Forest & Bird Magazine 353 Aug 2014

ISSUE 353 • AUGUST 2014 www.forestandbird.org.nz

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ISSUE 353

• August 2014

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. Chief Executive: Hōne McGregor Advocacy Manager: Kevin Hackwell Business Manager: Julie Watson 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 Tce, 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: Unit 4/Level 1, 245 St Asaph St, Christchurch.

PO Box 2516, Christchurch 8140.

Tel: (03) 940-5523 Email: j.miller@forestandbird.org.nz Forest & Bird is a registered charitable entity under the Charities Act 2005.

Registration No. CC26943.

Tiaki Taiao www.forestandbird.org.nz

Contents 2 Editorial

37

KCC grown-up

38

Fundraising

40

A climate for change

42

Going places

44

In the field

46

Community conservation

Forest & Bird lodges

James Muir

4 Letters 5 50 years ago

Value for nature

7 Conservation news

Climate voter, NZ for sale, Denniston Plateau, Fracking report, National freshwater standards, DOC scorecard, Defending nature, Stewardship appeal thank you, Grants, Great Barrier Island, Monorail decision, In brief, Forest & Bird on Facebook

Acid test for our seas

Tautuku Forest Cabins

Liking for a tough life

20

Cover story

26

Nature strip

27

Amazing facts about …

Lancewoods

48

28

Native forests open to loggers

Whales and marine protection

Backyard transformation

Te Rere penguin-cam, NelsonTasman planting, Ashburton photo winners, Perrine Moncrieff Memorial Lecture, Political debates, North Shore KCC fungi forage, Hastings wetland planting

West Coast wind-thrown trees

31

Our partners

32

Our people

Kiwi Camping, Honda EDITOR: Marina Skinner

PO Box 631, Wellington.

T (04) 801-2761 F (04) 385-7373 E m.skinner@forestandbird.org.nz ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER:

Rob Di Leva, Dileva Design E rob@dileva.co.nz

Ian Noble, Wilma and Ian McDonald, Nik Hurring, Robin Chesterfield, Hugh Wilson, Forest & Bird Councillors at AGM, Constitution and Board changes, Trevor Thompson, Roy Johnstone and Jim Young, Andrea Carson, Isobel Thompson, Pat Menzies

51 Book reviews

Paradise Saved, NZ Wildlife, A Sting in the Tale, Native Birds of New Zealand

53

Parting shot

Tuatara by Anna Carter

PREPRESS/PRINTING:

Printlink KEEP UP WITH NATURE

ADVERTISING:

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

Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/ ForestandBird

Watch us on YouTube www.youtube.com/ forestandbird

Sign up to Forest & Bird eNews Fresh conservation news delivered to your inbox. Go to www.forestandbird.org.nz COVER SHOT Bryde’s whale by Doug Perrine

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editorial

Native forests still need us A potential and unprecedented sell-off of rights to frack, log, drill and mine on New Zealand conservation land is looming. So, too, is an election.

In response to threats to our publicly owned conservation land, Forest & Bird ran a New Zealand On the Block campaign. You might have seen For Sale signs popping up around the country and on social media. These highlighted to New Zealanders that the country we all know and love is under very serious threat. It is happening right now, right here, and despite a huge groundswell of support for conservation.

In late June a Bill was passed under urgency. It opens up conservation land on the West Coast for logging once again.

I have been so proud of the amazing achievements made since the late 1980s when, after years of battling by Forest & Bird, New Zealanders across the spectrum celebrated the saving of native forest and its wildlife from logging.

The passing of the West Coast Windblown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill shows that, sadly, it is no longer sufficient just to have land “protected”. Native logging on a scale not seen for decades is set to begin again. It is a tragic end to our New Zealand Forest Accord.

With no opportunity for public comment, the Bill single-handedly sets back nature conservation in New Zealand over two generations. This will be the Minister of Conservation’s legacy. What’s more the Minister has indicated this could be rolled out in other parts of the country.

Forest & Bird must continue to stand tall, as it has for so long, and don its battle gear to seek again actual and real protection for our native forests.

Mark Hanger Forest & Bird Deputy President

Forest & Bird’s new Board, from back left, Tony Dunlop, Graham Bellamy, Mark Hanger, Ines Stager, Jon Wenham and Kate Graeme. Front, Lindsey Britton, Andrew Cutler and Brent Barrett. Photo: Mandy Herrick

Conservation calendar September 22-October 5

Great New Zealand Kererū Count 2014

October 17-19

Forest & Bird’s South Island gathering

October 31-November 2

Forest & Bird’s North Island gathering

November 1-9

Conservation Week

November 3-24

Forest & Bird’s Seabird of the Year poll

More details at www.forestandbird.org.nz

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| Forest & Bird

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

PATRON: His Excellency

Lieutenant General the Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae, GovernorGeneral of New Zealand NATIONAL PRESIDENT:

Andrew Cutler DEPUTY PRESIDENT:

Mark Hanger NATIONAL TREASURER:

Graham Bellamy CONSERVATION AMBASSADORS:

Sir Alan Mark, Gerry McSweeney, Craig Potton BOARD MEMBERS:

Brent Barrett, Lindsey Britton, Kate Graeme, Tony Dunlop, Ines Stager, Jon Wenham DISTINGUISHED LIFE MEMBERS:

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

Forest & Bird is published quarterly by the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. 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 elemental chlorine-free paper made from FSC® certified wood fibre and pulp sourced from responsibly managed forests.

Registered at PO Headquarters, Wellington, as a magazine.

ISSN 0015-7384. Copyright.

All rights reserved.

NIC AND MIKE | WEKA 2 | MAGIC MOUNTAIN, RAGLAN | 6.08AM | WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER

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PROUDLY SUPPORTING

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www.forestandbird.org.nz

letters Forest & Bird welcomes your feedback on conservation topics. Please send letters up to 200 words, with your 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 next edition will win a copy of NZ Wildlife: Introducing the weird and wonderful character of natural New Zealand by Steve Trewick and Mary Morgan-Richards (Penguin, $35).

Please send letters to Editor, Forest & Bird magazine, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140, or e-mail m.skinner@forestandbird.org.nz by September 30.

Climate change this election

Weed war declared

In 2015 governments must decide on an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, a key issue in our children’s future. Most carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be there for centuries. Each year it is added to, carbon dioxide concentration (now over 400 parts per million) rises, driving temperatures up. Meanwhile the capacity to sink it declines as forests fall and oceanic carbon sink effectiveness wanes. Scientists describe acceleration of environmental feedback systems such as polar ice melt and outline a range of future scenarios, depending on policy/ action (David Holmgren summarises in Future Scenarios).

Yet despite the threat to all species, climate change isn’t a major election issue, unlike nuclear weapons in 1984, when Kiwis lobbied politicians hard to commit to making New Zealand nuclear-free. It was a bold statement in a world where nuclear weapons were the ultimate prestige symbol of “security”.

Has securing access to oil become the ultimate security strategy? With consequences potentially as devastating as war, we need bold policy on climate change. It may require realpolitik risks (surely less so than anti-nuclear policy) but it is so vital, we must make it happen at all levels.

Almost everyone could and should be involved in eradicating pest plants. Auckland is now the weediest city in the world, with the desirable suburbs out west, like Titirangi, the worst areas. But gardens in the inner city suburbs contain some of the worst pest plant species.

Many of these plants were introduced as ornamentals, and sentimental attachment to them persists. We see images of rats or stoats eating birds on the nest but we don’t see images of trees being strangled by climbers and we don’t see native plant seedlings being suffocated by dense, unwanted ground covers.

Forest & Bird has included articles on noxious weeds, but so much more could be done through this magazine and through the national media. An education programme needs to be launched to inform the general public about the serious threat of these plants to the environment.

Our native fauna need the native flora. Eradication of pest plants is such a daunting task that it must not be left to a few enthusiasts. Everyone needs to get on board – councils, transport agencies (for the road edges), environmental groups, community groups and the public.

Doreen Sunman, Auckland

Frances Palmer, Auckland This letter is the winner of The Essential Audrey Eagle: Botanical art of New Zealand.

More marine reserves please Swimming at the Goat Island marine reserve was a real highlight during our 1993 summer holiday and we too thank Dr Bill Ballantine for his battle to fully protect this fivekilometre stretch of Leigh coastline ( May Forest & Bird).

Our family swim was with masks, snorkels, flippers and, for our boys (then aged 5 and 7), their boogie boards. We’ll never forget the life we saw under the water around Goat Island, including the many large snapper swimming around us, the schools of blue maomao swimming by, rays moving across the sea bottom below us and the crayfish waving their antennae from crevices in the island rocks.

It would be great if Forest & Bird would advocate for more marine biota conservation areas and more marine reserves around our two main Islands.

Lynne Stewart, Clyde The editor replies: One of Forest & Bird’s significant areas of work is advocating for legislation that supports a meaningful national network of marine protected areas.

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Large clumps of ginger and woolly nightshade photographed near Doreen Sunman’s home.

Sorry state of sea lions Chris Todd in May’s Forest & Bird refers to the New Zealand sea lions at sub-Antarctic Enderby Island. I agree they are spectacular, but your readers should realise that they are only a shadow of their former numbers.

I was lucky enough to visit Enderby a couple of times in the early 90s when the whole beach at Sandy Bay was

covered in animals. At the boat landing place, crew had to go ashore ahead of the visitors and clear a path across the beach. When I went back with Heritage Expeditions earlier this year, I was shocked at the small area of the beach that was populated. I estimate less than a third of the sand was covered.

I knew in the abstract that numbers were declining, but it was only seeing the largely empty beach that brought it home to me. The decline appears catastrophic and I wonder whether there will be any there at all in another 20 years.

Jane Forsyth, Lake Hawea The editor replies: Forest & Bird shares your concerns as we know that the number of Auckland Island sea lion pups born halved between 1999 and 2011. We have asked the government for a halt to trawl squid fishing around the sub-Antarctic Islands until a threat management plan is completed.

Pest control critical In your February editorial (“Election year wish list”), the commitment to further extend pest control on the DOC estate particularly resonated with me. This is essential if we want the flora and fauna to survive. I also feel that each and every one of us should be helping with pest control, especially on farms where rats, mice and possums are prevalent in hay barns, scrub and rubbish tips.

We farmed a coastal dairy farm for 50 years and recently shifted to a smaller block of land, which seemed to be a haven for rats. After a three-year battle we have finally eradicated the rats. Since then there has been an increase in birds such as silvereyes, thrushes, blackbirds, goldfinches, greenfinches and kingfishers.

Congratulations for keeping up the standard of an excellent magazine. I look forward to every issue. I keep them filed away safely and invariably use them for reference work.

Dawn Taylor, Dargaville The editor replies: It’s great to hear about your pest control, and thank you for your support of Forest & Bird.

Forest & Bird links to Māori

New Zealand sea lions on Enderby Island. Photo: davidhallet.co.nz

50 years ago

I would support a strengthening of Forest & Bird’s connection and collaboration with Māori and greater input of Māori views into the activities of the Society. In my view, conservation groups are too Pākehā-dominated and Pākehā-centric.

However much we empathise with and treasure our environment, our feelings and attitudes are coloured by our cultural background so a greater input of the views of the tangata whenua shaped by their cultural background would strengthen the Society and the quality of its advocacy.

Jacqueline Hemmingson, Wellington

New Zealand conservation at the crossroads

By J T Salmon (being the Sanderson Memorial Address at Hastings, 1964) Face to face with the power of industrialisation, backed by economics and assisted by modern technology, conservation in New Zealand has its back to the wall; and we have reached that situation wherein reason must prevail in these matters or else the whole character and charm that is such a feature of life in this country will be lost forever. Conservation is at the crossroads, at the point when it becomes either a lost cause or an accepted principle by the public at large….

Your Society has grown into the largest organisation of its kind in New Zealand, and it has gained the confidence and support of the public in the ideals for which it stands … may I also suggest to you that you look more to greater activity in the wider fields of conservation in this country; for treasure protected inside a crumbling castle has little real or lasting value.

Forest & Bird, August 1964

Forest & Bird

| 5

letters Sell some stewardship land I refer to your story “Limbo land” in May’s Forest & Bird. In my nine years’ experience on the West Coast Conservation Board, there were many occasions when the Department of Conservation and the conservation board were disadvantaged by having so much land classified simply as “stewardship”.

Each parcel of land varied greatly in value from being worthy of national park protection to being of insufficient value to be administered by DOC. I agree with Forest & Bird’s second and third points regarding the classification of stewardship land, but I think a vital point is missing. Where land is devoid of natural values and similar land is well represented on the DOC estate, it should be disposed of.

A broad brush was used to identify this land at the department’s formation and now it deserves a more thorough inspection.

But Forest & Bird should acknowledge that some land currently administered by DOC has no value in the public estate and wastes scarce resources. The amount of land would be minute. But it would be a realistic stance and one that would provide balance and fairness and gather wider support than the present conservationonly emphasis.

Hamish Macbeth, Karamea

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Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell replies: We agree with you that a review of all stewardship land might identify small areas that should not continue to be public conservation land. DOC’s resources would be better spent on areas with higher conservation values, and we would support the sale of land with very low conservation values.

Understanding mangroves Ann Graeme spells it out clearly and correctly (May Forest & Bird magazine). Waikaraka Estuary Managers (WEM) claim to have “obtained the best possible advice”. They would do well to familiarise themselves with the proceedings of the first national mangrove symposium (Whāngārei 1976) before making such foolish ecological errors.

I convened that symposium for the then Nature Conservation Council, bringing together organisations and individuals with an interest in mangrove wetlands. We were able to examine areas lacking in knowledge and expose the then numerous and often illegal activities damaging these wetlands. The symposium certainly changed attitudes and stopped much abuse.

The ignorance concerning mangroves at that time was appalling. Later research revealed that in terms of biomass productivity, mangrove ecosystems are about four times more productive than a typical dairy farm.

Alan Fielding, Masterton

conservation

news

Climate debate heats up Forest & Bird wants nature at the front of voters’ minds for this year’s general election. As part of a joint initiative of community-based groups, we are also encouraging people to consider climate change when they cast their vote.

The Climate Voter initiative was launched in June by Greenpeace, Generation Zero, Oxfam, 350 Aotearoa, WWF-New Zealand and Forest & Bird. Climate Voters are not encouraged to vote or not vote for any particular party, but through the Great Climate Voter Debate to be held in Auckland in September, and questions asked online through social media of all parties, they can learn about climate issues and party policies.

“Being a Climate Voter means you care about climate change and you want all political parties to do something about it – you want real action on climate change and support strategies to rapidly phase out fossil fuels and grow New Zealand’s clean energy and low-carbon potential,” Forest & Bird Strategic Policy Adviser Claire Browning says.

As advocates and campaigners, all six groups consider it a core part of their work to be giving voice to nature and climate issues in the run-up to the election. After an opinion from the Electoral Commission that the Climate

Voter website and promotional materials should carry a promoter statement for electoral advertising during the three-month pre-election period, the groups behind Climate Voter have asked the High Court to rule on the issue. This was done because of several concerns, including all groups’ non-partisan status, Climate Voter’s issuesbased focus and issues about freedom of speech and democracy in an election year. None of the groups involved are party promoters.

