Forest & Bird Magazine 358 Summer 2015

ISSUE 358 • SUMMER 2015 www.forestandbird.org.nz

The deadly invader

killing our forests PLUS

Giving Maui’s dolphin a voice

Happy 120th birthday Hauturu

Fragile future for tara-iti

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ISSUE 358

• Summer 2015

www.forestandbird.org.nz

Forest & Bird National Office Level 1, 90 Ghuznee St, Wellington.

PO Box 631, Wellington 6140.

Tel: (04) 385-7374 EMAIL office@forestandbird.org.nz For a full list of staff members and their contact details see www.forestandbird. org.nz/contact-us

Contents 2 Editorial 4 Letters 6 From

the Chief Executive

Conservation news JOIN FOREST & BIRD Call 0800 200 064 or email membership@forestandbird.org.nz or go to www.forestandbird.org.nz/joinus

Forest & Bird would like to thank Honda New Zealand for its ongoing support

KEEP UP WITH NATURE

8 10 11 12

Kermadecs Ocean Sanctuary Environment Aotearoa 2015 Ruahine legal case Bill Ballantine, new KCC website

Cover story 13 14 15 16

Biodiversity loss in action Ghost forests Kahurangi under pressure Where have all the mussels gone?

17 Waikato wetland woes 18 Dryland devastation

Like us on Facebook

Our society

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19 Strategic plan in pictures 28 Christmas books special 39 Bird of the Year winner

Watch us on YouTube www.youtube.com/ forestandbird Follow us on Twitter @Forest_and_Bird

Young conservationist/ KCC grown up 20 Libby Christophers

Conservation in history

Focus on flora 33 The New Zealand Tree Project

Seabirds 34 Kermadec discoveries 45 Black petrel protection

Nature in the city 36 Insect detective

Predator-free New Zealand 40 Island hopping in Fiordland

Our people 42 Megan Hubscher, Alan Mark, Debs Martin, Arnold Piesse, Katie Underwood

Our partners 44 The Collective & Healthpost

A climate for change 46 Big world small planet

In the field 48 Glacier National Park, Montana

Amazing facts 50 Kakabeak

22 Happy birthday Hauturu

52

Caroline Wood

Biodiversity loss

Parting shot

MAGAZINE ENQUIRIES AND LETTERS

24 NZ fairy tern

IBC Kingfisher

Index

EDITOR

E editor@forestandbird.org.nz ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER

Community conservation

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

26 The battle for Cheesman’s Bush 38 Magical Makarora

PRINTING

Printlink

Marine

FOR ALL ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES

30 The forgotten species

Karen Condon T 0275 420 338 E mack.cons@xtra.co.nz Membership & circulation enquiries T 0800 200 064 E membership@forestandbird.org.nz

Christmas book giveaway

PAGE

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Legal watch 32 Auckland Unitary Plan

COVER SHOT Brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) eating pōhutukawa, this introduced pest species is a selective feeder and a significant threat to our native Metrosideros species.

Editorial

Time for a change When the modern environment and conservation movement was in its infancy – in the 1960s and 1970s – it was regarded as a fringe concern. Fifty years on, issues like climate disruption are central to global economic and diplomatic debate and environmental awareness is deeply ingrained in western politics and societies – with signs of growing awareness in Asian nations.

While we have made progress on many environmental and conservation issues, there is still an unwillingness by economic and political leaders to acknowledge the central problem behind the ongoing damage we are doing to our world: that much of our present economic system is ecologically unsustainable.

The recently released Environment Aotearoa 2015 report – a compilation of some statistics on New Zealand’s environment – shows persistent and systematic damage to our soils, water, native plants, animal and marine life and climate from intensified economic activity.

Thinking long-term about environmental issues is not something we’re good at.

It’s often easier for industries to defend an existing business model than go through the disruptive and costly process of adaption and change. Likewise political parties find it tough to change a long-held ideological position in the face of unwelcome new facts.

The lesson of the last 50 years is that environmental and conservation issues don’t go away, and eventually have to be addressed. Denying there’s a problem may put off the cost for a while – or shift it to someone else (usually the taxpayer) but the problem remains, climate change being the most notable example.

To solve these issues, we need business and government to acknowledge our current economic model is unsustainable and causing the permanent loss of species, landscapes and our natural environment. With the denial behind, us we can begin the positive task of working to build an ecologically sustainable economy and society.

