservationist Alan Saunders’ vision of what could be achieved. A summer programme of Five Peaks Walks visited vantage points in the park. People who completed all five walks were given a year’s subscription to Forest & Bird. The park is long and skinny, with a huge edge for reinvasion by pests. Many individual landowners have fenced streams and planted banks. There are 54 community groups working on habitat restoration and pest control. Co-ordinating the work and establishing corridors between projects and buffer zones around the forest will enhance what has begun. The campaign is building links with initiatives such as Tane’s Tree Trust to encourage growing native trees for timber on land next to the park. Fish & Game, which is creating and improving wetlands, could also be a valuable partner. n Eila Lawton

1946 –2010

One of New Zealand’s most respected plant scientists, Dr Ross Beever, died recently after a short illness. He was a long-term member of Forest & Bird, and helped with the Kaipara branch’s Atuanui Restoration Project. As a youngster, Ross spent a lot of time exploring the forest in Atuanui-Mt Auckland Reserve next to his grandfather’s farm. He went with his father, school teacher and amateur botanist Jim Beever, on many botanical forays into the reserve and together they discovered, in 1962, the rare native orchid, Danhatchia australis, previously only known from one poor Northland specimen. Dr Beever went on to become a leading botanical scientist specialising in mycology (fungi), plant pathology and the genus Cordyline, working for DSIR and then Landcare Research. He led the successful research into

the cause of the cabbage tree sudden decline, and was working on tracing the origins of the kauri-killing phytophthora organism. He was a pivotal and long-serving Photo: Suzi Phillips member, including past president and vice-president, of the Auckland Botanical Society, and in 2007 he was awarded an honorary life membership. Dr Beever was a gentleman who will be missed nationally and internationally for his scientific research and leadership, nationally for his generously shared botanical knowledge, and locally for his commitment and support for the Atuanui Restoration Project. Sympathy is extended to his family and his many friends. n Suzi Phillips Forest & Bird

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branching out Every year, Forest & Bird honours people who have made an outstanding contribution to conservation with an Old Blue award. The awards are named for the Chatham Islands black robin called Old Blue, which helped save the species from extinction during the early 1980s.

Chris Bindon

Dave Kent

During summer Chris Bindon’s Forest & Bird activities can take him away from home as often as every weekend. The chair of the Waitakere branch’s membership and events sub-committee has run many Forest & Bird stalls at farmers’ markets, A & P shows and other events in the Waitakere and Kaipara regions. He is also a longstanding member of the committee that runs Forest & Bird’s Tai Haruru Lodge at Piha. Bindon, who is environmental riparian co-ordinator for the Waitakere City Council, is a member of Ducks Unlimited, a national wetlands conservation group. He has helped build and set out hundreds of nesting boxes for grey teal ducks in wetlands around Auckland. He has been a committee member of Forest & Bird’s Waitakere branch for 21 years. He was also a member of the Kaipara branch committee from 2004 until earlier this year.

Dave Kent has played a huge part in Forest & Bird for many years, though well out of the limelight. He was part of the design team for Forest & Bird magazine from 1994 until 1997. He returned as the sole designer in 2005, and stayed on until the end of last year – working with Helen Bain as editor – when he stepped down for health reasons. Wellington-based Kent was the magazine designer and art director, and he designed many posters, brochures, appeal letters and booklets for Forest & Bird. He describes the work as a blissful blending of his profession as a designer with his environmental interests. He grew up in the outdoors and continues to explore it as an adult.

An intrepid conservationist Wellington Forest & Bird member Colin Ryder won the Conservationist of the Year and Fundraiser of the Year in the 2010 Intrepid Travel National Volunteer Awards. Colin has been active in the Wellington branch of Forest & Bird for many years, and has raised more than $1 million for conservation projects.

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Nature projects he has worked on include establishing the Taputeranga Marine Reserve on Wellington’s South Coast, making Mana Island micefree, and restocking the island – off Wellington’s west coast – with native animals. He is involved with several other conservation groups, including Wellington Natural Heritage Trust.

