The Central Otago Wilding Pines Group supported landowners to co-ordinate wilding controls across its one-million-hectare catchment, largely targeting seed sources.<\/p>\n
Programme director Pete Oswald said the \u201cgoodwill\u201d approach of relying on foresters to control pines spreading beyond their boundaries was not strong enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I see there\u2019s not much exposure to the issue, where it\u2019s hidden, the problem is horrendous and just leading to run rampant in some cases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got this legacy forest we\u2019re stuck with, causing huge problems and costing the taxpayer millions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost shouldn\u2019t fall to the person who didn\u2019t make the mess, which is currently what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oswald said varying degrees of people took responsibility for seed spread, and forest owners usually responded once they were \u201ccalled out\u201d, but he said a mechanism to force good operation around prevention was needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I think there\u2019s been a lot of complacency in the national wilding conifer cause, that it needed to be collaborative and bringing everybody along the journey, but honestly, it just needs big changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just need a bit of a shake-up, and people making a mess need to take full responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve learned is, if there isn\u2019t any repercussions there \u2013 legally or regulatory \u2013 then there\u2019s always going to be good and bad players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forest owners spent $4 million on wilding controls last year, largely for Pinus contorta, according to a recent Forest Owners Association survey. <\/p>\n
An association spokesperson said the forestry sector spent $13m over the past five years on controls.<\/p>\n
Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests also required owners to manage wilding spread, provided they could access neighbouring properties.<\/p>\n
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) was now consulting on its draft 20-year wilding pines strategy, which would also inform the development of a National Pest Management Plan for wilding conifers, the Government announced in May.<\/p>\n
It said control work could not rely solely on government funding, that shared accountability with the forestry sector should be strengthened, and it explored how sites would be monitored and maintained following controls.<\/p>\n
Over the next three years, the Government invested $109m in the National Wilding Conifer Control programme, led by the MPI.<\/p>\n
Over the years, the Government tightened rules for commercial forestry\u2019s environmental standards, including restrictions on planting what MPI considered the most vigorously spreading species, Pinus contorta.<\/p>\n
Another extreme spreader, Douglas fir, was allowed in the Emissions Trading Scheme for farming carbon, but with new restrictions that forest owners said \u201calmost entirely prevent\u201d planting it for carbon farming.<\/p>\n
The Government announced changes to the National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry in June.<\/p>\n
Commercial foresters were now required to assess their wilding spread risk with a newly updated government calculator and notify their councils.<\/p>\n
High-risk applications would instead require a resource consent.<\/p>\n
The Forest Owners Association said wilding spread from carbon forests had been regulated since 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny new planting of Douglas fir, whether for harvesting or carbon forestry, requires submission of the wilding tree risk calculation to council, a wilding score below 12 or a resource consent,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wilding spread risk calculator almost entirely prevents the planting of Douglas fir.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oswald said the system needed further shake-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven that new calculator doesn\u2019t really do enough to stop those forests going into the right places.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does a pretty good job, but what we\u2019re stuck with now is forests that were allowed through under different measures and, even back in the early 2000s, where there were no measures, it was just a permitted activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its draft strategy, MPI said identifying and managing major seed sources was fundamental to successful wilding management.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the risk of spread differs between sources, management actions should be risk-based and targeted,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n
\u201cFailure to address ongoing seed production can undermine control efforts, leading to persistent re-infestation and escalating costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
MPI\u2019s strategy said that, if left unmanaged, wilding conifer infestations could affect up to 25% of the country within 30 years, imposing at least $4.6 billion in economic losses over 50 years.<\/p>\n
MPI\u2019s consultation on the draft wilding pines strategy closes on October 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Central Otago Wilding Pines Group supported landowners to co-ordinate wilding controls across its one-million-hectare catchment, largely targeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3043,2082,3247,85458,78,2514,6176,28205,111,43,139,69,9769,2744,48314,1240,35108,28206,61,226115],"class_list":["post-604610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-call","tag-for","tag-forest","tag-hotspot","tag-in","tag-island","tag-legacy","tag-monique","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-owners","tag-pay","tag-pine","tag-south","tag-spread","tag-steele","tag-to","tag-wilding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}