A High Court hearing will be held in late August. It’s an important case for electoral law in clarifying the boundaries around electoral involvement and issues advocacy, and in getting an interpretation of an Electoral Act provision not considered by the courts before.

By late July almost 30,000 people had signed on as Climate Voters.

Sign on at www.climatevoter.org.nz/forestandbird The Great Climate Voter Debate will be held in Auckland on September 3. Tickets are $6 and can be bought through www.iticket.co.nz

Climate Voter

Polling the pollies

Inside this edition of Forest & Bird magazine is a Climate Voter bumper sticker. Please put it somewhere where it will be widely seen!

The 12-page pull-out inside this edition of Forest & Bird magazine contains answers from all main political parties about their policies on conservation and the environment.

It also includes brief comment on a selection of key policies for all parties.

WIN A BOOK Forest & Bird is giving away three copies of Native Birds of New Zealand by David Hallett (Sandfly Publishing, $54.95). To enter the draw, email your entry to draw@forestandbird.org.nz Please put Native Birds in the subject line and include your name and address in the email. Or put your name and address on the back of an envelope and post to Native Birds draw, Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140. Entries close on September 20.

The winners of Raoul and the Kermadecs: New Zealand’s northernmost islands by Steve Gentry in the May edition of Forest & Bird are Mr G J Carmichael of Hamilton, Kevin Kilkelly of Wellington, and Lawrence Bishop of Gisborne. Your books will be posted.

Forest & Bird

| 7

conservation

news

New Zealand for sale The government is progressively selling off the rights to frack conservation (and private) land, mine conservation land, let loggers back into the West Coast conservation forests and mine the seabed. It is also encouraging deep sea oil drilling, and has allocated more than $400 million in hand-outs for irrigation dams to intensify the dairy sector.

Most New Zealanders may have heard of some or all of these threats to our natural heritage but many may not be aware of the overall gravity of the situation.

In which areas are the rights to frack, drill and mine being sold off? Just how soon could fracking or drilling begin in your favourite piece of forest, for example?

The short answers to those questions are “just about everywhere” and “very soon”. The rights to drill in more than 39 million hectares of New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – most of which is over 200 metres deep – have been put up for sale this year alone. And at the same time more than 900,000ha of conservation and private land were included in the New Zealand Petroleum and Mineral’s 2014 block offer Little is sacred. Thanks to the public protest that erupted when the government announced it was going to allow mining in the third of public conservation land protected

by Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, those areas – including national parks – are not on the block. But large parts of the remaining two-thirds of conservation land, including several conservation parks, conservation reserves, scenic reserves and areas of stewardship land, all are. A marine mammal sanctuary is also included.

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Forest & Bird’s New Zealand On the Block campaign ran in July and August to alert New Zealanders to what’s at stake. “For sale” signs were put up at more than 40 locations, photographed, and posted to an interactive map at www.nzontheblock.org.nz The signs appeared on the edge of Auckland’s Waitematā Harbour, beside the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and on Tāmaki Drive; at Cape Rēinga; on the edge of Cook Strait; beside rivers in the Catlins, Canterbury, Nelson and Wellington regions; and in the Buller Gorge Scenic Reserve. The signs were put up by Forest & Bird members and staff.

“When 50,000 New Zealanders marched up Auckland’s Queen St, they weren’t saying ‘we don’t want mining in national parks, but we’re OK with mining and whatever else on every other type of public conservation land’,” says Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell.

“And our EEZ is home to 36 seabird species that only breed here. A blow-out in a deep sea oil well could spell extinction for some of those species.

“The dig it, mine it, frack it, dam it approach to economic development risks disaster, and shirks our responsibility to not make the climate crisis worse. Rather than hosting oil executives and paying for deep sea seismic surveys, the government should be leading the transition to a clean economy. It’s what the world’s doing and it’s what we should be doing too,” says Kevin. www.nzontheblock.org.nz

Open for drilling and mining The grey shaded areas show the large areas of seas and public and private land put up for tender for oil, gas and mining exploration in recent years.

Kermadec Islands

2

Chatham Islands

Bounty Islands

Antipodes Islands Auckland Islands

3 1 A For Sale sign at Cape Rēinga, showing the coastline to the

southwest of the cape. Photo: Toby Ricketts

2 The On the Block campaign was officially launched by an

event at Parliament, where a 12 x 6-metre “map” of New Zealand was laid out on the front lawn. Photo: Phil Bilbrough

3 One of the On the Block/For Sale signs besides Sam’s Creek,

in the Tākaka Valley, adjoining Kahurangi National Park near Nelson. The area is under threat from gold mining.

Photo: Debs Martin

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conservation

news

Fracking’s hidden dangers Fracking is often touted as a transitional activity because gas creates fewer emissions than coal or oil when burnt.

But the high levels of emissions created by fracking tell a slightly different story.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) Dr Jan Wright identified in her second report on fracking, released in June, that fracking is not just used to find gas.

The government is currently selling off the rights to frack and drill in 925,200 hectares of conservation and mainly rural private land. Much of this land has been targeted because it’s thought there is oil beneath it, not gas. Oil can also be

Gas being flared from a fracking well in Pennsylvania in the United States. Photo: Les Stone/Greenpeace

extracted by fracking. Any gas that comes to the surface from an oil fracking well is simply flared off as waste product.

If the emissions created by both the flaring of the gas and the burning of what is produced from the oil are taken into account, fracking for oil will seriously raise the country’s emissions profile.

The PCE also found that the number of fracking wells that can be drilled – and the potential for groundwater contamination from the chemicals in the drilling fluids – varies a lot depending on where the wells are. The geology of the Taranaki region means one well can frack a relatively large area. There are also many short, steep catchments running off Mt Taranaki, which means the damage from any contaminants that might leak from a well would be reasonably confined.

But in areas like Hawke’s Bay and the Wairarapa, the geology means a well can only frack a relatively small area. This could lead to a well for every square kilometre. There is no fracking in either area yet but it could start soon in both. Because both areas have very large catchments, any contamination would be unlikely to be confined, and would be far more likely to reach an underground aquifer.

The PCE also documented the lack of council regulation of fracking. A request to start fracking is often treated in the same way as a request to drill a water bore.

Denniston miner’s payments eased Conservation Minister Dr Nick Smith in June announced that Bathurst Resources would have its schedule of compensation payments for mining Denniston Plateau relaxed. This was because the slump in international coal prices has forced Bathurst to scale back its plans.

Forest & Bird believes Bathurst should be held to the conditions of its consent and access agreements that required it to pay millions of dollars in compensation for the damage its open-cast coal mine will do to the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast. It has been given another two years – from five years to seven – to pay all of the $22 million in compensation.

The international coal price has fallen to about $US110 a tonne and Bathurst’s share price has fallen as low as 5 cents in recent months. Bathurst said in court it couldn’t mine the Denniston Plateau if the international coal price was below US$140 a tonne.

Forest & Bird is concerned that the company will do irreparable damage to the plateau, then go bust. Bathurst has already started clearing some of the plateau’s landscapes for infrastructure, using bulldozers and blasting rocks.

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“Solid Energy has been laying people off from the adjacent Stockton coking coal mine. The government – which says that it knows business - should not be bending over backwards for the sake of a struggling overseas-owned mining company,” Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell said.

Stockton mine, which is near Bathurst Resource’s proposed Denniston mine.

conservation

news

Water standards disappoint The government’s new national freshwater quality standards announced in early July could encourage some councils to propose that rivers and lakes be allowed to become toxic to wildlife.

The final National Policy Statement responds to a key recommendation of the Land and Water Forum that New Zealand should have a set of national bottom lines to protect freshwater resources.

“While the government’s new national standard contains several important improvements, it is disappointing that an important measure of ecosystem health has been defined in terms of nitrate toxicity to aquatic life,” says Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell.

“Defining ecosystem health in terms of nitrate toxicity creates the risk that regional councils will consider it OK to set nitrate levels that will be constantly harmful to fish and invertebrates,” he says.

“We run the risk of having to make the same arguments all around the country. Everyone had all been looking to the government to provide certainty from this national guidance.

“It is also disappointing that the government has not implemented the Land and Water Forum’s recommendation that ecosystem health should be defined

in terms of the freshwater invertebrate communities. This recommendation was agreed to by the forum’s primary sector, iwi and environmental members.”

One important improvement announced was that the regime by which water bodies could be exempted from the bottom lines has been tightened up.

Dragonflies … important freshwater invertebrates. Photo: Steve Attwood

Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society

Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society

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New Zealand Conservation Diary 2015

Featuring images of both wildlife and wilderness habitat from New Zealand’s extraordinary natural heritage and conservation areas.

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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 To order online please visit the Forest & Bird website: www.forestandbird.org.nz or www.craigpotton.co.nz

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DOC fails government report A report by the State Services Commission has found the latest round of restructuring has left the Department of Conservation falling short in most of the areas in which its performance is measured.

The report calls for urgent changes. It says some staff are seriously stressed, and that there is a disconnect between frontline staff and management.

The 2013 restructure followed a series of others since 2009, during which time a total of $54 million was slashed from the department’s budget.

DOC’s new head, Lou Sanson – who took over after the restructure – admits some staff were confused about many aspects of the 2013 restructure. A total of about 140 fulltime positions were cut last year alone, on top of 96 just the year before. Many staff working in frontline conservation were replaced during the 2013 restructure by people assigned to develop partnerships with commercial and community groups. Some regional DOC offices have also been closed.

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says that sadly the report confirms the concerns expressed last year by many DOC staff and Forest & Bird. “DOC is doing less and less of the sort of work its legislation says it should be doing. Community groups like Forest & Bird are increasingly having to pick up this slack, for instance by appearing before the Board of Inquiry into the Ruataniwha irrigation dam proposal.

“DOC’s original 34-page submission on the effects of the proposal was scaled back to two paragraphs just before it was due to be sent off. Forest & Bird ended up presenting DOC’s original submission to the Board of Inquiry as part of its own case but appearing there posed a significant expense for a membership-supported organisation like us.

“DOC looks after the best third of this country as the guardian of our public conservation lands. Parliament has

A Department of Conservation donation box at Punakaiki on the West Coast. Photo: Luc Hoogenstein also given the department the job of advocating for New Zealand’s unique biodiversity and landscapes beyond these areas, wherever they occur.

“It’s these special things that make New Zealand such a great place to live and are so important for our identity.

Continually chopping away at DOC will only compromise its ability to protect these special things,” Kevin says.

It’s these special things that make New Zealand such a great place to live and are so important for our identity. Continually chopping away at DOC will only compromise its ability to protect these special things.

TIRITIRI MATANGI ISLAND Wildlife Sanctuary Enjoy a day trip to a magical island called Tiritiri Matangi, just 75 minutes by ferry from downtown Auckland via Gulf Harbour. Guided walks through the re-planted native bush will put you up close and personal with some very special and rare wildlife. It will give you an insight into how a world renowned conservation project can lead to transformation for an island once stripped bare for farming, now re-instated and protected for future generations.

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Forest & Bird

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conservation

news

Defending nature Canterbury water

Mackenzie Country

Forest & Bird has been defending water quality in Canterbury. This included opposing a dairy conversion at Balmoral adjacent to the Hurunui River, with the resulting decision requiring a very significant reduction in the proposed irrigation area.

Upcoming hearings include the regional plan relating to the Selwyn Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) catchment, which is likely to be controversial given the high values in the catchment and past and anticipated dairy conversions.

We are also a party to an appeal about an application for irrigation near Lake Grassmere in the Canterbury high country, which will be heard in the Environment Court late this year.

Since early 2012 a key element of Forest & Bird’s Mackenzie campaign has been defending nature in numerous Environment Court cases about irrigation in the Mackenzie Country. All these cases have now been settled except the applications by Simons Hill and Simons Pass stations on the Pūkaki Flats.

This case is controversial, with Forest & Bird successfully defending an application to strike out its appeals in the Environment Court and successfully defending a subsequent appeal in the High Court. A further appeal has been sought in the Court of Appeal, which we will again defend.

Ruataniwha dam

The Auckland Unitary Plan process is continuing. Further submissions recently closed and hearings are expected to start later this year and go through until 2016. Key issues relate to the appropriate protection of both land and marine biodiversity, plan provisions for outstanding landscapes and areas of natural character, and freshwater quality.

We have also been involved in Environment Court appeals on the Northland Regional Policy Statement, Hawke’s Bay Regional Policy Statement, South Waikato District Plan and Whakatāne District Plan, seeking to ensure that indigenous biodiversity, wetland, water quality and landscape values are protected.

In June the Board of Inquiry released its final decision on the Tukituki Catchment Proposal. The board took a big step backwards from the stance taken in its comprehensive draft decision. While an in-stream nitrogen limit designed to achieve ecosystem health was retained, the board deleted that limit from the regional plan’s rules, and from the conditions of consent for the Ruataniwha dam.

Forest & Bird has appealed the final decision to the High Court on the grounds that without methods to clearly avoid over-allocation and return to the in-stream nitrogen limit throughout the catchment by 2030, the decision does not give effect to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. Fish & Game has appealed on similar grounds. The appeal is likely to be heard by the end of the year.

Regional planning

1 The redfin bully is one of the native fish species that could

be affected by dramatic nitrate increases if the Tukituki Catchment Proposal goes ahead. Photo: Alton Perrie

2 Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) is still important for native

wildlife, despite being polluted and overfished for many years. Photo: Peter Anderson

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Thank you for stewardship donations Thank you to the many Forest & Bird members who responded generously to our call for funds to protect New Zealand’s stewardship land. By the middle of August you had donated $87,017.14, which will be spent on our work advocating for better protection of the high-value public conservation land in limbo since 1987.

Forest & Bird is working to achieve an urgent review of the 2.8 million hectares of stewardship land and action to reclassify it. With your donation, we will work to ensure the wildlife in these areas is safe and so New Zealanders can continue to enjoy these wild places.

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WIN A BOOK

Marlborough KCC members Daniel Coates, left, and Jacob Gray hunting for fossils on a trip in April.

Grants for KCC and video

Forest & Bird is giving away three copies of Paradise Saved The Remarkable Story of New Zealand’s Wildlife Sanctuaries and how they are Stemming the Tide of Extinction by Dave Butler, Tony Lindsay and Janet Hunt (Random House, $55).

To enter the draw, email your entry to draw@ forestandbird.org.nz Please put Paradise Saved in the subject line and include your name and address in the email.

Or put your name and address on the back of an envelope and post to Paradise Saved draw, Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140. Entries close on September 20.

The Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC), Forest & Bird’s programme for children, received funding from Pub Charity enabling 44 KCC co-ordinators to complete first aid training. These co-ordinators will be better equipped to handle any potential situation that arises when they are on a KCC trip, particularly to remote areas.

Many co-ordinators are completing first-time comprehensive courses and others are bringing their skills up to date with a revalidation course.

KCC co-ordinators were impressed with the course content. Forest & Bird KCC is very grateful to Pub Charity for funding this opportunity and to NZ Red Cross for offering such an excellent course.

“I just wanted to let you know that I completed the first aid training last week and was really impressed with the instructor Brian Clark and the course structure and content,” North Taranaki KCC coordinator Ana Karipa said.