Forest & Bird’s heroes

Eddie Orsulich

John Topliff

Tom Hay

The Tauranga Forest & Bird member is a tireless writer of clear, logical letters to MPs, and to newspapers and magazines. He also writes submissions to councils and on resource consent applications, and has appeared at hearings on Forest & Bird’s behalf. Orsulich puts in the hard yards planting native trees in native reserves around Tauranga, too. He was one of the driving forces behind the Aongatete Forest Restoration Trust, which was set up in 2006 to manage 250 hectares of native forest in the Kaimai-Mamaku Forest Park. He is now secretary of the trust. He was chairman of the Tauranga branch for six years, and is still an active member of the committee, writing newsletters, and organising field trips, walks and promotions.

Kapiti-Mana Forest & Bird member John Topliff has put in up to 25 hours a week to help restore the lower reaches of the Waikanae River into an ecological corridor. Thanks to his efforts, a 2-kilometre stretch on the south bank of the river at Otaitanga has been replanted with about 50,000 natives. He was the first chair of the Friends of the Waikanae River, and he is now chair of the Kapiti Ecological Restoration Management Trust, which maintains three ecological projects in the area, including the project at Otaitanga. In other Forest & Bird work, Topliff has been an active participant in the revegetation project at the Kaitawa Reserve in Waikanae, and he is a regular helper at the Kapiti-Mana branch nursery.

Tom Hay fell in love with New Zealand forests when he arrived here from the treeless Shetland Islands almost 80 years ago. He has spent a lot of time since then fighting to save the forests we have left. Hay was instrumental in the battle to save the West Coast beech forests, including the Oparara Valley, which is now part of the Kahurangi National Park. Several places in the valley sport Tolkien-inspired names suggested by Hay, who is an admirer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lyttelton-based Hay was also involved in the Save Manapouri campaign, and as a seaman he threw himself into the campaign to save the Waipoua kauri forests in Northland. Hay was chairman of Forest & Bird’s Canterbury branch for nine years, and in 1975 was a founding member of Friends of the Earth.

A KCC pioneer Longstanding Kiwi Conservation Club co-ordinator Isabel Morgan was honoured with a KCC Kiri Kiwi Award at the AGM. In 1967 she suggested to her fellow Napier Forest & Bird members that she set up a junior group. With the support of about 30 enthusiastic parents the group was born. They would meet once month to

talk about nature, and head out on weekend field trips. In 1988, when KCC was formed, Isabel led the junior Forest & Bird group into the newly created national kids club. Isabel pioneered the KCC spirit. For more than 40 years she led children to love and care for their natural environment. Forest & Bird

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branching out

Kaipara volunteers win Pestbuster award T

his year’s national Pestbuster award has gone to volunteers working at Atuanui Scenic Reserve north-west of Auckland. Members of Atuanui Restoration Project put in more than 400 hours in the year to May 31 working to control introduced pests that have been killing native birds and native plants in the reserve. The Pestbusters have been rewarded by seeing greater numbers of native birds at the 630-hectare reserve, Kaipara Forest & Bird member

Suzi Phillips says. “There are now good numbers of kereru, plus tui, tomtits, grey warblers, fantails and silvereyes. We’ve even had kaka visiting Atuanui, and we’re hoping kaka will begin breeding in the reserve,” she says. “One volunteer this year saw a green gecko in the reserve. Before we started pest control, the Department of Conservation found very low numbers of skinks and geckos at Atuanui. We hope the number of reptiles and invertebrates is increasing.”

Kevin Adshead takes a group of Atuanui Restoration Project volunteers up the Hoteo River to fill river boundary bait stations at Atuanui Scenic Reserve. Photo: Suzi Phillips

With fewer possums eating the leaves and buds of rata trees in the reserve, the trees have blossomed. “We’ve seen a really good flowering of rata this autumn – a lot more than has been seen previously,” Ms Phillips says. About 30 regular Forest & Bird volunteers check bait stations and traps in the reserve near Glorit. They top up 632 rodent bait stations throughout the reserve. Along the reserve boundary are 55 traps, which are checked. In the past two years, the trap tally has been more than 20 stoats, five weasels, 50 rats and the occasional ferret and hedgehog. Most volunteers working at Atuanui Scenic Reserve live in the Kaipara region. They have to be fit to negotiate the steep terrain to check bait stations and traps. “It is steep, dense, native rainforest and so steep you can hardly stand up in parts,” Ms Phillips says. The reserve is the largest area of native forest between the Waipoua Forest and the Waitakere Ranges.

