A strong platform is being set to haul back the march of wilding pines across New Zealand but without long-term funding, reinvasion is inevitable, Federated Farmers says.
“The current Government deserves huge kudos for boosting total wilding control funding to $110 million over the next three years,” the organisation’s pest control spokesperson, Richard Dawkins, says.
“That’s very significant coin when there are so many other calls on taxpayer funds.
“But it’s also recognition that wilding conifers pose a huge threat to productive farmland, our water catchments and native biodiversity, and we need to be throwing everything we can at getting on top of them.”
Biosecurity New Zealand has just wound up consultation on a refresh of the Wilding Conifer Management Strategy.
It sets the framework for how the Department of Conservation (DOC), regional councils, landowners and the Wilding Pine Network will co-operate over the next 20 years, and is a foundation document for the National Pest Management Plan.
Dawkins says just as important as the injection of new funding is the Government’s commitment to a National Pest Management Plan on wildings, which when developed will come with five years of funding locked in.
“Federated Farmers has been pushing hard for this – and for a national strategy on pest animals.
“We’re not going to win on the wilding pine front - nor with feral animals – unless there is a funded, nationally-coordinated, landscape-scale approach that brings together central and local government, landowners, industry and communities.”
Wilding Pine Network co-ordinator Jo Ritchie says the organisations and community groups it encompasses are also feeling buoyed by what’s now happening.
“Support for tackling this economic and biodiversity threat is across the Parliament.
“At the recent Federated Farmers Rural Debate, the two points of agreement among all the party candidates present was the need to tackle wildings, and the huge potential for more solar energy on farms.”
Ritchie says it will take two years to finalise the National Pest Management Plan on wildings “but that’s actually the fastest it’s been done.
“Previous NPMPs, such as for wallabies and kauri dieback, took longer.”
A new pamphlet developed by the Network to highlight the problem to all New Zealanders is blunt about the scale of the threat.
Around two million hectares – one in every 13 hectares – are infested with wilding pines and without sustained funding that could reach one in every four hectares by 2056.
“Left unchecked, wildings will colonise farmland and our conservation landscapes up to 20 times faster than native plants can re-establish,” the Network says.
“Every hectare lost to wilding pines can mean up to an 80% loss in useable pasture.”
As well as the increased wildfire risk, the pest trees consume large volumes of water, reducing river flows and affecting irrigation and hydroelectricity generation.
Richard Dawkins says while the recent funding boost is very welcome, Federated Farmers believes $50 million a year for the next decade is needed to pare back current infestations to a point where ongoing management is feasible.
“Stop-start funding is incompatible with effective pest management,” he says.
“Without consistency, work crews disband, programmes waste money gearing up and gearing down, and everyone loses heart.
“Funding decisions should recognise that early intervention and maintenance are considerably more cost-effective than allowing infestations to re-establish, requiring another round of large-scale control.”
The Federated Farmers submission on the strategy refresh says mandatory management responsibilities need to be across land tenures – including DOC, council and forest land – and target seed sources.
Re-establishing low-impact livestock grazing on up to 500,000 ha of the DOC estate is another important tool for controlling wildings and other pest plants.
“Farmers and other landowners who undertake effective control work shouldn’t continually face reinvasion from neighbouring land where wilding conifers or high-risk seed sources aren’t being dealt to,” Dawkins says.