Wilding pines have been rapidly multiplying in the South Island high country, with fears their spread will soon become uncontrollable.
Ten species of wilding conifers, most prominent in southern Marlborough, were on track to infest vast swathes of the South Island.
Their seeds could travel long distances in the wind and needed no special conditions to grow, according to the Department of Conservation website. They took over farmland, sucked up water needed for horticulture, and wiped out native diversity.
South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust chairperson John Oswald called it the country’s “worst environmental disaster”.
“There’s nothing introduced that has done as much damage as these trees.”
Oswald and fellow advocate Steve Satterthwaite established the trust to combat the spread across 870,000 hectares, including the Awatere Valley and state-owned Molesworth Station — New Zealand’s largest farm.
A never-ending battle
Wilding pine eradication on Molesworth Station was funded under the Government’s National Wilding Conifer Control Programme, which is $10 million per year with top-ups.
But the trust insisted that any progress made on Molesworth Station would be immediately negated by more seeds raining in from the Branch and Leatham catchments located about 30km to the north.
These steep and remote river valleys were considered the worst wilding pine-infested area in the country.
A helicopter pilot who recently flew in told Q+A it was “just devastating to see these infestations and the magnitude of them”.
Without intervention, advocates say the Awatere Valley and surrounding areas could become so thick with wilding pines they’d be impossible to walk through.
Currently, there is no eradication programme or funding in place for the Branch Leatham catchment.
Who pays for it?
Oswald has been trying to get the Government to see the magnitude of the problem and flew Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard up into the Branch Leatham.
The Conifer Control programme needed an extra $10 million per year for the next 10 years to deal with the pines in the catchment, according to the Restoration Trust.
They said this should come from the $200 million International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy fund.
Hoggard said the scale of the problem was plain to see but told Oswald he didn’t have access to the funding necessary to address it.
He told Q+A he wasn’t in charge of that funding, rather the Minister of agriculture and forestry Todd McCLay was.
McClay said Hoggard had not made any recommendations to him on the Branch Leatham wilding pines issue.
Oswald, who had been fighting the pines since their introduction to the region in the 1970s, said he couldn’t believe it wasn’t at the top of their list.
Satterthwaite warned that time was running out.
“If these landscapes change to a monoculture of trees, as they will do, they’re forever gone.”