Nelson-Tasman carries off Golden Spade N

elson-Tasman branch members Beth and Tony Bryant won Forest & Bird’s 2010 Golden Spade award, for leading the Raumanuka Restoration Project. In the year to 31 May, the team of volunteers led by the Bryants planted 2011 plants at Raumanuka Reserve on the Motueka coast, and put in more than 700 hours. The Bryants began planting the 10-hectare reserve two years ago. They have faced many challenges in restoring the reserve, which was in the past used as a rubbish dump. It is exposed and dry, and has many weeds and rabbit pests. The volunteers sourced local native plants and poultry manure to give them a head start. They put plastic shields and stakes around the plants to protect them from the rabbits, the wind, pesticide sprays and trampling by people and dogs. On top of this work, Beth and Tony 62

| Forest & Bird

have put in many hours organising the planting and funding from the Department of Conservation’s Community Conservation Fund. They make planting days a social occasion, providing cakes, sausages and sometimes beer. Volunteers have learnt about wider conservation issues and about plants that are naturally found in Motueka. “We’re starting to get people interested in planting natives in their own gardens,” Beth says. The Bryants look forward to returning the coastal area to a beautiful place from which to watch the wide range of birds on the nearby Moon Creek estuary. “It’s been a lot of work and a huge amount of learning,” Beth says. “I’ve had to learn how to run volunteers, a lot about cooking and a lot about looking after the plants.”

Beth and Tony Bryant received the Golden Spade at Forest & Bird’s AGM.

Tree planting honours Helen Bain

Friends and neighbours, family members and Forest & Bird colleagues plant titoki trees in memory of Helen Bain. Photo: Marina Skinner

early 50 people turned out to plant trees on June 19 in memory of former Forest & Bird magazine editor and communications manager Helen Bain. She drowned on 29 December 2009 while riding her horse. A grove of titoki trees was planted at the entrance to the rural Wairarapa road, near Carterton, where Helen lived. Her partner, Mark Round, said Helen had planned the planting project to spruce up the entrance to the road before she died. “I’m very grateful to our neighbours, Jane Ough and Simon Burt, for taking up Helen’s project and finishing it,” he said at the planting. Ms Ough said she hoped the

trees would create a beautiful entrance to Ahiaruhe Road. “They will grow into a fitting tribute to Helen. She loved native trees and she planted many on the property she

shared with Mark,” she said. Helen’s friends and neighbours, family members and Forest & Bird colleagues helped plant the trees and placed a plaque.

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Forest & Bird

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branching out

National and global focus for AGM N

ew Zealand and international conservation threats were top of the agenda at Forest & Bird’s 87th Annual General Meeting in Wellington from June 25-27. At a freshwater panel discussion, Fish & Game representatives Bryce Johnson and Neil Deans spoke about the dire impact of dairy farming on river water quality and the ad hoc allocation of water around New Zealand. Cath Wallace from ECO joined Forest & Bird conservation advocate Quentin Duthie to cover the campaign against mining national parks and some recent history of mining conservation land. At the Sanderson Memorial Address on Saturday evening, David McDowell – former International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) director-general and DOC director-general – spoke about the importance of NGOs for conservation, and made a plea for help with a new IUCN office in Fiji. BirdLife assistant director for network development Hazell Shokellu Thompson visited from Britain to talk about global threats to birds – including migratory birds that do not heed national borders – and the benefits for Forest & Bird of being a BirdLife partner. Politicians of several shades addressed the 100-plus delegates. Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson thanked Forest & Bird for its unwavering advocacy for nature. She described the debate about opening Schedule 4 areas to mining as “incredibly interesting”. “Like all political debates, it’s had plenty of facts and plenty of rhetoric, but it’s critical we have these kind of discussions. I assure you that this Government does listen. We will not allow mining to compromise our ability to ensure our most valuable natural heritage remains protected for our families to enjoy. “ Opposition leader Phil Goff opened his speech by declaring that if Labour won government: “Any land taken