The Board of Forest & Bird has been thinking about these big, transformative environmental issues and how we can best advocate and work to accelerate change towards an ecologically sustainable economy and society. Our new Strategic Plan (see page 19) lays out five, 10 and 25 year goals for change, giving us a clear path to follow.

Change is hard, personally and at a social and economic level. It’s time for government and community leaders to step up to the environmental challenges facing us and begin the exciting task of creating an economy that enriches our communities and our natural world.

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. (Founded 1923) Registered Office at Level 1, 90 Ghuznee Street, Wellington.

PATRON

His Excellency Lieutenant General the Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae, Governor-General of New Zealand CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Hōne McGregor PRESIDENT

Andrew Cutler TREASURER

Graham Bellamy BOARD MEMBERS

Brent Barrett, Lindsey Britton, Tony Dunlop, Karen Field, Kate Graeme, Mark Hanger, Marc Slade CONSERVATION AMBASSADORS

Sir Alan Mark, Gerry McSweeney, Craig Potton 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, Fraser Ross, Eugenie Sage, Guy Salmon, Lesley Shand, Gordon Stephenson, David Underwood Forest & Bird is a registered charitable entity under the Charities Act 2005.

Registration No CC26943.

Ka kite anō

Andrew Cutler Forest & Bird President

Forest & Bird is published quarterly by the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. Opinions expressed by contributors in the magazine are not necessarily those of Forest & Bird.

News from Forest & Bird's South Island gathering, see p38

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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.

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 issue will win The Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand by Hugh Robertson and Barrie Heather (Penguin, RRP $38).

Please send letters to Editor, Forest & Bird magazine, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140, or e-mail editor@forestandbird.org.nz by 1 February.

Our new flag I have been ignoring the flag debate deliberately in private protest as I think the subject is far from tasteful when there are so many serious issues to be discussed. I also think the four chosen designs for a possible new flag are amateurish, badly designed and ferns are definitely too complicated for a simple national flag design. I then turned to page nine of the spring issue of Forest & Bird and there was a picture of a manuka flower by Dennis Smith. I was delighted to see a design that made a simple balanced statement. Yes – that could be our new flag. Thank you Dennis Smith.

Win Gebbie, Orewa

Reply to cat critics James Russell claims (Letters, Spring 2015) “cats have no ability whatsoever to control rat numbers” ignoring 9,500 years of granary protection, and ecological scale. Our cat has complete control of rats in the house, reasonable control in the garden (complete control of mustelids and rabbits), and less effect over the rest of its territory. That is shared with four neighbouring cats, so the combination could be significant. Secondly, the notion that “rats subsidise cat numbers by providing an alternative food” applies to feral, not urban, cats.

Stephen Conn may regret not feeding his sick neighbour’s cats, but well-fed cats kill anyway. Sparrows are introduced, and waxeyes plentiful. For other birds our cat killed Google: John Flux seventeen.

Max Aston mourns a tui. I sympathise, although tui are becoming a pest. They arrived in 1991, drove out our nesting morepork in 2007, and last year 27 were chasing everything. On the accuracy of recording, cats bring in about a third of their kills. I search for those not brought home but mice are eaten whole and a rat nose or tail is far harder to see than a pile of feathers, so rodent numbers are underestimated.

Dr John Flux, Lower Hutt Best letter winner.

Cars are killers I often walk along the country roads around Whangarei. It is very pleasant looking over the green Northland farms with their patches of native bush and exotic trees. Plenty of birds to watch and listen to as well. But then, when I look where I am walking, I get very depressed. All I can see is RUBBISH– bottles, tin cans, used booze containers, used nappies, paper, fast food rubbish, mussel shells, plastic bags – you name it and you will see it beside our Northland roads.

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Worse still it is accumulating year by year. And what else do I see by the road and on the road? Birds, dead birds.

Every 30 metres or so will be another feathered carcass. I have seen dead shining cuckoos, fantails, masses of dead finches (that feed on the roadside weeds), moreporks, hawks, pukekos and ducks aplenty, tui, waxeye, thrushes, blackbirds and kererū (kūkupa). What has killed all these lovely birds? CARS of course. Cars must kill at least 100 birds every few weeks on the eight kilometres of our road.

How many kilometres of country roads are there in New Zealand? Millions? Multiply that by 100 and you will quickly realise that cars must be the major ‘predator’ killing our birds.

If you want to save our birds, forget about cats, ban cars.

Denis Hewitt, Kamo

Nuclear not the answer Allan Brown (Letters, Spring 2015) seems to advocate nuclear power as the solution to sufficient non-polluting electricity supply. He completely ignores the real Elephant in the Room, which is the problem of highly toxic nuclear waste.