In June, the Ron and Edna Greenwood Environmental Trust generously funded the purchase of new video equipment.

Video brings Forest & Bird’s conservation work to life to share with existing and new supporters.

Sharing our conservation work through the lens of a GoPro camera will enable supporters and members to get a bird’s-eye or underwater view. Forest & Bird’s new video will soon be at our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/forestandbird

Forest & Bird

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conservation

news

Monorail reprieve for Snowdon Forest Forest & Bird welcomed Conservation Minister Nick Smith’s decision to protect Southland’s Snowdon Forest from development for a monorail and service road. A 29-kilometre swathe would have been cut through the forest if the development had been allowed to go ahead. ”This is great news for this World Heritage Area, which is home to a host of endangered species including the highly threatened mōhua, or yellowhead, and long-tailed bats,” said Forest &Bird Otago-Southland Field Officer Sue Maturin.

“The monorail plans were unrealistic from the beginning, as there is no way the applicant could have restored the old-growth forest, tussock grasslands or wetlands the project would have destroyed. It could also have been catastrophic for the bat population.

“Now we need the Department of Conservation to officially recognise the area’s natural values and upgrade the protective status of the Snowdon Forest, along with many other areas of publicly owned conservation land that are still designated as stewardship land.”

Sue said the whole episode showed it was high time that DOC did the job it started years ago and classified all stewardship land.

“If it had done, the monorail developer would have been saved the cost of getting his proposal this far. And it would have saved community groups like Forest & Bird the time and expense of advocating for the protection of the Snowdon Forest,” she said.

2 1 Mōhua, or yellowheads, are found in Southland’s Snowdon

Forest. Photo: James Reardon/DOC

1

2 Forest &Bird Otago-Southland Field Officer Sue Maturin.

Conservation park for Great Barrier Forest & Bird’s call to turn the public conservation land on Great Barrier Island (Aotea) into a national park has sadly fallen on deaf ears. However, the Minister of Conservation announced in July that 12,000 hectares of the island’s conservation land will become a new conservation park.

This includes 18 blocks of stewardship land, a type of conservation land that can have very high conservation values but which has a low level of legal protection.

While much of the island in the Hauraki Gulf is protected from mining by Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, it would only take the signatures of the Energy and Resources Minister and the Conservation Minister to revoke that protection.

The government included Aotea in the list of Schedule 4-protected areas it wanted to make available for mining in 2010. If Aotea had been made a national park, rather than a conservation park, any proposal to mine it would require Parliament to change the law.

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Great Barrier Island (Aotea). Photo: Craig Potton

IN BRIEF Forest & Bird awards The Ark in the Park project scooped the stewardship champions prize at the Ministry for the Environment Green Ribbon awards in June. Ark in the Park fenceless reserve in the Waitākere Ranges is a joint Forest & Bird and with Auckland Council project.

“This award is a credit to the work of more than 600 volunteers who together put more than 9000 hours a year into the ark,” Forest & Bird Chief Executive Hōne McGregor said.

Forest & Bird is a member of the Genesis Energy National Whio Recovery Programme – along with the Department of Conservation – which picked up a prize in the protecting our diversity category.

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Whio and their ducklings. Photo: DOC

Conservation grants Forest & Bird’s Waikato branch each year awards grants in memory of Lilian Valder for conservation projects. Each grant is usually $1000-$2000 and can be awarded to individual or group projects.

The closing date for applications is September 30.

For more information and application forms, email macd@wave.co.nz or write to Secretary, Waikato branch, Forest & Bird, PO Box 11 092, Hillcrest, Hamilton 3216.

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Forest & Bird

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Things Welcome

Birds to your garden

Heaps of puzzles & activities

WoIoNl c zes pri

KCC is Forest & Bird’s kids’ club. Each KCC kid gets 4 Wild Things magazines a year and in some areas can join KCC group trips. KCC is fun and has been inspiring kids for over 20 years.

Join your kids up at www.forestandbird.org.nz/kcc now.

WIN A BOOK Forest & Bird is giving away three copies of Galapagos of the Antarctic: Wild islands south of New Zealand by Rodney Russ and Aleks Teraud (Heritage Expeditions, $85).

To enter the draw, email your entry to draw@ forestandbird.org.nz Please put Galapagos of the Antarctic in the subject line and include your name and address in the email. Or put your name and address on the back of an envelope and post to Galapagos of the Antarctic draw, Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140. Entries close on September 20.

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People like us

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COASTAL BIRDS

ULVA ISLAND VISITOR’S GUIDE Ulva Goodwillie

Forest & Bird’s Facebook page is reaching more and more people every day, with at least 5000 people regularly seeing each post.

A total of 31,000 people like our page and, by one measure, this makes us the seventh-largest not-for-profit Facebook page in New Zealand.

Each week we have a mix of posts about our conservation campaigns, branch events and environment stories, with great wildlife photos, and there’s always stimulating debate among the Facebook community.

Forest & Bird’s Facebook page is an excellent opportunity to share our stories with non-members – and encourage them to become members. www.facebook.com/ForestandBird

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ULVA ISLAND A VISITOR’S GUIDE

Ulva Goodwillie

Forest & Bird

| 19

COVER STORY

Whales close to home It’s rare anywhere in the world for whales to live permanently close to shore. We’re fortunate to have a group of Bryde’s whales doing just that in the Hauraki Gulf. So it’s important to make sure the gulf is a healthy home for whales, other marine life – and us. By Marina Skinner.

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ucklanders share the Hauraki Gulf with whales. A unique population of Bryde’s whales makes its home in the same waters that thousands of New Zealanders sail, swim, fish and motor through.

About 50 Bryde’s whales are regularly found in and around the gulf, with another 150 estimated to drop by from elsewhere in the Pacific. We’re privileged to have such homebodies among our Bryde’s whales. “It’s unusual to have a population of Bryde’s whales so close to shore,” University of Auckland researcher Dr Rochelle Constantine says.

There’s a simple reason why the whales feel at home in the Hauraki Gulf, says Rochelle. It’s a really productive stretch of water with loads of diversity.

These whales sieve “plankton soup”, krill or schooling fish through the baleen plates in their massive mouths.

They can grow to 15 metres long and weigh up to 17 tonnes – as heavy as seven large SUVs – and they are a nationally critical species, New Zealand’s highest threat ranking. Their name is pronounced “Brooders”, after a Norwegian named Johan Bryde.

Not much is known about this whale species because historic whalers generally rejected its inferior blubber, which is all that’s needed when you’re a whale living in warm waters.

The Hauraki Gulf is an attractive place in which to feed and breed but it comes at a price. Since 1996, 43 Bryde’s whales have been found dead. Nineteen dead whales have been examined after they died, and 16 were found to have been killed by ships and three were tangled in rope. Most of the dead whales were found floating or washed ashore, and people on board the ships would not realise they had hit a whale, says Rochelle.

Scientists tagged Bryde’s whales to record their movements and the sounds around them. The results showed that the whales spent 91 per cent of their time between the sea’s surface and 12 metres below. Unfortunately, 12 metres is the maximum draft of vessels in the Hauraki Gulf.

“Bryde’s whales are more vulnerable to ship strike because they are so close to the surface and at night they move slowly, which suggests they’re resting,” says Rochelle.

In the bustling gulf, with ships and recreational boats coming and going, Bryde’s whales are unwitting targets.

Over the past two years, the Bryde’s Whale Ship-strike Working Group – a collective of scientists, representatives from local and national government, non-government organisations (including Forest & Bird), tāngata whenua, regulators and the shipping industry – has come together to find solutions to the problem of ship strike. “We looked at where the ships are and where the whales are. We tried to find a solution to minimise the risk of strike to the whales,” says Rochelle. “The easiest solution is for ships to slow to 10 knots – it’s the speed that is safer for whales, but this has financial consequences for the industry.”

Currently, if a ship travelling at a normal speed hits a whale there’s a 51 per cent chance it will die. If the ship drops to 10 knots the chance of death falls to 16 per cent.

The group also looked at shipping lanes that would

2 1 Bryde’s whales are sometimes seen with their heads out of

the water. Photo: Rochelle Constantine

2 One of a rare group of Bryde’s whales in the Hauraki Gulf.

Photo: Stephanie Behrens

avoid the main areas of whale activity. However, Leena Riekkola, one of the Rochelle’s post-graduate students, found that Bryde’s whales range across the Hauraki Gulf at different times of the year and would be unlikely to steer clear of shipping lanes.

The shipping industry in late 2013 adopted a voluntary speed limit of 10 knots in the gulf, despite the economic cost of slower ships. After a year, the success of the measure will be assessed, though it will be at least a decade before the impact on the whales of any changes in ship speed can be fully understood.

To get a better picture of Bryde’s whales, scientists are studying their feeding behaviour. They do this by collecting whale faeces and doing DNA analysis to find out about their diet.

The future for the Bryde’s whales of the Hauraki Gulf is uncertain. The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide through burning fossil fuels is changing our oceans, which will impact on the whales and other marine life. As sea water absorbs more atmospheric carbon dioxide, it is becoming more acidic. The greater acidity makes it harder for plankton to grow skeletons. With reduced plankton, whales’ feeding patterns may change.

Hauraki Gulf marine spatial planning should help create a better future for the whales. Research about them and other large animals in the gulf will feed into the process. “It’s important to make people aware of the complexity of the gulf. It’s not just about going out in your boat to go fishing.

It’s actually a really important place for shellfish, plankton and seabirds. The islands and the waters of the gulf are inextricably linked. What we do on the land around the gulf has a massive impact on the gulf,” says Rochelle.

“Marine spatial planning should see the Hauraki Gulf as a large integrated system. The whales and other top predators only exist when an ecosystem is in good shape. If you look after the small things, the big things should be all right.”

Bryde’s whales are more vulnerable to ship strike because they are so close to the surface and at night they move slowly, which suggests they’re resting.

Dr Rochelle Constantine

All at sea

New Zealand has some catching up to do in marine protection.

Photo: Nick Shears

F

orty years ago New Zealand was a world leader in marine protection. But while many other nations have forged ahead to create vast ocean sanctuaries, New Zealand has continued to set aside tiny pockets of marine protection. Australia fully protects 13 per cent of its waters, whereas New Zealand has less than 1 per cent of our ocean area protected in marine reserves.

“Small marine reserves, mainly dotted around our coastline, protect local marine life but they don’t protect large ecosystems,” says Forest & Bird Marine Conservation Advocate Katrina Goddard. “We need a meaningful network of marine protected areas to safeguard our marine habitats and species for future generations.

“Contrast our marine protection with the 30 per cent of our land that is safeguarded as national parks or other reserves, and you’ll see how we’re letting down the life in our oceans.”

Forest & Bird sees advantages for the fishing industry in large marine reserves, which are breeding havens from which fish and other species spread. “It’s possible to design marine reserves that benefit conservation and fisheries,” says Katrina.

New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers more than four million square kilometres of sea – the fifth-largest EEZ in the world. The wildlife it supports is extraordinary. We have more penguin species than any other country. Almost half the world’s whale species travel in our seas. We have the world’s rarest dolphin – the Māui’s. More species of albatross (14) breed in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world. A third of the globe’s seabird species visit our waters. We have more threatened seabird species than anywhere else.

That’s just the start of the story. Scientists still have much to learn about life beneath the waves.

Our territorial sea runs from the coast to 12 nautical

miles (22 kilometres). Beyond this is the EEZ, which continues a further 200 nautical miles (370km).

But not one of New Zealand’s 38 marine reserves is in our EEZ and all our deep-water ecosystems are unprotected. A total of 98 per cent of our marine protected area surrounds the sub-Antarctic islands in the far south and the Kermadec Islands in the far north. Less than 2 per cent of the total protected area is found along the coast of our mainland.

While 0.4 per cent of our ocean is protected by marine reserves, the rest is open for some form of extraction, such as fishing, aquaculture, seabed mining or oil drilling. Oil drilling is a massive risk to marine environments, as we’ve seen in accidents around the world. Just this year the government opened up more of our EEZ to mineral and oil gas permits.

These new block offers make up 12.4 per cent of our EEZ. Chatham Rock Phosphate has applied to mine 5200 square kilometres of seabed on the Chatham Rise at depths of up to 400 metres. It would massively disturb habitats and species, some of which we know very little about.

Most of our waters are open to fishing, and the populations of some fish species are declining, some at an alarming rate through overfishing. Seabirds and marine mammals, such as dolphins, fur seals and the nationally critical New Zealand sea lion, are sometimes killed in fishing nets and other equipment.

A Marine Reserves Bill has been before Parliament since 2002. In 2011 the government said it would pass new marine reserves legislation in the next three years, extending its application into the EEZ and that marine and oceans policy would be a major focus of a second term in government.

Forest & Bird has continued to press for progress on this.

Some new and small marine reserves have been established or announced but there has been no real progress.

Last year Forest & Bird commissioned

We need a meaningful network of marine protected areas to safeguard our marine habitats and species for future generations.

Katrina Goddard 22

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COVER STORY

a report on marine protected area (MPA) network design.

The report, independently done by marine scientists Hannah Thomas and Dr Nicholas Shears, reviewed international best practice to guide future MPA design. Key principles were that: n All habitats, as well as ecosystem processes, are represented in the network. n Enough of each specific habitat should be included in the network to be functionally protected. n MPAs should be large enough to cover most species’ adult movement distances. n Several examples of each habitat should be included within separated MPAs.

n The spacing between MPAs should allow larvae to

disperse. MPAs, with similar habitats where possible, should be placed within 50-100km of each other.

“Forest & Bird would like the government to look at the big picture of ocean protection,” says Katrina. “A meaningful network of marine protected areas is critically important to safeguard life in our seas. An ecologically significant Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary would be a very good start.

“We’d like to see by 2030 our oceans protected just as well as our special areas on land.”

Bridging the gulf

LITTLE BARRIER ISLAND • HAURAKI GULF WAIHEKE ISLAND •

HAURAKI GULF MARINE PARK

O

n a good day the Hauraki Gulf is the place to sail a yacht or water ski or catch a snapper for dinner. It’s a place for iwi to gather kai moana. It’s a shipping route for international cargo. For commercial fishing boats it’s a source of John Dory and other catches. It generates more than $2.7 billion in economic value each year.

And let’s not forget about its natural values – the endangered black petrels, the newly discovered New Zealand storm petrels, the whales, dolphins and massive range of wildlife living in the gulf’s waters, its islands, coastlines and catchments.

But it’s not as idyllic as it appears on a sun-washed day.

The health of this 1.2-million-hectare marine ecosystem has been declining over many years as it has come under pressure from the fast-growing population centres on its shores. Increasing impacts of climate change are also on the horizon.

The State of our Gulf report in 2011 presented a grim snapshot. The number of cockles at Whangateau Harbour fell 36 per cent from 2006 to 2010. At least 14 of the 42 monitored beaches in Auckland area from 2006 to 2009 posed a health risk. Toxic metals and organic contaminants are affecting Auckland estuaries. The amount of nitrogen flowing from Hauraki rivers into the Firth of Thames increased 1 per cent each year between 2000 and 2009. Large amounts of litter are entering the gulf. The list goes on…

In search of lasting solutions, councils, supported by the government and in partnership with tāngata whenua, set up the Hauraki Gulf Marine Spatial Planning process in August 2013. The project – called Sea Change – Tai Timu Tai Pari – aims to deliver by September 2015 a marine spatial plan for a healthy and sustainable gulf.