AGM speakers included, from left, Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson, Green Party co-leader Russel Norman and BirdLife assistant director Hazell Shokellu Thompson.

out of Schedule 4 will be returned to that status.” He also said the Labour Party would reverse the Government’s decision to replace Environment Canterbury elected councillors with appointed commissioners. Green Party co-leader Russel Norman spoke about the need to “grow public love for the environment and conservation”. He warned: “We will destroy our economic future if we destroy the environment.” Dr Norman showed snaps from his summer tour of New Zealand’s dirtiest rivers, which backed up his call for a draft national policy statement for freshwater management. A new Executive was elected, with Barry Wards continuing at the helm and Andrew Cutler taking over as deputy president from Craig Potton, who stepped down because of other commitments. He remains on the Executive, along with Treasurer Graham Bellamy, Alan Hemmings, Peter Maddison and Jon Wenham. The Council elected new members Ines Stager (South Canterbury branch), Lindsey Britton (South Auckland) and Mark Hanger (Dunedin). Forest & Bird deputy president Andrew Cutler introduced workshops for delegates about strategic planning for Forest & Bird. Other workshops were held on event planning, and branches held regional discussions.

Forest & Bird Executive members, from left, Alan Hemmings, Graham Bellamy, Andrew Cutler, Mark Hanger, Barry Wards, Peter Maddison, Lindsey Britton, Jon Wenham and Ines Stager. Absent: Craig Potton.

| Forest & Bird

book reviews

Cape Foulwind on the West Coast, from The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean. Photo: Neville Peat

The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean By Neville Peat Penguin $40 Reviewed by Kirstie Knowles This is a book with heart. Aside from calling it an ocean in its title rather than a sea – its proper name – Neville Peat has done this wild stretch of water and its associated communities proud. It is jam-packed, full to the brim with facts of old and points of interest in the present, complemented perfectly by stunning landscapes, illustrations and historical photographs. It is a journey into the heart and soul of the Tasman Sea, exploring the energy and oceanographic life forces that make it what it is, its history and coastal habitation on both sides of the ditch. The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean perfectly blends history, nature, people and spirit. There’s Abel Tasman, battles with giant whales, deep-sea fishing, heroic crossings and the communities of coastal people. It’s one to dip into for its many gems of knowledge.

Bateman Field Guide to Wild New Zealand By Julian Fitter Bateman, $49.99 Reviewed by Aalbert Rebergen Julian Fitter is an exotic, arriving in New Zealand five years ago. He is the author of Wildlife of the Galapagos (2007) and established Friends of the Galapagos New Zealand. Fitter was co-author of Tui De Roy’s excellent Albatross: Their World, Their Ways (2008). He decided to write this richly illustrated field guide to wild New Zealand because there “was no single [guide] that described the major and most interesting species covering all New Zealand’s flora and fauna”. He wanted to go bush with just one book in his pocket, rather than carrying his library with him. It’s not an easy task because what do you include in such a guide and what do you leave out? He and publisher Bateman have done an excellent job by producing a field guide that represents all aspects of New Zealand’s biodiversity, from birds (pretty complete) to mammals (including some exotics), lizards, frogs, invertebrates, seashore, trees and shrubs, vines, herbs, grasses, sedges, ferns, fungi and a few others.

Each spread has a photo page on the right side with text on the left. Fitter’s text is professional, also shown by his excellent 20-page introduction to geology, climate and natural habitats. At the back are recommended natural areas to visit, our national parks (with maps) and an address list of key organisations. He even praises the work of Forest & Bird! I enjoyed his personal introduction, especially when he addresses all New Zealanders: “This is what you have, did you know you had it? Go out and look for it and when you have found it look after it.”