Bill Tucker, Auckland

Stop using fossil fuels?

Readers of this magazine have been told the world needs to stop using fossil fuels. Climate conservation is only one of several strong motives behind this wish.

The question “Could we ever go oil-free?” having been posed, we should realise the answer is clear. Civilisation can get along with far less liquid fuels (especially if CNG & CBG are sensibly developed), but it cannot scrape along without lubricants. The range of lubricants required for any imagined future civilisation implies distillation of petroleum.

In this continued refining of crude oil, the more volatile fractions, which necessarily appear as by-products, will be used largely as portable fuels (and a minority of them for synthesing petrochemicals). We cannot stop using oil. Plans for transition to a low-fuel (not zero-oil) world have been published, free, by prominent physicists: D.J.C. MacKay (Cambridge) www.withouthotair.com and John Harte (Berkeley) www.cooltheearth.us/download.php. These two scientists are well known to the New Zealand scientists who have been working in this field for decades. Their books should be the basis of energy policy, not only in the dreaded Treasury but also in many other agencies.

Robert Mann, Tarihunga Pt

Serious about soil As a long-time member of Forest & Bird, I would like to make a suggestion for future issues of your nicely produced magazine. Firstly there has always been an emphasis on birds possibly at the expense of the substrate that supports them and all other animals and plants that grow on land.

Your coverage of the marine environment and associated wildlife is very good. Might I suggest that Forest & Bird now begin to offer us a deeper insight into soils, their nature, composition, classification, characteristics, organisms, faunal and floral that inhabit our soils? For instance why is it that kauri and podocarps grow well on rather barren clay soils, whereas the angiosperm broad-leaved trees prefer deep, rich humic soils? For those interested I have a concept of soil enrichment on de-fertilised crop rotation land using Southland lignite that has been ‘cooked’ in low temperature retorts to release volatile hydrocarbons (methane etc) then ground up and mixed with processed effluent as a soil conditioner. Finally, with regards to 1080 poison an article about its effects on soil organisms and micro-organisms would be of great interest to all F&B members, I’m sure.

WIN A BOOK Forest & Bird is giving away three copies of James Hector: Explorer, Scientist, Leader by Simon Nathan (Potton & Burton) RRP $45.

For details, see p28.

To enter the draw, email your entry to draw@ forestandbird.org.nz. Please put James Hector 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 James Hector draw, Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140. Entries close on February 1.

Barry Brickell, Coromandel Thank you for your excellent suggestions Barry. We will follow them up in future issues of the magazine.

Passionfruit vine trial I have read your article ‘Red banana passionfruit trial’ (Spring, 2015). I planted the red passion fruit vine in my garden on the Tauranga Harbour, north of Katikati as I loved the red flower. That was about 15 years ago.

I want to caution you on your trial. I have a massive problem in the garden below the vine as it has wild seedlings growing over all the vegetation and is impossible to hand weed and get all the roots out. Over time it has proved every bit as invasive as banana passionfruit vines.

Not sure if your climate is comparable but be warned!

Trisha Brodie, Taranaki

50 years ago

The winners of The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand

by Barrie Heather and Hugh Robertson are Diana Monaghan (Palmerston North) and Val and David Podmore (of Picton). Your books will be posted.

*Chris Rowse, from Project Devine, who is involved in trialling the red banana passionfruit as a possible alternative to the invasive banana passionfruit vine, says he has passed Trisha’s letter to the Department of Conservation and Weedbusters, who are both following up and trying to organise a site visit.

A new menace to our rare birds Lately the brown rat, Rattus rattus, probably through landing from fishing boats or muttonbirders’ boats, has reached that group of islands near Stewart Island generally known as the Muttonbird Islands, a group hitherto free of it and also the home of several of the rarest of our native birds.

An article in this issue tells the story of the serious decline in bird population there. The destruction of the vegetation and bird life wrought by the rodents in the extremely short period since their arrival has to be seen to be believed.

A species is lost forever when it becomes extinct and this must not be allowed to occur. We trust the Government will give all aid possible to prevent this happening with the very rare species on the Muttonbird Islands and that it will not quibble over any comparatively small expenditure necessary for the purpose. *Extracted from Forest & Bird magazine November 1965

Forest & Bird

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From the Chief Executive HŌNE MCGREGOR

Biodiversity matters We love celebrating big wins for nature. The government’s announcement in late September of a 620,000km2 Kermadecs Ocean Sanctuary was great news for our marine environment. We have been campaigning for the sanctuary with Pew Charitable Trusts and WWF New Zealand for seven years and getting there brings us a little bit closer to the New Zealand we want and need.