Forest & Bird, with hundreds of members and many branches fringing the gulf, is playing a key role in the process.

Our Marine Conservation Advocate, Katrina Goddard, is part of the Sea Change working group creating this marine spatial plan. She is also co-leading the biodiversity and biosecurity working group, one of six focussing on different issues. She is also a member of two other working groups looking at fish

• GREAT BARRIER ISLAND

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1 Black petrels breed only on Little Barrier Island/Hauturu

and Great Barrier Island/Aotea in the Hauraki Gulf and are at high risk from commercial fishing. Photo: Terry Greene/ DOC

2 The New Zealand storm petrel was thought extinct until

rediscovered in 2003. Its breeding site on Little Barrier Island/Hauturu was found in 2013. Photo: Neil Fitzgerald

and fish stocks, and aquaculture.

It’s a collaborative process that pulls together representatives and users of the marine environment to make informed and co-ordinated decisions for future sustainability. The working group is made up of representatives from commercial fishers, aquaculture, ports of Auckland, the community, farmers, recreational fishers, conservationists and tāngata whenua.

“We have three key lenses we look through,” Katrina says. “There’s the ecology – so we must always be thinking about the whole ecological system. This is something I think to date every marine protected area planning forum has failed to do adequately as the importance of taking an ecological approach is huge.

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COVER STORY

We need your help You can help improve protection of our sea life and underwater habitats for generations of Kiwis to come. Your donation to Forest & Bird’s marine protected areas appeal will help us to: n Advocate to government for a meaningful network of marine reserves. n Increase the percentage of full marine protection from 0.4 per cent of our seas. n Speak for nature, including a unique population of Bryde’s whales, at the Hauraki Gulf Marine Spatial Planning forum. n Protect 5200 square kilometres of seabed on the Chatham Rise from mining. n Advocate for native species, such as yellow-eyed penguins, in our southern waters at the Otago-Southland Marine Protection Planning Forum.

“There’s also the economy, since the gulf is worth $2.7 billion annually and we need to ensure it continues to provide economic opportunities but in a sustainable way. And there’s the mauri, or life force, which for Māori represents the vitality of life in the gulf.”

Katrina is confident that Sea Change will deliver real improvements for the Hauraki Gulf. “Our aim is for the plan to be fully implemented as a package by the government and its departments, such as DOC and the Ministry for Primary Industries, and councils and other authorities,” she says.

“This spatial planning process is the first of its kind in New Zealand and it will set a precedent for the way forward for marine spatial planning throughout New Zealand. It’s a real privilege to be involved in this unique process,” she says.

More information: www.seachange.org.nz

To make a donation to Forest & Bird’s marine protected areas appeal, please: 0800 200 064 www.forestandbird.org.nz/ marineprotectedareasappeal Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140 Your support will help Forest & Bird to create more marine reserves and will make a difference to life above and below the waves.

How we protect our marine life Marine reserves All habitats and marine life are protected in the sea and foreshore of a marine reserve. People can visit marine reserves but they can’t fish, touch or take anything. This is the highest level of protection.

Marine mammal sanctuaries These sanctuaries are designed to protect marine mammals such as dolphins, whales, seals and sea lions from activities that may harm them, such as fishing or mining. But most marine mammal sanctuaries in New Zealand don’t fully protect the species they are designed to protect and they are nothing more than a label.

Mātaitai These reserves recognise and manage traditional Māori fishing grounds. They are developed and managed by local iwi or hapū with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), and apply customary management and food gathering.

Commercial fishers cannot fish in a mātaitai reserve, however, recreational fishers can.

Taiapure Taiapure recognise traditional Māori fishing grounds, but they include areas of special cultural or spiritual significance. They are established by local iwi or hapū with MPI. All fishing (including commercial fishing) can continue in a taiapure. This tool offers a way for tāngata whenua to become involved in managing commercial and noncommercial fishing in their area.

Rāhui This is a temporary tapu or restriction on access and take of marine life imposed by kaitiaki for a marine area.

Benthic Protection Areas A Bryde's whale and other wildlife feeding in the Hauraki Gulf.

Photo: Stephanie Behrens 24

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These offshore zones protect the seafloor from bottom trawling. Other forms of fishing are still allowed along with other activities such as seafloor mining and dredge spoil dumping.

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NATURE STRIP

We have clematis, parsonia (from the jasmine family) and tecomanthe (of which only one wild plant was ever discovered, on the Three Kings Islands off Northland’s coast).

Our tecomanthe seems to flower at any time. A muehlenbeckia is in another part of the garden and waves to the world from the top of a pittosporum, the tree with sticky seed pods.

In the bare spaces I planted Fuchsia procumbens, the creeping fuchsia that produces large red berries way out of proportion to its small delicate leaves and wiry stems. It drops its leaves in winter when a native grass takes over.

This grass rejoices in the names of Oplismenus hirtellus sub species imbecillis. Its common name is panic grass from its habit of running all over the place.

We hoped that native insects and birds would be attracted to all these plants. It wasn’t long before tell-tale notches began to appear on the edges of the cabbage tree leaves, a sure sign of the cabbage tree moth caterpillar.

The moth has a 35mm wingspan and is most beautifully camouflaged. It rests on a dead leaf with the narrow parallel markings of its wings in neat alignment with the veins of the leaf, making it almost invisible.

Silvereyes (tauhou) are brave enough to come in small family groups in autumn and winter searching for insects to supplement the fat in net bags we leave out for them. A lone grey warbler (riroriro) makes its silent way, believing it is unobserved in this small space.

I recently noticed quick movements along the ground between some newly planted ferns. The movements were so fast that I could not identify them, but surely it was a skink. It would be the first I have seen in this part of Howick.

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Margaret Willis has created a sliver of wilderness in her backyard during the past decade.

Margaret Willis has been a member of Forest & Bird since the early 1950s. A special thank you to Graham Falla and Mike Wilcox for their assistance.

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fter living in the Mellon’s Bay valley in east Auckland for many years, advancing age caught up with us and we downsized to a smaller patch. Part of our new garden in Botany Bay – an area of 1.5 metres by six metres – was turned into a tiny paradise. It is on the north side of the house but sheltered by a fence and the nextdoor house from excessive wind and sun.

Most of the plants were seedlings from our previous property, I bought a few special ones and some were gifts from friends.

Cabbage trees, kawakawa (peppertree), māhoe (whiteywood), coprosma, kānuka, tarata (lemonwood), hoheria (lacebark) and poroporo were all self-sown.

The ferns – ponga, Doodia media, hen and chicken and umbrella – all came with us.

The strip is too shady for hebes and libertia. Rengarenga can just survive but it is not ideal for them. An open rock garden would be better with small flaxes and different tussocks and grasses. There was room for three climbers.

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1 2013: Native birds are regular visitors.

2 2003: The strip of native garden is newly planted.

3 Margaret Willis.

Amazing facts about…

LANCEWOODS

By Michelle Harnett

Photos: Craig McKenzie

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ooking for something to add dramatic, vertical lines to your garden? Try a lancewood, or horoeka (Pseudopanax crassifolius or P. ferox).

Young lancewoods are instantly identifiable, with slender trunks sporting long, thin, downward-pointing leaves with thick centre veins, a leathery texture and sometimes teeth.

On reaching three or more metres in height they start to morph into a completely different looking tree with branches and erect, short, wide, green leaves.

YOUR WINTER GETAWAY STARTS HERE

Plants with different appearances at different life stages are described as heteroblastic. Heteroblasty is unusually common among native New Zealand trees, with about 10 per cent displaying it to some degree. One theory is that heteroblasty in New Zealand plants has evolved as a defence against large herbivorous birds – moa.

It is a difficult theory to test, but a comparison of psuedopanax growing on the Chatham Islands, which never supported moa, with mainland plants shows some differences. P. chathamicus seedlings are more likely to be branched than their cousins; juvenile and mature leaves are closer in shape and appearance and do not undergo a colour change. Even the mottled leaf colour of lancewood seedlings, which makes them hard to spot against leaf litter, may have saved them from being munched by a moa.

Scientists have also looked at the way living ratites (the group of flightless bird species) browse. They clamp on to vegetation and tug it free, as moa are thought to have done. Ostriches and emus fed young heteroblastic plants eat more slowly and consume fewer leaves and shoots than when dining on mature plants.

The reduced heteroblasty observed on the Chatham Islands, the toughness and length of young lancewood leaves which would make them difficult to tear and swallow, and the complete absence of branching until a tree grows beyond the reach of even the tallest moa lends considerable support to the theory that the lancewoods’ form is a defence against hungry moa.

Lancewoods and other pseudopanax species are good garden choices: hardy and well-behaved small to mediumsized trees that provide berries for birds in autumn and winter. They are also a quiet reminder of our lost fauna.

Bookings are now open for Forest & Bird’s Mount Ruapehu Lodge in Whakapapa Village.

Stay at our comfortable, familyfriendly lodge from where you can hit the slopes, trek the beech forest and keep a look out for resident kiwi or whio.

Forest & Bird members receive a discounted rate. Book at www.forestandbird.org.nz/ ruapehulodge.

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NATIVE FORESTS OPEN TO LOGGERS

A law change will allow loggers back into West Coast forests for the first time in decades to take trees blown over in a storm. Jay Harkness asks how this could happen.

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ntil 1987 loggers spent more time in some of the West Coast’s publicly owned forests than trampers, iwi and hunters. But by the end of that year the long battle to save the area’s forests – for all New Zealanders and the plants and animals in those forests – had been won. Many who took part in that fight were members of Forest & Bird, and still are.

Under the new protections of the Conservation Act, the rimu, tōtara and beech of the West Coast went from being a commercial resource, in the eyes of the law, to a taonga.

This Easter the unusually strong winds of Cyclone Ita hit the West Coast and toppled large numbers of native trees.

It’s a natural event that’s been happening for millennia, with wind-thrown trees decomposing and recycling their nutrients back into the ecosystem. But for the government it was about politics. On June 26 the government introduced and passed under urgency the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. It was rushed through in five hours.

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says it was a night to remember for all the wrong reasons. “People throughout Forest & Bird and the wider community were dumbfounded. This was partly because it’s so hard to imagine the core part of any other progressive legislation

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created that long ago being overturned in such a cavalier manner, with the government doing such a weak job at justifying this change.

“People were also struck by how the bill was introduced and passed under urgency. The key ban on all commercial logging on conservation land was the result of two decades of public debate. That ban has had nearly 30 years of bipartisan support yet the public’s ability to have a say was non-existent. There was no select committee process and no submissions allowed,” Kevin says.

Conservation Minister Dr Nick Smith’s excuse for the haste was that the beech trees would be spoilt by pinhole borer and sap stain within four to five months of being blown over by the cyclone. That is true, but many questioned whether it was the beech timber that the loggers really wanted, or the more valuable species like rimu and tōtara.

Despite the very short notice of the government’s intentions, more than a thousand people emailed the government’s support parties, urging them not to support the Bill. But in the end the United Future and Māori parties, New Zealand First, independent MP Brendan Horan and Labour’s West Coast and Te Tai Tonga MPs Damien O’Connor and Rino Tirikātene joined the National Party in

Dead trees are as important as the living ones, providing a huge shot of energy and nutrients that the ecosystem needs to refresh itself. Photos: Craig McKenzie passing the Bill. The level of opposition in the days leading up to the vote was recognised during the debate, which stretched late into the night.

Kevin Hackwell says two things drove this opposition.

The first is the widely recognised fact that a fallen tree is hugely valuable, and not as a salad bowl or a coffee table. The dead trees are as important as the living ones, providing a huge shot of energy and nutrients that the ecosystem needs to refresh itself. “Anyone who has been in a forest will have a sense of this, having seen fallen trees covered in fungi, lichens and seedlings.”

A media statement from University of Auckland ecologist Dr Margaret Stanley released just before the vote put it plainly. “Kiwi and many other species eat insects that rely on decaying wood and vegetation so everything is interlinked ...[the] removal of wind-blown trees will affect those linkages and inhibit forest growth.”

Kevin says the West Coast’s forests are often referred to as catastrophe dominated. Windstorms, wet snowfalls, flooding across the bottom of river valleys (which can change the course of rivers) and earthquakes regularly flatten large areas of forest in the region. In other years caterpillars will kill huge numbers of trees.

“It’s common to see whole areas where most of the trees are the same age, having mostly all begun regenerating

at the same time. One of the many problems with this Act is that it creates a precedent that could allow loggers to demand to enter the forest after every significant natural event,” Kevin says.

The other reason people were so aggrieved by the law change was that they saw the Act as the government giving into (at best) or pandering to (at worst) to what some loggers still fail to accept – that these forests belong to all New Zealanders.

Kevin was one of many people who fought to save the West Coast forests during the 1980s. He was motivated at the time by the knowledge that with the loss of about 60 per cent of New Zealand’s original forest cover it was essential to keep what little was left as close as possible to its natural state. “Many of our birds are on the endangered list not just because of predators but because they’ve lost so much of their habitat,” he says.

“When the West Coast’s forests became protected by law it felt like the closing of a sad chapter in our history – like the end of seal clubbing or whale hunting. This was only reinforced by the government of the day paying the West Coast region $120 million in an adjustment package, or compensation, when the native forest logging finally stopped.

“The West Coast Development Trust that received Forest & Bird

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One of the many problems with this Act is that it creates a precedent that could allow loggers to demand to enter the forest after every significant natural event.

Kevin Hackwell

most of that public money has over $100 million in assets.

Maybe they should be considering returning it to the government. Though I bet they won’t,” Kevin laughs.

The new law will do other serious harm. The legislation puts authorised loggers above existing regional or district plans. The Act specifically exempts them from Resource Management Act (RMA) restrictions on damming or diverting rivers and streams, disturbing river and lake beds, and discharging contaminants like oil and diesel.

The Department of Conservation has given Forest & Bird assurances that it will carefully control all activities associated with logging, including not allowing any new roading or heavy equipment to be brought into the forests, under the provisions of the Conservation and other acts it administers.

“We’ll be watching very carefully to see whether this is what actually happens,” Kevin says.

Kevin says the new Act is silent on whether new roads can be formed to access trees. “Forest & Bird does not want any logging to happen at all. If it is going to happen, DOC should restrict the loggers to where trees have been flattened over large areas, rather than allowing them to go into areas where only some trees have blown down.”

Kevin also questions whether there is enough demand for native timber to justify the exercise. “Everything I’ve been told by the sustainable native logging industry – which harvests timber from private land – is that it’s hard enough as it is to find people who will pay more for native timber than what it costs to manage and retrieve it. If this market is swamped by windfall timber, that problem will only get worse.

“Knee-jerk, boom-and-bust and poorly costed schemes like this won’t help the Coast in the medium to long term, and will only undermine New Zealand’s clean, green brand.

“This is the one of the biggest conservation issues to have come up in decades. Accordingly, Forest & Bird will continue to work hard to try and minimise the damage this law change could do to one of the finest parts of this country.”