Beyond the Scene: Landscape and Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand Edited by Janet Stephenson, Mick Abbott and Jacinta Ruru Otago University Press, $45 Reviewed by Marina Skinner What do we really see when we look at a landscape? This collection of essays teases out the non-scenic qualities of landscapes – the meanings, cultural and personal histories we each associate with a place. The perspectives of a conservationist and farmer, a poet, film studies lecturer, landscape architect and lawyer are some of the dozen in this largely scholarly collection. They illustrate the layers of meaning people perceive in a landscape. One of the most readable stories comes from Forest & Bird Distinguished Life Member Gordon Stephenson, who shares his love of the South Waikato land he farmed, protected and replanted. His home of Waotu was once the only tall stand of forest for miles – a pocket in a shelter zone from the almighty Taupo eruption two millennia back. Loggers did what a volcano couldn’t manage, taking out almost all the forest before the 1970s. Stephenson took the steps to protect the little that remained, leading to the beginnings of the QEII National Trust. A chapter on Ngai Tahu rock art links the cave canvasses with the travellers of centuries past. Another writer surveys Akaroa inhabitants – Maori and Pakeha – on how they view their home territory. Not only rural or wilderness landscapes are explored, with chapters on the way people respond to more dramatically transformed Auckland and Christchurch urban and suburban areas.

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During October, November and December there is a wonderful opportunity to observe the activity of the largest colony of little blue penguins on the mainland. The interpretive talk is one of the highlights of your experience at Pohatu, Flea Bay.

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Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) Membership Become a junior member and you will receive the Kiwi Conservation Club magazine five times a year, a personalized membership certificate, stickers, and invitations to participate in a range of activities designed especially for children and organised by our KCC volunteer coordinators.

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Parting shot Otago photographer Craig McKenzie captured this jewelled gecko (Naultinus gemmeus) on the Otago Peninsula. “It was taken using the long lens I usually use for birds,” he says. “This allowed me to photograph them from a distance and not disturb them so they could carry on with their natural behaviour. I had to stay still for long periods in rather uncomfortable positions. With the recent publicity about gecko smuggling, I was expecting a tap on my shoulder and being asked what I was up to, especially when I 70

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had my polypro balaclava on. “The geckos prefer divaricating coprosma species, which form a very dense structure of leaves, branches and thorns with flat, exposed surfaces. It is on these surfaces the geckos are often found basking.” Populations of jewelled gecko are declining as their forest and shrub homes are cleared and because they are eaten by pests including rats, stoats, ferrets and cats. Wildlife smugglers also target them for international collectors.

branch directory

Upper North Island Central Auckland Branch: Chairperson, Anne Fenn; Secretary, Isabel Still, PO Box 1118, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140. Tel: (09) 528-3986. Far North Branch: Chairperson, Vacant; Secretary, Michael Winch, 66 Rarere Terrace, Kerikeri 0230. Tel: (09) 401-7401. Franklin Branch: Chairperson, Keith Gardner; Secretary, Michelle Leman, 8 Second Avenue, RD 1, Waiuku 2681. Tel: (09) 235-3512. Hauraki Islands Branch: Chairperson, Brian Griffiths; Secretary, Sue Fitchett, 125 The Strand, Onetangi, Waiheke Island 1081. Tel: (09) 372-7600. Hibiscus Coast Branch: Chairperson, Pauline Smith; Secretary, Katie Lucas, PO Box 310, Orewa 0946. Tel: (09) 427-5186. Kaipara Branch: Chairperson, vacant; Secretary, vacant, PO Box 187, Helensville 0840. Mercury Bay Branch: Chairperson, Eve McCarthy; Secretary, Vanessa Ford PO Box 205, Whitianga 3542, Tel: (07) 866-4355. Mid North Branch: Chairperson, Warwick Massey; Secretary, Raewyn Morrison, PO Box 552, Warkworth 0941. Tel: (09) 422-9123. North Shore Branch: Chairperson, Alan Emmerson; Secretary, Jocelyn Sanders, PO Box 33873, Takapuna, North Shore City 0740. Tel: (09) 479-2107. Northern Branch: Chairperson, Vacant; Secretary, Beverly Woods, PO Box 1375, Whangarei 0140. Tel: (09) 432-7122. South Auckland Branch: Chairperson, Dene Andre; Secretary, Brian Gidley, PO Box 23602, Hunters Corner, Manukau 2155. Tel: (09) 278-0185. Thames-Hauraki Branch: Chairperson, Marcia Sowman; Secretary, Hazel Genner, PO Box 312, Thames 3540. Tel: (07) 868-9057. Upper Coromandel Branch: Chairperson, Tina Morgan; Secretary, Vacant, PO Box 108, Coromandel 3543. Tel. (07) 866-6720. Waitakere Branch: Chairperson, John Staniland; Secretary, Janie Vaughan, PO Box 60655, Titirangi, Waitakere 0642. Tel: (09) 817-9262.

Central North Island Eastern Bay of Plenty Branch: Chairperson, Mark Fort; Secretary, Lesley Swindells, 130A King Street, Whakatane 3120. Tel: (07) 307-0846. Gisborne Branch: Chairperson, Grant Vincent; Secretary, Wendy McLean, 1 Dominey Street, Inner Kaiti, Gisborne 4010. Tel: (06) 868-8236.

Rotorua Branch: Chairperson, Chair rotates among committee members; Secretaries, Margaret Dick, Tel: (07) 357-2024 or Delight Gartlein Tel: (07) 357-2575. PO Box 1489, Rotorua 3040. South Waikato Branch: Chairperson, Anne Groos; Secretary, Jack Groos, 37 Waianawa Place, Tokoroa 3420. Tel: (07) 886-7456. Taupo Branch: Chairperson, Vacant; Secretary Matthew Lark, PO Box 1105, Taupo 3351. Tel: (07) 377-1302. Tauranga Branch: Chairperson, David Dowrick; Secretary, Liz Cole, PO Box 15638, Tauranga 3144. Tel: (07) 577-6412.

Upper Hutt Branch: Chairperson, Barry Wards; Secretary, Fred Fowler, PO Box 40875, Upper Hutt 5140. Tel: (04) 569-7187. Wairarapa Branch: Chairperson, Geoff Doring; Secretary, Roger Greenslade, PO Box 136, Masterton 5840. Tel: (06) 377-5255. Wanganui Branch: Chairperson, Esther Williams; Secretary, Ray Hutchison, PO Box 4229, Wanganui 4541. Tel: (06) 345-2651. Wellington Branch: Chairperson, Peter Hunt; Secretary, Janet Coburn, PO Box 4183, Wellington 6140. Tel: (04) 971-8200.

South Island

Te Puke Branch: Chairperson Cathy Reid; Secretary, Bev Nairn, PO Box 237, Te Puke 3153. Tel: (07) 533-4247

Ashburton Branch: Chairperson, Edith Smith; Secretary, Val Clemens, PO Box 460, Ashburton 7740. Tel: (03) 308-5620.

Waihi Section: Chairperson, Ian Bradshaw; Secretary, Krishna Buckman, 17 Reservoir Road, Waihi 3610. Tel: (07) 863-8455.

Central Otago-Lakes Branch: Chairperson, Mark Ayre; Secretary, Denise Bruns, 4 Stonebrook Drive, Wanaka 9305. Tel: (03) 443-5462.

Waikato Branch: Chairperson, Philip Hart; Secretary, Jim Macdiarmid, PO Box 11092, Hillcrest, Hamilton 3251. Tel: (07) 849-3438.

Dunedin Branch: Chairperson, Janet Ledingham; Secretary, Mark Hanger, PO Box 5793, Moray Place, Dunedin 9058. Tel: (03) 489-3233.

Lower North Island

Golden Bay Branch: Chairperson, Jenny Treloar; Secretary, Jo-Anne Vaughan, 20 Hiawatha Lane, Takaka 7110. Tel: (03) 525-6031.