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Windfall trees: The facts n

They are a vital part of the ecosystem.

It’s not unusual for large numbers of trees to be blown over in West Coast forests. n Allowing loggers back into West Coast forests puts an end to nearly 30 years of bipartisan agreement that they shouldn’t be there. n Because so much of New Zealand’s original forest cover has been lost, what’s left should be allowed to remain as close to its natural state as possible. n There’s evidence that there’s no market for the timber. n

Logging: The facts Forest & Bird learned in late July that DOC had received 14 applications to tender for West Coast wind-blown trees. All were for rimu. As we expected, not one logging business wanted to log the wind-blown beech trees.

This highlights the flawed argument the government used to rush through under urgency the Bill allowing logging in West Coast public conservation land. The government said the Bill was urgent because the beech trees would be spoilt by pinhole borer and sap stain within four to five months of the Easter storm.

Timber from other native trees such as rimu and tōtara doesn’t spoil so quickly, so there would have been plenty of time for the public to have had a say on the legislation.

Our partners

Camping sparks love of nature Kiwi Camping is working with Forest & Bird because the company is keen for children and their families to get into the outdoors and to create lasting experiences.

Owners Gregg and Suzanne Brown have enjoyed spending time with their three sons and family friends at many great camping spots over the past 15 years.

“We have certainly seen not just the social benefits in our family getting away from today’s modern trappings, but the campsites we stay at – normally DOC – are always close to some of New Zealand’s fantastic natural areas,” says Gregg.

“The boys cannot help but be exposed to some of our great bush walks and birdlife. And with that starts their initial exposure to nature. Our camping holidays are the building blocks for their understanding and respect of nature.”

Kiwi Camping has partnered with Forest & Bird’s club for children, the Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC). Each edition of the KCC magazine, Wild Things, features a Kiwi Camping outdoor stories competition and fun bird characters such as Kalani Kākāpō and Tamati Takahē.

The family-owned business has renamed all its tents after native birds. “Kiwi Camping is pleased to make our small contribution and we hope that we can encourage other children and their families to get out and enjoy our big backyard and enjoy New Zealand’s forest and birds,” says Gregg.

Kiwi Camping owner Gregg Brown and his son Louis on a camping holiday.

Honda’s zero carbon house Forest & Bird corporate partner Honda has built an experimental house in the United States that creates more energy than it uses. The Smart Home project, based in California, produces more energy on-site from renewable sources than it consumes each year from the electricity grid, including enough energy to power a Honda Jazz EV electric car for daily commuting.

The residents of the house are predicted to use less than half the energy of a similarly sized new house for heating, cooling and lighting. The house is also three times more water-efficient than a typical American house.

The house, which is on the University of California Davis campus, was finished in April, and will be a living laboratory to test new technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

Honda’s Smart Home is expected to generate a surplus of 2.6 megawatt-hours of electricity over the course of a year, compared with a comparable home, which consumes about 13.3 megawatthours. The energy for the house and car is generated by solar photovoltaic panels on the roof.

The carbon footprint of most houses is increased by the use of concrete because of the carbon

dioxide released in making cement. A naturally-occurring substance called pozzolan was infused into the house’s concrete to replace half of the cement typically needed.

“With the Honda Smart Home, we’ve developed technologies and design solutions to address two primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions – homes and cars,” said Steve Center, vice-president of the Environmental Business Development Office of American Honda Motor Co. “Ultimately our goal is to contribute to the public dialogue about addressing CO2 emissions.”

The Honda Smart Home will make more energy than it uses.

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our people

Conservation champions Five Forest & Bird Old Blues were awarded at the June Sanderson Memorial Dinner in Wellington for outstanding contributions to conservation. The awards are named after the Chatham Islands black robin called Old Blue who helped save her species from extinction during the early 1980s.

Chatham Islands black robin Old Blue.

Photo: Don Merton

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Ian Noble Hastings conservationist Ian Noble has spent the past 33 years as a hardworking member of Forest & Bird’s Hastings-Havelock North branch.

Ian has filled various roles as a trip co-ordinator, branch chairperson and newsletter editor.

Hastings-Havelock branch chairperson Vaughan Cooper describes him as a “rock”. “He’s a very unassuming character, the kind of person who beavers away on something. He’s very much a doer rather than a talker – a quiet achiever.”

Ian regularly attends planting events and his work can be seen at Blowhard Bush, Te Mata Peak, Pekapeka Wetland and Horseshoe Lake.

One of his biggest on-going contributions has been his involvement over the past 12 years in the restoration of 63-hectare Blowhard Bush, north-west of Hastings.

Since 2002, volunteers have spent more than 5200 hours on planting and pest control in this area. Ian has attended every working bee.

Under his chairmanship the Blowhard Bush shelters and toilets were built and the tracks and signs have been maintained.

Since he stood down from chair in 2011, Ian has played a supporting role in running and managing the Hastings-Havelock North branch.

Wilma and Ian McDonald For 36 years Wilma and Ian McDonald have been helping to transform South Otago’s natural environment. When they’re not helping out on penguin counts on the Catlins coast, they are at their purpose-built nursery at their Balclutha home tending to up to 600 native plants that are sold at the branch’s fundraiser.

“They’re quite the team – Ian organises the plant collection and potting mix, Wilma tends to the plants, and they both organise and work hard at the plant sale,” says branch chairperson Roy Johnstone.

The annual plant sale has raised the branch more than $35,000 over the past 25 years.

Wilma has been the branch treasurer since 1991. Under her watch, nothing is wasted and everything has to be justified.

One important restoration area for the couple is the Otanomomo Scientific Reserve, where they have helped to clear of weeds.

The McDonalds have been strong advocates for local and national environmental issues, championing campaigns such as Save Manapōuri and Save the Clutha.

Last year they helped a nationwide day of action – Love DOC Day – which Forest & Bird organised to ask the government to cancel staff cuts and improve funding at the Department of Conservation.

Nik Hurring

Robin Chesterfield

Hugh Wilson

Dunedin vet nurse Nik Hurring has rehabilitated hundreds of injured kererū since the 1990s. She treats 50-80 birds from the South Island, and sometimes the North Island, each year. Many of the birds have been returned to the wild.

The birds are usually injured by flying into windows or by being hit by cars. “Caring for the kererū has been and still is very much a case of learning on the job, as there’s no handbook,” Nik says. Many of the birds are young and have been separated from their parents or nests.

Nik says a highlight this year was to successfully raise a squab (chick) less than a week old. “When I first started doing this work I would have tried to save that chick but I doubt I would have succeeded. Together with the specialists at DOC and the Wellington Zoo, we’ve really honed the techniques we use to return these birds to good health, and then release them,” she says.

Nik visits her purpose-built aviaries every day to feed the birds and to look after the trees that grow in and around their enclosure. She looks after younger birds at her home.

Robin Chesterfield has supported the restoration of Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve, north of Wellington, for almost 30 years. The Paremata resident has been the chairperson of the Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve management committee since 1992, and has steered the makeover from a weed-infested area to a natural salt marsh fringed with native plants.

Wellington region Forest & Bird branches have been working at the reserve since 1984, and thousands of native plants have been planted, most raised in a plant nursery at the reserve.

Pāuatahanui reserve volunteer Wanda Tate says Robin has provided strong leadership for the reserve’s management committee. “He is completely dedicated. He has been loyal and consistent in the project.”

Robin has been responsible for managing funding, policy, volunteer co-ordination and many other roles. Since recently retiring as a telecommunications engineer he has been more involved in handson activities at Pāuatahanui such as planting.

He looks back on his volunteer work with satisfaction. “The greatest achievement is the restoration of the vegetation around the salt marsh.

It was all bare land and gorse,” he says. “We made a lot of mistakes and continue to learn how to restore these wetlands.”

Canterbury botanist Hugh Wilson has managed Hinewai Reserve forest restoration project on Banks Peninsula since 1987 and written several scientific and popular botanical books.

Hinewai Reserve is a hands-off, leave-it-to-nature project to allow native forest to regenerate on gorse and broom-infested farmland. Hugh has shown that, without any human intervention, these weeds give young native plants a good start. The native seedlings grow up to block out the sunlight the weeds need to survive, eventually killing them.

Hugh hasn’t simply sat back and waited for nature to take its course.

He and his assistant, Paul Newport, with help from volunteers, maintain the reserve’s walking tracks and boundary and carry out pest control.

The restoration has led to burgeoning numbers of native birds. Tūī were released in the 1250-hectare reserve in 2009.

Hugh is the author of several botanical and ecological surveys, and has written several books including Plant Life on Banks Peninsula and field guides to Mt Cook and Stewart Island plants.

Several Forest & Bird branches have benefitted from Hugh’s advice.

“Hugh has been extremely generous in taking time to discuss and inform Forest & Bird members about ecological projects,” says Forest & Bird Board member Ines Stäger.

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our people

Framework for the future Forest & Bird delegates and observers looked ahead at this year’s weekend gathering. By Marina Skinner.

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bout 90 Forest & Bird branch representatives met in Wellington on June 28-29 for the annual formal meetings and informal discussion of issues, achievements and plans for the future.

A new Constitution was debated and approved, after almost three years of consultation. Forest & Bird now has a more enabling and simpler Constitution, says Deputy President Mark Hanger. “Many, many thanks to all those who have participated in this process. It may not be exciting work but it has been very necessary to provide a framework for the Society to work within over coming years,” he says.

Among the many changes to the Constitution was a change in name for the Executive that governs Forest & Bird to a “Board”.

President Andrew Cutler, Deputy President Mark Hanger and Treasurer Graham Bellamy were returned unopposed.

Branch councillors elected Brent Barrett, Lindsey Britton, Tony Dunlop, Kate Graeme, Ines Stager and Jon Wenham as Board members. Incumbents Craig Potton and Barry Wards were not elected, along with new candidates Gerry Brackenbury and James Muir (who withdrew his nomination before the vote).

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) Dr Jan Wright gave the Sanderson Memorial Address at the Saturday dinner. Dr Wright reflected on her seven years as PCE, and said she believed the most important aspect of her role was working to achieve change.

She compared the threats of mining and introduced pests to conservation land and wildlife. “A mine is very tangible – the damage it does is largely in your face,” she said. “What I worry about particularly are the silent invisible

enemies within – that feast on and smother the plants and animals that make this country so special. Mining is localised – pests are everywhere. Unlike mining companies, pests and weeds don’t require concessions or access agreements before they invade and multiply across the landscape. Pests and weeds do not have to comply with conditions in resource consents.”

Dr Wright targeted rats, stoats and possums – the “evil triumvirate” to her – in her 1080 report but at the dinner highlighted the unsolved problems for native wildlife of mice, deer and goats.

At a political forum on Saturday afternoon delegates heard the views of conservation spokespeople from the National, Labour and Green parties. Conservation Minister Dr Nick Smith said the National Party put a lot of weight on scientific evidence and collaboration in finding solutions to conservation problems.

Labour’s conservation spokesperson, Ruth Dyson, criticised the government’s lack of intellectual rigour in passing legislation under urgency to allow logging in West Coast native forests, and in reducing the advocacy mandate of the Department of Conservation.

Eugenie Sage said the Green Party wanted a review of stewardship land and a price on carbon because climate change was likely to be the most significant contributor to biodiversity loss by the end of the decade.

Constitution makeover Significant changes to Forest & Bird’s Constitution include: n n n n

n

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A “Board” replaces the “Executive” that governs Forest & Bird.

The term for Board members has increased from one year to two years.

Membership classes and fees are no longer set out in the rules, and will be set by the Board.

Some rules relating to branches are changed to promote a more united Society, removing wording that suggests branches and the national organisation operate separately.

“Networks” are provided for. Each member will belong to a branch and may also belong to a network. The changes are intended to encourage groups to form

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and operate around specific issues, and to give some structure to informal groups and ensure some limited oversight. n The election of Councillors (previously solely branch representatives) has changed. Up to two Kiwi Conservation Club representatives can be on the Council, and up to five extra Council members can be elected directly from the wider Forest & Bird membership. This is an attempt to broaden participation in governance, and to encourage young people or those with special skills or experience to contribute to Forest & Bird’s governance. n Capitation fees paid to branches have been removed in favour of a funding formula set at the discretion of the Board.

Board changes

New face

Craig Potton, of Nelson, and Dr Barry Wards, of Upper Hutt, who served on Forest & Bird’s Executive (Board) for many years, were not re-elected at the Council meeting in June. Deputy President Mark Hanger says they Craig Potton worked tirelessly for the Society, and their knowledge and input at a Board level will be very much missed.

“Craig is a staunch advocate of Forest & Bird’s campaigns, an ambassador of the Society and will no doubt continue to work for the Society and for conservation in many other ways.

“Barry, a former President of the Barry Wards Society, has a wealth of institutional knowledge, and has always been a strong voice for the branches. He has contributed to the Society in immeasurable ways, and I am sure he will continue to do so in the future.”

Kate Graeme is the newest member of Forest & Bird’s Board. She is a Tauranga branch committee member and the local Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) co-ordinator, and a volunteer in the pest control team at Aongatete Forest in the western Bay of Plenty.

Kate was previously a policy advisor on climate change for the Minister of Transport and on freshwater policy for the Department of Conservation.

As the daughter of long-time Forest & Bird members and former staffers Basil and Ann Graeme, Kate has a strong conservation background. She sees an effective freshwater management system, support for 1080 pest control and climate change as the top conservation issues. “If New Zealanders are to care about our natural environment they need to appreciate it and understand the challenges it faces. Forest & Bird and KCC play a vital role in doing this. I look forward to helping grow support,” she says.

Plant and pest heroes Forest & Bird members in the Wairarapa and south Otago were honoured for their planting and pestbusting prowess.

Trevor Thompson won the 2014 Golden Spade award for his dedication to three voluntary conservation projects. For the past 3½ years he has been protecting and restoring one of only two known sites on the Wairarapa coast with wild rengarenga lilies. This has been done with the blessing of the local hapū, Ngāti Hinewaka, who are believed to have brought the lilies from further north and planted them as a food source centuries ago. The project has involved fencing the lilies off and controlling predators within the fenced area.

Trevor has also worked since 1992 to save native mistletoe species. At one point only three examples of one species, Alepis flavida, were known to exist in the Wairarapa. All lived on one tree but Trevor has since increased the number of host trees to seven, and propagated a dozen plants in total.

Another mistletoe species, Tupeia Antarctica, which is classified as threatened and declining, is now flourishing on Trevor’s property. The population serves as an important seed bank.

Trevor also manages about 200 Coprosma wallii seedlings, another native species that is very rare in the Wairarapa, with only 12 known plants in the wild.

Forest & Bird’s South Otago branch won this year’s Pestbuster award for reducing predator numbers across 220 hectares of Catlins coastline. The branch’s Roy Johnstone and Jim Young trap and monitor pest numbers at the Long Point/Irahuka Ecological Restoration Project, ŌwakaHeads and Penguin Bay, Otanomomo Scientific Reserve and Lenz Reserve.

Roy has been controlling pests in the Catlins since 2008. He was inspired to start trapping after a stoat ran between his legs in an area where endangered yellow-eyed penguins live. “While we try to minimise our interaction with penguins when we do the trap servicing, I always get a kick out of seeing them come in from the sea and then hop about on land,” Roy says.