Central Hawkes Bay Branch: Chairperson, Dan Elderkamp; Secretary, Barrie & Judith Bayliss, PO Box 189, Waipukurau 4242. Tel: (06) 858-8765. Hastings-Havelock North Branch: Chairperson, Ian Noble; Secretary, Lorna Templeton, 11/15 Devonshire Place, Taradale, Napier 4112. Tel: (06) 845-4155. Horowhenua Branch: Chairperson, Debbie Waldin; Secretary, Belinda McLean, 47 Te Manuao Road, Otaki 5512. Tel: (06) 364-5573. Kapiti-Mana Branch: Chairperson, Tony Ward; Secretary, John McLachlan, 78 Langdale Avenue, Paraparaumu 5032. Tel: (04) 904-0027. Lower Hutt Branch: Chairperson, Russell Bell; Secretary, Stan Butcher, PO Box 31194, Lower Hutt 5040. Tel: (04) 567-7271. Manawatu Branch: Chairperson, Vacant; Secretary, Nina Mercer, PO Box 961, Palmerston North Central, Palmerston North 4440. Tel: (06) 355-0496. Napier Branch: Chairperson, Neil Eagles; Secretary, Barbara McPherson 6 Alamein Crescent, Onekawa, Napier 4110. Tel: (06) 843-3625. North Taranaki Branch: Chairperson, Carolyn Brough; Secretary, Murray Duke, PO Box 1029, Taranaki Mail Centre, New Plymouth 4340. Tel: (06) 751-2759. Rangitikei Branch: Chairperson, Diana Stewart; Secretary, Dot Mattocks, 35 Tutaenui Road, Marton 4710. Tel: (06) 327-8790.

Kaikoura Branch: Chairperson, Ailsa Howard; Secretary, Barry Dunnett, Pooles Road, RD 1, Kaikoura 7371. Tel: (03) 319-5086. Marlborough Branch: Chairperson, Andrew John; Secretary, Lynda Neame, PO Box 896, Blenheim 7240. Tel: (03) 578-2013. Nelson-Tasman Branch: Chairperson, Helen Campbell; Secretary, Jocelyn Bieleski, PO Box 7126, Nelson Mail Centre, Nelson 7042. Tel: (03) 548-6803. North Canterbury Branch: Chairperson, Bruce Coleman; Secretary, Catherine Timbers, PO Box 2389, Christchurch Mail Centre, Christchurch 8140. Tel: (03) 338-3084. South Canterbury Branch: Chairperson, Vacant; Secretary, Margaret McPherson, 29 Mountain View Road, Glenwood, Timaru 7910. Tel: (03) 686-1494. South Otago Branch: Chairperson, Roy Johnstone; Secretary, Jane Young, PO Box 32, Owaka 9546. Tel: (03) 415-8532. Southland Branch: Chairperson, Craig Carson; Secretary, Jenny Campbell, PO Box 1155, Invercargill 9840. Tel: (03) 248-6398. West Coast Branch: Chairperson, Kathy Gilbert; Secretary, Jane Marshall, 115 Hoffman Street, Hokitika 7810. Tel: (027) 388-5887.

South Taranaki Branch: Chairperson, Dave Digby; Secretary, Carol Digby, 103 Miranda Street, Stratford 4332. Tel: (06) 765 7482.

lodge accommodation

Arethusa Cottage An ideal place from which to explore the Far North. Near Pukenui in wetland reserve. 6 bunks, fully equipped kitchen, separate bathroom outside. For information and bookings, contact: John Dawn, Doves Bay Road, RD1, Kerikeri. Tel: (09) 407-8658. Email: johnfd@xnet.co.nz.

Tai Haruru Lodge, Piha, West Auckland A seaside haven set in a large sheltered garden on the rugged West Coast, 38km on sealed roads from central Auckland. Close to store, bush reserves and tracks in the beautiful Waitakere Ranges. Sleeps up to 6 in 1 dble brm, 1 brm and lounge, Lounge has wood burner, dining area and kitchen. Self-contained unit has 4 single beds. Bring food, linen and fuel for fire and BBQ. Off peak rates apply. Booking: Jean and Peter King, 10 La Trobe Track, Karekare, Waitakere City. Tel: (09) 812 8064. Email: hop0018@slingshot.co.nz

Waiheke Island Cottage Located next to our 49ha Wildlife Reserve, 10 mins walk to Onetangi Beach, general stores etc. Sleeps up to 8 in two bedrooms. Lounge, well-equipped kitchen, separate toilet, bathroom, shower, laundry. Pillows, blankets provided. No pets. Ferries 35 minutes from Auckland. Enquiries with stamped addressed envelope to: Robin Griffiths, 125 The Strand, Onetangi, Waiheke Island. Tel: (09) 372-7662.