Jim says finding a dead stoat or rat is “great when you catch one but it’s much better when you don’t”.

Roy says they have reduced the overall numbers of predators to a point at which there are now too few to disrupt the yellow-eyed penguins’ breeding. Whenever a kill is made, the details are logged for later analysis.

Regular reports are made to the Department of Conservation, Landcare Research and the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust.

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our people

No 1 kākāpō fan Andrea Carson is besotted with kākāpō. “Everyone laughs when they come into my office as it is almost a shrine to the kākāpō, with photos on every wall.” She’s not a kākāpō scientist and she doesn’t work for the Department of Conservation. Instead, she’s the community officer for New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS), which has been the major sponsor of Kākāpō Recovery Programme since 1990.

NZAS has contributed more than $4 million to the programme, along with staff expertise and labour. “Since 2004 NZAS employees have helped with supplementary feeding and nest minding [on Codfish/Whenua Hou and Anchor Islands].

“However, our tradespeople carrying out maintenance on and off the islands have really kept the programme ticking. We have a very dedicated team of guys doing this work and they all have a real sense of ownership towards the programme. Our employee volunteer days currently sit at more than 1030.”

Forest & Bird and DOC are also partners in the Kākāpō Recovery Programme.

Kākāpō have completely beguiled Andrea. “I was lucky enough to be on Codfish Island and Sirocco came hopping

down the hill to visit one night. It was one of the most magical moments I have experienced in my life, one that’s really difficult to put into words,” she says.

“The kākāpō is a species that we, as a nation, must save.

Once they’re gone, they’re gone and we just cannot let that happen.” kakaporecovery.org.nz

Aucklander with national focus

Hawke’s Bay branch leader

Isobel Thompson, a well-loved Forest & Bird personality, and a highly respected figure in the conservation movement, died on June 2.

From 1978-84 Isobel was Auckland branch’s co-vice chair and Council delegate alongside eminent naturalist Ronald Lockley. It was an exciting period that included forest protection battles at the national level, and the branch’s acquisition and development of nature reserves on Waiheke Island and in West Auckland. The first stage of the Matuku Reserve, in Waitākere Valley, dated from this period.

Isobel’s roles included branch publicity convenor. She was a member of the Coromandel Forest Park Advisory Committee and a firm voice against inappropriate mining and logging.

Her concern for the environment prompted submissions on a wide range of topics. Close to home, she initiated the development of a bird wetland, which is now an Ellerslie community asset.

Isobel was born in 1921 and trained as a nurse. She travelled through China as a CORSO relief nurse for the China Welfare Fund after World War II, and later wrote about her experiences in a book. n Michael Taylor and the Thompson family

Pat Menzies, who died on June 23, had a long association with Forest & Bird. She chaired the Southern Hawke’s Bay branch on two occasions for 20 years, the second period from 1994 to 2004.

She led an active branch, organising weed clearing in several areas, track clearing in the Ruahine Range, and many walks and trips. When she stepped down as chairperson in 2004 the branch closed.

She and her husband, who was surgeon superintendent of Dannevirke Hospital, owned a small family farm on the outskirts of Dannevirke. Pat fenced off an area of bush on the farm and placed it under a QEII Trust covenant.

Pat moved to the Kapiti Coast 10 years ago, and was an active member of Forest & Bird’s Kapiti-Mana branch. She was a regular attender at working bees for the Waikanae Estuary Care Group.

She became a Friends of Ngā Manu member while still living in Dannevirke, and over the past decade was a valued member of the reserve’s volunteer guide team.

Her energy and enthusiasm for the environment will be sadly missed, and her positive attitude in dealing with her diagnosis of cancer was an inspiration to all who knew her. n Judy Driscoll

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Andrea Carson and Diesel Faulkner from New Zealand Aluminium Smelters on Codfish Island/Whenua Hou.

GROWN-UP

Boy wonder Several formative experiences led a one-time KCC member to a career in science and the environment. By Mandy Herrick.

Wildlife documentary maker and field scientist James Muir can’t quite pinpoint when he became an avid conservationist, though it was sometime between his schoolboy eel-tickling days and a formative tramping trip.

James joined KCC after hordes of kids descended on his Bay of Plenty country school to plant trees in the local reserve, and he moved from aspiring green thumb to bona fide KCC member within the month.

Some of his most enduring memories of KCC are of night walks. “We would camp at the local farm where they had a beautiful creek filled with bullies, eels and kōura and we’d take a spotlight down and watch them. It was a real eye opener for me as a kid because the forest really comes alive at night. We’d see morepork and glowworms – you name it.”

A few years later he went on a trip to Lake Waikaremoana with his friend’s botanist father, and things started to fall into place. After dabbling in several of his passions, he finally focused on a degree in biology and it was then that this trip came into bright focus.

“There was an incredible learning that went on in that trip that I had forgotten about. I’d been a chef and dabbled in art. It’s biology I finally came back to though,” James says from his Coromandel home, which doubles as an ecoretreat for writers and conservationists.

As a youngster he had a fascination for the eels that lived in his local stream. After school he would gather his friends and they would go in search of deep pools where they could try to catch eels by hand.

The dual terror and intimacy of this act made him feel alive and incredibly connected to a creature that was widely misunderstood. “There were a few eels that were so large when they raised their heads we ran screaming. It’s the smaller ones that we’d tickle. We would stroke them on their underbelly and they would go quite calm and still.”

Although it was eels that helped lead him down his path into biological sciences, it was passerine birds that he studied at Canterbury University.

Armed with a biology degree and an adventurous spirit, he began a jet-setting career as a field scientist and researcher. For six years he travelled to many far-flung places, from Tasmania to Venezuela, the Chatham Islands to Maud Island, to study and observe all variety of creatures from saddlebacks to giant wētā.

James wasn’t so comfortable with the field biologist’s job of disturbing creatures; he preferred watching them. “I was sitting on the side of a mountain in Venezuela watching a hummingbird and then, on closer inspection, I discovered it was a moth. It dawned on me that the best way to understand nature is through observation. So I decided to study the world through pictures.”

It’s these finely tuned observational skills that helped him become a wildlife documentary maker. After

completing a Masters in natural history film-making at Otago University, he has gone on to make several films, including the award-winning documentary River Dog (2011) about the rescue of a south Wairarapa river.

Now James is working on a documentary about the ever-expanding oil and gas industry by interviewing the divided community who live in Taranaki.

After the release of his next film in 2015, he’ll be switching his attentions to a citizen science project called Water Action Initiative New Zealand (WaiNZ). The group works with Victoria University to research and develop cutting-edge technology to monitor freshwater.

“These days most people have a powerful computer with them all the time. That technology can be used to report on the state of our environment from anywhere at anytime. So citizen science has an incredibly important role to play in the monitoring of our environment. I am incredibly excited about working in this new field,” he says.

James Muir holds tomtit chicks on the Chatham Islands in 2007. Photo: Melanie Massaro

KCC today The Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) is Forest & Bird’s club for children. To join KCC or see what current KCC kids do, see www.kcc.org.nz

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fundraising

Value for nature Supporter Relations Manager Rebecca Scelly explains the background to some of Forest & Bird’s fundraising initiatives.

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ince 1923, Forest & Bird has been New Zealand’s leading independent conservation organisation.

Forest & Bird was started by concerned New Zealanders with the financial support of concerned and generous New Zealanders.

Looking back at Forest & Bird’s earliest magazines, I am struck by not only the type of conservation issues they faced but also the need for funds, primarily through memberships and bequests. There are similarities today.

Much has changed in the past 90 years but the core reasons for Forest & Bird’s existence and the need to be independent from government remains the same. To be the voice for nature and keep our independence, we still need philanthropic funds.

Financially, we have grown from a small, grassroots, voluntary-run organisation to a significant national environmental organisation. To achieve this, we looked at our income and identified that nearly all of it was from annual membership fees and bequests. To meet increasing conservation needs, we knew we needed to grow the organisation and diversify our sources of income. Over the past seven years we have done this and we now have multiple income sources that help us respond to more conservation, protection and restoration work.

Our membership remains an important income source not only for our direct conservation work but for the financial stability of Forest & Bird, now and into the future. In 2009 we had to face up to a 20-year decline in our membership.

No matter what promotion we did, we couldn’t arrest that decline.

Forest & Bird was fundraising in the 1920s in this advertisement in Bulletin number 12, the forerunner of Forest & Bird magazine.

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After extensive research and business planning, the Forest & Bird board agreed to try face to face, or direct dialogue, fundraising. This form of fundraising is very personal and is about approaching individuals on a busy street, in a shopping mall, at an event like an A & P Show or by knocking on residential doors.

Since we started this programme in May 2010 many, many people have told us that they had for years intended to join Forest & Bird but had never got around to it. By talking to people directly we provide an easy opportunity to join. Face to face fundraising has turned our membership decline into an increase.

We have refined the programme over the years. As well as increasing membership, this fundraising has significantly contributed to the financial stability of our organisation and spread the work and name of Forest & Bird. About 800 conversations with potential members about Forest & Bird are held most afternoons and early evenings each week, adding up to about 16,000 conversations a month or about 200,000 conversations each year.

In 2008 we introduced a telemarketing programme. This programme is another one on one method of speaking to potential supporters about the work of Forest & Bird.

Through this programme we speak to about 1800 people every weekday evening or about 430,000 people every year. This programme concentrates on one-off donations from existing and new supporters and has provided Forest & Bird with a secure and stable form of income, as well as a wide audience to talk to about the conservation work of Forest & Bird.

Face to face and telemarketing fundraising continue all year around and occasionally we run a short time-limited programme for a specific purpose. This may target our past members to see if they are interested in rejoining Forest & Bird, or it could be speaking to our long-standing members to thank them for their ongoing support and see if they are interested in regular giving.

Talking to existing and potential members and supporters directly in person or on the phone are just two of our many programmes but they are two of the most successful ones. They work whether measured financially, through engagement, or by adding up the number of new Forest & Bird members and supporters.

We are humbled by the number of people in New Zealand and living overseas who care so much about protecting and restoring our precious country that they happily and graciously give their time and/or donations to Forest & Bird.

Your support and dedication means the world to conservation in New Zealand and everyone at Forest & Bird thanks you so much for your love of our country.

$10 makes a difference.

Please visit forestandbird.org.nz/joinus today.

FAB0193/Ogilvy

A CLIMATE FOR CHANGE

Acid test

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Everyone has heard about how climate change is causing the polar ice caps to melt, which will cause sea levels to rise. Jay Harkness discovers that climate change is also behind several other major changes in the marine environment.

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nimals in shells made of calcium carbonate have been living in Earth’s oceans for millions of years.

Chalk, limestone and marble are testament to their lives. All three of these rock types are made up of the shells of prehistoric animals that died and settled on the sea floor.

Think of New Zealand’s many limestone regions or Tākaka Hill – often referred to as the marble mountain.

But there are now many questions about how and even if this vast array of species will be able to survive the dramatic changes caused by human-induced climate change.

As more carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels, the world’s oceans are absorbing more of the gas.

This leads to the creation of carbonic acid, which is raising the acidity of the world’s oceans. The oceans are already 30 per cent more acidic than they were before the industrial revolution.

The calcium carbonate shells of shellfish cannot develop in water that is too acid. Nor can coral, which is one reason why coral reefs all around the world are struggling.

How much is too much acid? The good news is that a bottom-up collapse of the marine food pyramid is not under way. Whether the effects of falling pH levels are felt by a

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particular species or not depends in part on geography.

For instance, for several years Oregon’s oyster farmers had been mystified by the deaths of successive seasons of spat. As it turned out, the larvae had been dying for the same reason that you can get more bubbles into your Soda Stream if the water is already chilled – cooler water holds more carbon dioxide.

The cooler waters from the deepest parts of the North Pacific spill over the edge of the Continental Shelf, in a process called upwelling, then spread out along the northwestern seaboard of the United States. After researching the die-offs, the oyster farmers found that this particularly acidic water had been stopping the oyster larvae forming shells.

Now the farmers only take the water they grow their spat in at times when the acidity is low. This works for the farmers, but not the oysters living in the wild.

A local species that lives far beyond humans’ ability to (directly) control its environment is the hoki. Most hoki spawn off the west coast of the South Island, where the Cook River empties into the Cook Canyon, a major undersea feature.

In the late 1990s scientists found a strong correlation between the surface temperature of the Tasman Sea and

the success hoki had at breeding. When the sea surface temperature was lower, hoki had better breeding success.

When it was warmer, fewer hoki were recruited.

After that research was published, Forest & Bird unsuccessfully tried to persuade hoki fishers and the government to reduce the allowable hoki catch to account for several years of poor recruitment that followed successive warm years. Unfortunately, the scientific advice was ignored and hoki catches plummeted due to the overfishing. Many fishing jobs disappeared and it has taken many years for hoki stocks to slowly recover.

The continued rise in sea levels is unlikely to directly affect hoki, but it will affect many other fish species. The world’s most productive marine areas are coastal, intertidal estuaries. For instance, it is estimated that 90 per cent of the snapper living off New Zealand’s west coasts spawn in the very shallow estuarine waters of Kaipara Harbour, just north of Auckland. “As sea levels rise, the tides will come up higher and the areas of mudflat and beach that presently only get flooded on very high tides will get regularly inundated.

Further down the mudflat, the areas that were only exposed on very low tides will become permanently covered. The estuary will be trying to move inland.

“However, people will work hard to stop that by building retaining walls and the like to protect their properties and infrastructure,” Kevin says. “While the average depth of harbours like the Kaipara will increase, the incredibly productive mudflats will shrink as they get squeezed up against an over-engineered shoreline. This could result in a huge loss of breeding and feeding grounds for many fish like snapper and for many seabirds and shorebirds,” Kevin says.

The global average sea level rose by 12 centimetres last century. But Kevin points out that water expands slightly as it warms. In the world’s oceans this minor expansion is enough to materially add to sea level rising.

However, in the future the melting Antarctic and Arctic ice sheets will mainly drive the rise in sea levels. This northern summer’s Arctic ice melt is not far behind that of 2012, when the ice cap shrank to its smallest extent in recorded history.

The pattern of melting in Antarctica has traditionally been harder to follow, in part because the snow and ice melt over land has increased the freshwater run-off from Antarctica into the sea, and so increased the area of sea ice around some parts of the continent. But earlier this year NASA concluded that the process causing the melting of the ice sheets around Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea was “unstoppable”, saying the rate at which the area’s ice is melting has increased 77 per cent since 1973. The area’s undersea topography allows the region’s now warmer waters to continually eat under the edge of the snow and ice, carving large chunks of ice away from the coast. If Antarctica’s ice and snow were to melt, ocean levels would rise by 1.2 metres – though the melting would probably take centuries.

Kevin says even a moderate rise in sea levels would still have serious implications for the plants and animals that live and grow around New Zealand’s coasts. “That’s why Forest & Bird recently submitted that the new Auckland Unitary Plan – which lays out how the region will develop over the coming years – should require consideration of buffer zones to allow the plants and animals that grow and live along our coasts to retreat from and adapt to the rising water levels. Given that

all but one of New Zealand’s five biggest cities are on the coast, sea level rise could be a very costly problem in itself.”

Kevin says we can save the natural world from the extremes of runaway climate change. But this will only come from an accelerated transition from fossil fuels and a move to a genuinely sustainable economy. “If the world is to stay beneath a two-degree average temperature increase, only one-third of the proven coal and oil reserves can be burnt.

“Exploring for new reserves beneath New Zealand’s public conservation land or the deep seas within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone ignores this basic arithmetic and works to perpetuate the growing problem.

“Many countries have made significant progress towards this transition. New Zealand’s had a great head start with the help of the electricity it generates with hydro dams and the recent expansion of wind farms. But we need to build on this right away,” Kevin says.

“Because we are a small, young, relatively well-connected country, we have led the world on important issues such as the right for women to vote, the establishment of the welfare state, redressing historic injustices to the Māori, and opposition to nuclear weapons. As a country, it is time that we took the lead on climate change.”

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1 A polar bear jumps across ice floes north of Svalbard, in the

Arctic Circle. Photo: Larissa Beumer/Greenpeace

2 Warmer sea temperatures can cause coral to expel the

colourful algae on their surface and reveal their white structure. The coral isn’t dead when it turns white, but it indicates stress. Photo: Armando Jenik 2009/Marine Photobank Forest & Bird

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going places 1

Bush by the bay Forest & Bird cabins are a welcome retreat for visitors to a forested reserve on the Catlins coastline. By Fergus Sutherland.

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autuku is the natural heart of the Catlins, where the forest stretches in a continuous carpet from the extraordinary sweep of beach and rocky headland to the inland hill summits. Forest & Bird’s Lenz Reserve occupies a significant portion of this last forested catchment on the east coast, and its Tautuku Forest Cabins offer a tranquil base from which to explore the area.

Forest & Bird has long had a stake here. In 1963 the Society bought land at Tautuku with funds from the estate of Ivy Lenz. By 1969 the first of the buildings that now make up the Tautuku Forest Cabins complex had been built on a prominent point overlooking the reserve. Since then, Lenz Reserve and its cosy facilities have been enjoyed by several generations.

Two to three-hour walking tracks ramble through the 550-hectare reserve, where regenerating and old-growth rimu-kamahi forests are home to abundant korimako, tūī, kererū, pīwakawaka, tomtits, brown creepers, riroriro (grey warblers) and other wildlife.

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The 30-minute Traill tractor walk features the Journey through Time interpretation panels and historic sawmill era relics. From the cabins, the walk to the Tautuku Estuary boardwalk and back takes an hour. The track is though forest, shrub and saltmarsh to the pristine estuary, where fernbirds, kōtare (kingfishers), pūtangitangi (paradise ducks) and wading birds can be spotted.

Allow three to four hours to walk along the road and a nature trail through old-growth forest to the magnificent forest-backed Tautuku Beach and peninsula.

The sea-washed Cathedral Caves are a 20-minute drive away and the walk to the caves cuts through the Waipati Beach Scenic Reserve. The caves are impressive – as much as 30 metres high – and at low tide it’s possible to walk between the caves.

Among the many waterfalls near the coast is McLean Falls, a spectacular drop of more than 20 metres into a gorge. Other nearby attractions are the lookout and information panels of Florence Hill, the Whistling Frog café

at Chaslands and the seaside settlement of Papatowai with its many forest, sea and estuary walks, shop and Lost Gypsy automata gallery.

Further afield but all within an hour’s travel by car are the petrified forest at Curio Bay, Waikawa museum and information centre, the two-day Catlins River-Wisp Loop Track beech forest walk, Purakaunui Falls, Ōwaka and its museum and information centre, Jack’s Blowhole, Pounawea forest and estuary edge walks, and Surat Bay with its resident population of rare New Zealand sea lions.

Nugget Point’s outstanding ocean views are worth the 90-minute drive north-east from Tautuku Forest Cabins.

A seal colony can be seen from the lighthouse, and many seabirds live on the rocky “nuggets” that extend into the sea from the point. It’s one of several places along the coast where rare yellow-eyed penguins, or hoiho, can be spotted, especially at dawn and in the late afternoon as they move between their nests and the sea.

DUNEDIN •

ŌWAKA

BALCLUTHA •

PAPATOWAI • TAUTUKU BAY

Fergus Sutherland is the chair of the Lenz Reserve Management Committee.

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Getting there Directions:

Tautuku Forest Cabins are on State Highway 92, south of Ōwaka in south-east Otago.

What’s there: The main cabin has two bunkrooms with a spacious lounge and all-electric kitchen, heat pump and an adjacent toilet/shower block connected to the cottage by a covered way ($20 members and $25 non-members).

The Coutts Cabin offers two bedrooms with single beds and lounge/kitchenette, electric heating with a separate shared toilet and shower block ($20 members and $25 nonmembers).

The A frame cabin is a compact space with two beds, an all-electric kitchenette and separate shared toilet and shower block ($15 members and $20 non-members).

Children are $5 for any of the cabins.

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3 1 Native forest hits the sand at Tautuku beach. Photos: Fergus

Sutherland and Dawn Patterson

2 A boardwalk partly encircles Tautuku Estuary.

3 Forest & Bird Otago/Southland Field Officer Sue Maturin

kayaks on Tautuku Estuary.

4 Coutts Cabin sleeps four people.

When there: To help identify birds, Catlins Birds: A pocket guide by Forest & Bird is $10 plus postage from South Otago branch secretary Jane Young, Ōwaka RD2, 9586 or janejimyoung@ slingshot.co.nz Bookings:

Diana Noonan, Mirren Street, Papatowai, Ōwaka RD 2, 9586, 03 415 8024 or dianakeith@yrless.co.nz

More See www.catlins.org or visit Ōwaka information Information Centre, Ryley Street, Ōwaka.

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In the field ANN GRAEME

Liking for a tough life Ann Graeme reveals the surprising life of lichens.

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ome lichens are pioneers. They live on the fringes of the living world, in the harshest habitats where green plants can’t cope. All they need is air, moisture, sunlight and somewhere to sit. It is lichens that paint the stones of arid deserts, dangle from branches of trees, encrust the spraysprinkled rocks by the sea and speckle the tar seal along the edges of country roads. The Arctic “moss” that sustains the reindeer is actually a lichen and more than 350 lichen species grow on, and even in, the rocks of Antarctica.

Lichens can cope because each is a partnership between a fungus and a green or a blue-green alga (properly called a cyanobacterium). The fungus creates the structure for the alga to live inside, protects it from the elements and absorbs water and minerals while the alga carries out photosynthesis to feed them both. It’s a classic example of symbiosis, a perfect marriage where the fungus provides the house and its partner does the cooking.

Not every scientist takes this rosy view. Some see it as controlled parasitism or even slavery of the alga by the fungus. In a more positive light, you could consider lichens as fungi that discovered agriculture, cultivating algae much as we cultivate our crops.

Whatever the relationship, it works. There are more than 20,000 known lichens worldwide and an estimated 2300 of them live in New Zealand. This is more than 10 per cent of all the world’s lichens, just in our tiny land mass.

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Our native lichens number nearly as many as all our native trees, shrubs, herbs and ferns put together and so make a considerable contribution to our biodiversity.

But not all lichens are pioneers that live in remote harsh extremes. Most find their perches within more familiar ecosystems, in forests and farms and gardens. In New Zealand the most lush, dense and diverse populations of lichens grow in native forests and shrub-lands. Many others have adapted to colonise our manmade landscape on fence posts, concrete paths, bricks, old car bodies … pretty well anywhere they can find a foothold.

But living on a rock, even in a suburban garden, can be a harsh environment. Lichens are small and thin and the sun can quickly bake them to a crisp, making them too dry for their algal partners to carry out photosynthesis. It’s even more difficult for the lichens living on rocks high in the mountains, where it can be both too dry and too cold for such chemical activity. But lichens can absorb water like blotting paper so a little dew or fog will wet them and an hour of sunlight will warm them sufficiently for a brief burst of photosynthesis. This is how lichens function and why they grow so slowly. But they are tough and they can live for hundreds and even thousands of years.

Lichens commonly reproduce from fragments, sometimes just broken off and sometimes rounded into little dispersal bundles. Each fragment contains fungal threads

In the mists of time Blue-green algae is a misleading name for the cyanobacteria. They are not algae at all but a special group of bacteria. Cyanobacteria can not only photosynthesise but they can also change atmospheric nitrogen into soluble and readily available nitrates, as do the bacteria in the root nodules of legumes. Nitrogen is an essential and naturally scarce nutrient so lichens that partner a cyanobacterium get an extra benefit.

Fifteen per cent of our lichens have either a cyanobacterium partner or both a cyanobacterium and an algal partner. These lichens are often coloured grey, black, brown or dark green because their cyanobacteria have bluish pigment as well as green chlorophyll to capture light for photosynthesis.

Cyanobacteria were among the earliest forms of life on Earth. They lived in giant, mushroom-shaped structures called stromatalites and produced the first oxygen gas in our primeval atmosphere.

2 and algal or cyanobacterial cells. Sometimes the fungus produces its own spores. This is a gamble because the spores must not only find a place where they can germinate but also meet the appropriate alga or cyanobacterium partner if they are going to grow into a lichen.

There is one thing that knocks back the toughest of lichens. It is pollution from smog and acid rain and the exhaust fumes from our cars and trucks.

Look at the roads, footpaths and city trees and you will see the evidence. Downtown where the traffic is dense the tar seal, buildings and trees may be barren of lichens, a measure of the pollution in the air. But your suburban street or country road probably hosts a healthy flora. The more species of lichens living around you, the cleaner your air is. And in areas of high-intensity farming, lichen diversity plummets because of the excess nitrogen from fertiliser, animal excrement and nitrates from farm machinery.

They may not be able to cope with pollution but lichens have lots of survival tricks. They have unique chemicals, many of which interest people. Some lichen chemicals act as sun screens, some convert UV light into visible light and some are antibiotics. But lichens’ greatest contribution to the living world is their ability to colonise bare rock, building up humus, sometimes enriching it with nitrogen, stabilising soil and preparing the way for other plants and animals.

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How to spot a lichen Each lichen is named after the fungus in the partnership. The fungus determines the growth form of the lichen and this is the first step in identifying your lichen. Happily the three main growth forms are almost self-explanatory.

Crustose lichens are crusty, flattened and stuck tightly to their substrate.

Foliose lichens are flattened but leafy, with an obvious top surface and underside.

Fruticose lichens are three-dimensional, like tiny twiggy bushes or dangling beards.

To peep further into the colourful miniature world on our doorsteps a new book is available. Lichens of New Zealand, an introductory illustrated guide is by Allison Knight, to whom I am indebted for help with this article. The book has more than 250 images of some of our common lichens, arranged by growth form within four broad ecosystems. The book is available from the Botanical Society of Otago at bso@botany.otago.ac.nz

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1 Four lichens, including crustose, foliose (fallen) and fruticose

growth forms, on one rock. Photos: Allison Knight

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colourful collection of lichens growing on a willow twig.

3 Green, foliose, forest lichen with brown fungal fruiting

bodies, Pseudocyphellaria homoeophylla.

4 Yellow foliose lichen, Teleoschistes chrysophthalmus.

5 Vase-like splash cups of fruiticose lichen, Cladonia pleurota.

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community

conservation

Penguin-cam for Te Rere to a minimum so this allows us to take a really hands-off approach and allows the birds to come and go in peace.”

Every month Fergus downloads the camera’s still and video files to get fresh insights into this bustling colony of hōiho, sooty shearwaters (tītī), little blue penguins (kororā) and New Zealand sea lions (whakahao).

As well as providing important information on the birds’ physical condition, the camera shows each bird’s behaviour. “They all have their own personalities. Some are good parents and others are just a little hopeless. They will often pick stupid nesting sites, year after year,” he says.

During the year the motion-activated camera is shifted around the colony to capture the daily seaward march of the seven groups of hōiho living at Te Rere Reserve.

This data is shared with the Department of Conservation to help establish population trends.

In June the Southland branch also bought a GPS locator, thanks to the Southern Scenic Steering Committee. It’s made finding nests in this extensive bushy site much less arduous. n Mandy Herrick

A new trail camera has opened up the secretive world of the yellow-eyed penguin, or hōiho, living on Forest & Bird’s isolated 67-hectare pest-controlled reserve on the Caitlins coastline.

For the past 25 years volunteers have spent hours lining the windswept cliffs of Te Rere Reserve, binoculars clasped to their eyes, pencils at the ready, monitoring the population and movements of this endangered bird.

Since late last year they’ve had a trail camera to help them accurately monitor the colony’s daily movements and population numbers.

The reserve, cared for by Forest & Bird’s Southland branch, is one of the largest mainland colonies of hōiho, with more than 80 year-round residents. “The camera works day and night in any kind of conditions – hail, wind and storms – so it’s the perfect solution,” says caretaker Fergus Sutherland. “We’ve always tried to keep contact

For trail camera footage, search for Te Rere on Youtube, or go to Forest & Bird’s Southland branch at www.forestandbird.org.nz

1 Fergus Sutherland

with a hōiho chick at Te Rere Reserve.

Photo: Melanie Young

2 Penguins captured

by the trail camera at Te Rere.

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Help for kahikatea forest Nelson-Tasman Forest & Bird members and Golden Bay High School students have planted about 6500 trees at Hadfield Clearing, near Abel Tasman National Park.

On Anzac weekend 25 Forest & Bird volunteers planted about 4000 plants including kahikatea, flax, coprosma, kānuka, mānuka and toetoe. Golden Bay High School students have planted another 2500 plants.

Hadfield Clearing, behind Awarua Inlet, is one of the Nelson-Tasman district’s last remnants of lowland kahikatea forest, and Project Janszoon is behind a restoration project to extend the forest.

Mike Crawford, who is leading the Hadfield Clearing work for Project Janszoon, was pleased with the April planting. “The Forest & Bird members knew what they 46

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were doing and made quick work of the planting, and it was great to see the students out there appreciating the environment and understanding the importance of planting trees,” he says.

Pāteke, or brown teal, could be introduced if stoats are reduced through a trapping programme. “This area of the park is under-utilised and could be really special. We can’t rush this but it’s a fantastic area which deserves to be beautified and enjoyed more by people in the future,” says Mike.

Project Janszoon is a privately funded trust working with the Department of Conservation and other groups on a 30-year programme to restore Abel Tasman National Park’s ecology.

Snapshot of Ashburton wildlife Peter Langlands won Ashburton branch’s photographic competition with a striking shot of South Island pied oystercatchers in the Upper Rangitātā River. Don Geddes was runner-up with his entry of a scree skink, and Corey Geddes won honours for a wētā at Mt Hutt Conservation Area. The wētā is as yet undescribed.

Forest & Bird’s Ashburton branch organised the photographic competition to celebrate the Society’s 90th anniversary in 2013 and to celebrate the biodiversity of the Ashburton district. The area is well known to nature photographers, who have captured its alpine plants in the Mt Hutt Conservation Area to the exceptional glacial landscapes of the Hakatere Conservation Park.