William Hartree Memorial Lodge, Hawke’s Bay Situated 48km from Napier, 8km past Patoka on the Puketitiri Rd (sealed). The lodge is set amid a 14ha scenic reserve and close to many walks, eg: Kaweka Range, Balls Clearing, hot springs and museum. The lodge accommodates up to 10 people. It has a fully equipped kitchen including stove, refrigerator and microwave plus tile fire, hot showers. Supply your own pillows, linen, sleeping bags etc. For information and bookings please send a stamped addressed envelope to Mike and Linda Hay, 172 Guppy Road, Taradale, Napier 4112. Tel: (06) 8444651. Email: hayhouse@clear.net.nz.

Ruapehu lodge, Tongariro National Park The newly built lodge is 600 metres from Whakapapa Village. It sleeps 32 people – three bunkrooms sleep 4 each, one sleeps 6 and two upstairs sleeping areas sleep 14. Supply your own bedding and food. Bookings and inquiries to Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington. Tel: (04) 385-7374. Email: office@forestandbird.org.nz

Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington Harbour Joint venture accommodation by Lower Hutt Forest and Bird with DOC. A modern family home with kitchen, 3 bedrooms, large lounge and dining room, just 20 mins sailing by ferry

from the centre of Wellington or 10 mins from Days Bay. Ideal place to relax in beautiful surroundings, with accommodation for 8. Bring your own food and bedding and a torch. Smoking is banned everywhere on the island, including the house. Forest & Bird members get a 25% discount. For more information, visit www. doc.govt.nz and for bookings, contact the DOC Wellington Visitors Centre at wellingtonvc@doc. govt.nz, ph (04) 384-7770 or mail to PO Box 10420, The Terrace, Wellington 6143.

Mangarakau Swamp Field Centre, North West Nelson Borders Kahurangi National Park and Te Tai Tapu Marine Reserve. New, 10 bed lodge with two bathrooms, fully equipped kitchen. Sleeping bags, towels and food required. Contact Jo-Anne Vaughan – Golden Bay Branch Secretary for details: javn@xtra.co.nz or phone (03) 5248072.

Tautuku Lodge, Otago State Highway 92, Southeast Otago. Situated on Forest and Bird’s 550ha Lenz Reserve 32km south of Owaka. A bush setting, and many lovely beaches nearby provide a wonderful base for exploring the Catlins. The cottage, the cabin and an A-frame sleep 10, 4 and 2 respectively. No animals. For information and rates please send a stamped addressed envelope to the caretaker: Diana Noonan, Mirren St, Papatowai, Owaka, RD2. Tel: (03) 415-8024, fax (03) 415-8244. Email: diana.keith@ruralinzone.net

Top performers that won’t let you down With each of our stores stocking over 7500 products from 150 different suppliers, we are able to offer the best performers in each category. We present cutting edge technology from leading international manufacturers such as Arc’teryx, Berghaus, Black Diamond, Exped, Osprey, Outdoor Research and The North Face. Every item has undergone a selection process during which the product has proven itself to be a top contender in its category.

Exped Waterbloc 800 Waterproof Down Sleeping Bag

Measurements: - Temperature according to EN13537: Max: +10°C; Comfort: -3°C; Limit: -9°C; Extreme: -28°C - Down fill weight: M=770g; L=830g - Packed size: M=36x25cm; L=39x25cm - Weight: M=1570g; L=1670g Materials: - Shell: waterproof, vapor permeable Pertex Endurance® nylon - Lining: Texped PR58 ripstop polyester Features: - Anatomically shaped easy adjust hood - Tricot baffle, closed baffles and draft tube - 3D over-sized draft collar - Angled and trapezoid foot design - Fits body length up to: M=180cm; L=195cm - The new Exped Waterbloc 800 is a bivy bag and sleeping bag in one, with the features of a sleeping bag and a bivy bag merged together, resulting in less weight, smaller packed size, lower cost and reduced condensation. M=$799 L=$829 RRP

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