Wildlife photographer Rod Morris judged the 113

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entries, and he was impressed with the quality and diversity of images presented. Alpine flowers featured as well as skinks, wetland and forest plants and animals. The diversity of birds was surprising and included black and white-fronted terns, kaki/black stilts, kārearea/falcons, kea, pīwakawaka/fantails, white-winged black terns and whio/ blue ducks.

Rod selected 40 images which were mounted, framed and exhibited in Methven and Ashburton. The collection will be presented to the new Ashburton Museum as a snapshot of the biodiversity of the Ashburton district.

1 South Island pied oystercatchers. Photo: Peter Langlands 2 Undescribed wētā. Photo: Corey Geddes

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Migrating birds lecture focus Ecologist and ornithologist David Melville highlighted local and global conservation issues for migrating birds in his Perrine Moncrieff Memorial Lecture in Nelson in June.

David is working in China, where coastal wetlands are being increasingly lost to development, which is confining wading birds to smaller, crowded areas. Numbers of migratory birds, such as the bar-tailed godwit (kūaka), which visits New Zealand in summer, are decreasing as a consequence.

Forest & Bird’s Nelson-Tasman branch and the Friends of Nelson Haven and Tasman Bay organised the evening in honour of Perrine Moncrieff (1893-1979), who was a founding member of both organisations. Perrine was the instigator of Abel Tasman National Park, and the forceful promoter of formal protection for habitats including Farewell Spit, a site of international importance for wading and migratory birds, and Lake Rotoroa, now in Nelson Lakes National Park.

David recognised Perrine’s observations of birds and their habits, which culminated in 1925 with the first New Zealand bird field book. He wove observations and comments from Perrine and her colleagues with extracts

from school journals into his presentation. These were contrasted with studies he and others have made in recent years on wading birds, including the bar-tailed godwit, in the Pacific region. n Helen Campbell

From left, David Melville, Friends of Nelson Haven and Tasman Bay chair Dr Gwen Struik, Forest & Bird Conservation Ambassador Craig Potton and Forest & Bird Chief Executive Hōne McGregor.

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community

conservation

Political debates focus on nature Political candidates around New Zealand have been quizzed about their parties’ environmental and conservation policies at public meetings organised by Forest & Bird branches in the run-up to the general election.

At the Waikato branch’s meeting in Hamilton on August 7, the unexpected addition of the unconfirmed MANA Party candidate to the panel of candidates caused a buzz in the Waikato Times which reported that Angeline Greensill had gatecrashed the meeting.

About 60 people attended the meeting, which focussed on water quality and climate change.

At an election meeting in Ōrewa organised

by Forest & Bird’s Mid North and Hibiscus Coast branches and attended by five candidates, climate change was also a popular topic.

South Otago branch’s environmental forum at Balclutha in early July was chaired

by Clutha District mayor Bryan Cadogan, who kept in order MPs Jacqui Dean (National), Ruth Dyson (Labour), Eugenie Sage (Greens) and Denis O’Rourke (NZ First). About 50 people attended, including many farmers. “In a rural area it is important for both farmers and conservationists to realise that they are actually on the same side when it comes to looking after the environment,” said organiser Jane Young.

At least 20 Forest & Bird branches have held political forums or joined other public meetings ahead of the election. It’s part of Forest & Bird’s work to reach communities to make them aware of the conservation issues facing New Zealand and ask people to consider nature when they vote in the election.

Forest & Bird advocates for strong conservation policies from all political parties but we are not politically aligned to any party.

From left, Eugenie Sage (Greens), Jacqui Dean (National), Ruth Dyson (Labour), Denis O’Rourke (NZ First) and Clutha District Mayor Bryan Cadogan. Photo: Clutha Leader

Tai Haruru Lodge

LODGES Arethusa Cottage Near Pukenui, Northland Sleeps 6 herbit@xtra.co.nz 09 405 1720

Ruapehu Lodge Whakapapa Village, Tongariro National Park Sleeps 32 office@forestandbird.org.nz 04 385 7374

Mangarākau Swamp Field Centre North-west Nelson Sleeps 10 javn@xtra.co.nz 03 525 6031

Piha, West Auckland Sleeps 6 hop0018@slingshot.co.nz 09 812 8064

Waiheke Island Cottage Onetangi Sleeps 8 09 372 7662

William Hartree Memorial Lodge Near Patoka, Hawke’s Bay Sleeps 10 hayhouse@clear.net.nz 06 844 4651

Matiu/Somes Island house Wellington Harbour Sleeps 8 wellingtonvc@doc.govt.nz 04 384 7770

Tautuku Forest Cabins Ōwaka, Otago Sleeps 16 diana-keith@yrless.co.nz 03 415 8024

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Fungi treasure hunt North Shore Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) children found a profusion of fungi during an autumn forage at Kauri Glen Reserve in Northcote.

Peter Buchanan, a biosystematics science team leader at Landcare Research, showed the 24 children and 15 adults a large array of fungi – poisonous scarlet flycaps (Amanita muscaria), puff balls and some very smelly red stinkhorns with tentacles – and had excellent A4 photos of weird and wonderful fungi from around New Zealand, including the fascinating vegetable caterpillar.

The group learned about the different fungi groups and the differences between gills (on mushrooms) and pores (on boletes). Peter produced a jar of Marmite, explaining that the yeast it contains is a kind of fungus.

Venturing into the forest, the children discovered fungi everywhere. The first find was a rotting log with edible wood ear jelly fungi, Auricularia cornea, which Peter reckons is crunchy and delicious cooked with eggs and garlic.

An older child found a large bracket fungus growing on a dead kānuka. Peter said it would be several years old as it had rings denoting the years, in the same way that trees do. Youngsters in the group discovered tiny fungal growths, some of them exquisitely beautiful. The children used Peter’s hand lens to see if the growths had gills or tubes (pores). One especially beautiful miniature mushroom-type fungus (with a helmet) was a Mycena. The stalk was growing upwards, positioning itself for the spores to take off. The spores fall from the gills of the fruiting body to reproduce.

They are then spread far and wide by the wind.

One boy discovered orange wine-glass fungi growing by a sewage outlet and a five year old found a mushroom with

Fungi expert Peter Buchanan with, from left, Teresa Sell, 8, Elise Gunn, 2, and Edan Keeley, 7. Photo: Ann Brabant gills but no stalk. Someone else found sulphur tufts. Basket fungi lying among the leaf litter on the forest floor looked full of interesting networks. Peter said Māori traditionally ate them when the fungi were at the egg stage.

Josephine Saunderson, 9, found a beautiful parasol mushroom and Erina Brown, 8, found bright orange fungi.

The orange poreconch (Favolaschia calocera) has pores, not gills, and was discovered in 1969 around Haast Pass. n Kiwi Conservation Club coordinator Ann Brabant More information at www.kcc.org.nz

Hastings wetland planting About 70 people planted beside Poukawa Stream, south of Hastings, in June. Forest & Bird’s Hastings-Havelock North and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council are restoring a strip of land between the railway line and the Poukawa Stream, which is next to Pekapeka wetland.

The wetland has high biodiversity value, and since 1997 it has had wāhi tapu (sacred) status under the Historic Places Act. Many children helped with the planting, which was organised by Linda Johnson, who is the Hastings-Havelock North Kiwi Conservation Club co-ordinator as well as a member of the branch committee. “Everybody chipped in and did really well. We were most impressed,” she said.

“Next year the kids can go back and see how tall the plants have got.”

Within a couple of hours 1300 plants were in the ground.

Most plants were provided by Honda New Zealand’s TreeFund, an initiative under which Honda supplies trees for each vehicle it sells. Forest & Bird also contributed about 100 plants.

Forest & Bird members will visit the site regularly to weed and water the plants.

Forest & Bird volunteers planting beside Poukawa Stream, south of Hastings, in June. Photos: Phil Bilbrough Forest & Bird

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Walk the West of Ireland

Bush & Beyond

Come walk with us in May 2015 An online gallery of original and reproduction antique maps and prints, featuring scenes of New Zealand, birds and botanical prints, perfect as gifts. We ship worldwide.

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For the nature adventurer this summer...

Our new KCC hat!

Bright, fun and sun-smart these are great out-in-nature hats for our adventurers. There are two sizes. A small hat of 50cm (that can be tightened down to 46cm) and a slightly larger one for the young teenager of 58cm (that can be tightened down to 54cm). Check our online store https://secure.forestandbird.org.nz/shop/shop. asp or call 0800 200 064 to buy one. They’re $29.95 each incl. GST – and postage is an extra.

Ron and Edna Greenwood Environmental Trust The trust provides financial support for projects advancing the conservation and protection of New Zealand’s natural resources, particularly flora and fauna, marine life, geology, atmosphere and waters.

More information is available from the Trust, at: PO Box 10-359, Wellington

Keep your photos and videos safe for future generations Special offer for Forest & Bird members SanDisk Memory Vault 8GB $99 $69 SanDisk Memory Vault 16GB $139 $99 To order, contact Lacklands Ltd 09 630 0753 or info@lacklands.co.nz

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Silvereye from NZ Wildlife. Photo: Mark Hughes

NZ Wildlife: Introducing the weird and wonderful character of natural New Zealand

By Steve Trewick and Mary Morgan-Richards Penguin, $35 Reviewed by Marina Skinner There’s an old rule about judging a book by its cover.

This book, with its protective plastic cover, gives the impression of a field guide. It’s not. It could have been called “New Zealand Ecology for Beginners” but “That’s Incredible” sums up its contents more accurately.

We love our native animals and plants but understanding their extraordinary background stories gives an even greater appreciation of them. Science can tell us about the tiny flatworms that cling to the legs and pincers of kōura (freshwater crayfish). Or that some stick insect species have only females. Or how deaf male ground wētā attract females.

The authors are terrific science communicators. They simply explain what will happen to kākāriki in a beech mast year if mice and stoat numbers are not controlled.

Read and wonder about the genetic lineages of native peripatus (velvet worms).

Beautiful and useful photographs illustrate the text, and my only complaint about the book is that the captions are a point size perhaps better suited to insect eyes.

There’s a strong conservation focus, and the authors show we are impacting on biodiversity. They point out some of the hard choices we must make unless we want to end up with fewer weird and wonderful native plants and animals.

Forest & Bird

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It might help some of our politicians if they read the two pages about what happens when a tree falls in the forest. The large community of animals, plants, fungi and microbes on a rotting log might not be easy to spot but the ants, slugs, millipedes, snails and beetles are all at work.

A Sting in the Tale: My adventures with bumblebees

By Dave Goulson Vintage, $27.99 Reviewed by Ann Graeme I like to read about natural history and I like to read detective stories. This book combines them both, weaving the science of bumblebees into a classic detective story. I loved it.

The plot revolves around the short-haired bumblebee, which recently went extinct in its native home in the United Kingdom.

Luckily it was one of the four bumblebee species introduced to New Zealand to pollinate red clover. The author sets out on a quest to find the lost bumblebee and bring it home. The expedition is fraught with difficulty and unexpected hazards and leads to a quite unexpected climax, just as in the best detective stories.

Along the way the author provides enchanting details of the intimate life of bumblebees and he also includes more profound themes like the role of insects in pollination, the unexpected consequences of our manipulation of nature and the dangers inherent in our careless treatment of the planet that is our home.

Dave Goulson is a man of wit and humanity and he practises what he preaches. In the UK he has raised public understanding of the plight of bumblebees and established a charity to support their well-being and habitats.

There is a heck of a lot more to bumblebees than I ever imagined. This book is a gem. Do read it.

Paradise Saved: The remarkable story of New Zealand’s wildlife sanctuaries and how they are stemming the tide of extinction

By Dave Butler, Tony Lindsay and Janet Hunt.

Random House, $55 Reviewed by Andrew Cutler This handsomely illustrated book provides a broad overview of the history, development and achievements of New Zealand’s eco-sanctuaries and vignettes of the major and many of the smaller projects.

The writers take a thematic approach to the development of sanctuaries from lifeboats and nursery islands (Kapiti and Little Barrier) to DOC’s mainland islands, the development of fenced sanctuaries (Karori, Ōrokonui), their large unfenced brethren (Ark in the Park) and the proliferation of community projects (more than 4000 are claimed to exist).

The authors describe the main projects, noting the challenges and successes of each, and their plans.

Developments in pest control are briefly covered as well as the community and social challenges of establishing eco-sanctuaries. Forest & Bird’s role as an incubator of early community sanctuaries (Karori) is recognised and the involvement of many Society branches and members in projects is noted.

Regular readers of Forest & Bird will be familiar with much of the material in Paradise Saved, and may note that some of the harder issues are only briefly touched on, for example, the debate over the cost/benefit of fenced versus unfenced sanctuaries. Paradise Saved is strongest in the descriptions of the myriad projects of the past 20 years and the people behind them. The authors have recorded an important part of the contemporary conservation movement in a clear, accessible and attractive way.

Native Birds of New Zealand

By David Hallett Sandfly Publishing, $54.95 (available at www.davidhallett.co.nz) Reviewed by Marina Skinner

A marsh crake feeding in the shallows. Photo: David Hallett

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Forest & Bird members know David Hallett’s work. The Christchurch wildlife photographer and former photojournalist has for several years generously shared with Forest & Bird his images, including the kōkako on the cover of the last edition of this magazine.

David has won awards for his birdlife photography, and he’s gathered up many of his favourite shots in this 200-page, largeformat book as a tribute to the native birds he loves.

Each of the book’s birds deserves at least one shot, and sometime several shots capture interesting and seldomobserved behaviour, for instance a parent pīwakawaka feeding four hungry mini mouths. The accompanying text highlights the birds’ special features, any threats to their survival and the conservation work helping them.

David has travelled widely but there’s plenty to appreciate on his Christchurch doorstep, such as the kingfisher (kōtare) about to gulp a small crab at the Avon-Heathcote Estuary.

Many shots zoom out from the bird and capture the wild places – on land, in freshwater or at sea – in which they live.

One of my favourites is a New Zealand dotterel chick tiptoeing across broken seashells. It tells a story of fragile beauty and true grit. It’s our conservation story too, and David tells it beautifully.

Parting shot

A

nna Carter is studying tuatara as a PhD student at Wellington’s Victoria University. She photographed this female on a big, lichen-covered rock during her field work on Takapourewa/Stephens Island. Tuatara are primarily nocturnal, but they do bask in the sun during the day.

“Adult tuatara tend to look mostly green and brown in photos. In reality, they display more variation: patterns of reds, whites, yellows, greys and even purples,” she says. “The sex of embryo tuatara is determined by temperature, so conservation of the species requires understanding complex interactions between the environment and developing embryos. Part of my PhD research examines how females’ nesting behaviour can influence those interactions and maintain balanced sex ratios in a population.”

Anna used a basic Canon point and shoot camera – and got very close to her subject.

If you are a Forest & Bird member and you have a stunning photo that showcases New Zealand’s special native plants or animals, it could be the next Parting Shot. Each published Parting Shot photo will receive a GorillaPod JGP3 worth $159.95.

The GorillaPod is a portable, packable heavy-duty tripod that keeps your camera equipment steady, no matter where you might be.

Please send a low-res digital file and brief details about your photo to Marina Skinner at m.skinner@forestandbird.org.nz Winners will be asked for higher-resolution files.

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