This really is a major breakthrough in better protection of the waters and marine life that surround us.

The sanctuary is an almost pristine environment around twice the size of New Zealand’s land mass and 35 times larger than our existing

marine reserves. It’s special by global standards, containing the second deepest marine trench in the world, submerged volcanoes and an amazing array of animal and plant life.

We want this sanctuary to be a springboard for creating a network of meaningful marine reserves in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone, the fourth largest in the world. This campaign proves the value of working with partners such as Pew and WWF and we also owe a big thank you to New Zealanders for their support and to the government for embracing our vision.

Following the announcement of the sanctuary, it’s appropriate the

Visitors can hear the song of the mohua/ yellowhead in the beech forests of Mount Aspiring National Park thanks to Forest & Bird’s trapping efforts over the last two decades.

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theme of the summer magazine is biodiversity. We know protecting our biodiversity is crucial for sustaining our economy, environment, and national identity and simply for the sake of the natural taonga we love.

Unfortunately, the recent decision by the Department of Conservation to approve a land swap which would see a valuable part of the Ruahine Forest Park submerged under a water storage lake is a step backwards for biodiversity. Mature forest that is the home to rare long-tailed bats, falcons, and fernbirds and that contains important ecosystems will be lost in return for a parcel of privately owned land which is much larger but has less ecological value.

This is an important issue which goes well beyond Hawke’s Bay and the issues associated with the planned Ruataniwha dam.

If protection can so easily be stripped away from DOC’s specially protected areas, such as forest parks, conservation parks and scientific reserves, what value does that protection have? We have decided to appeal the land swap decision in the High Court because we believe DOC’s decision was illegal.

The positions we adopted on both the Kermadecs and Ruahine Forest Park are part of the long-term vision we have for New Zealand. At the North and South Island meetings of members over the last couple of months, I outlined the new strategic plan we adopted this year, which lays out the ambitious goals we have for Forest & Bird and for New Zealand over the next quarter century.

Some critics accuse Forest & Bird of always being opposed to development, change and progress.

That is simply not true. The strategy lays out the positive vision we have for creating a New Zealand where we look after the things we value most and create sustainable wealth that ensures the wellbeing of New Zealanders and the land and sea on which we depend. In the long run, we will only impoverish ourselves if we don’t protect our biodiversity.

Conservation news

Huge win for nature The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is a huge win for biodiversity, says Forest & Bird’s marine advocate Anton van Helden.

The creation of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will go down in the history of Forest & Bird as one of our greatest moments, the result of a seven-year public campaign that will protect one of the most complex and pristine deep-sea habitats left on earth.

The sanctuary – one of the biggest of its kind in the world – will cover a massive 620,000km2 of ocean.

Significantly it is ‘no-take’, meaning that there will be no mining or fishing in the area, the first such protection in our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The sanctuary expands the existing marine reserve around New Zealand’s sub-tropical Kermadec Islands to the limits of New Zealand’s 200 nautical mile EEZ in the region. This monumental decision expands the amount of marine protection in New Zealand waters from an insignificant 0.5 percent to 15 percent.

The Kermadec islands define the

northern reaches of New Zealand’s sub-tropical waters. The region is largely untouched by fishing, which means these pristine environments are home to intact populations of large top predators including Galapagos sharks, kingfish and spotted black grouper. Nowhere else in New Zealand’s EEZ can we find such a range of tropical, sub-tropical and temperate species of fish, marine invertebrates, birds and marine mammals. The islands are home to 14 species of birds, a further 28 species use the region during their migration and six million birds breed there.

The Kermadec region is one of the most complex deep-water habitats on earth. Protected within the bounds of the sanctuary is the Kermadec Trench, the deepest part of our ocean and one of the deepest ocean trenches on the planet at over 10km deep. Even in this realm there is life, including New

This monumental decision expands the amount of marine protection in New Zealand waters from an insignificant 0.5 percent to 15 percent.

Anton van Helden 8

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Zealand’s deepest fish, the Kermadec snail fish, and the super-giant amphipod, a sand-hopper equivalent of the Incredible Hulk.

This region continues to be a significant region for the study and understanding of the deep waters of our planet and the animals that live there. The sanctuary also includes a large part of the Kermadec Arc, the longest underwater chain of volcanoes on the planet. They are home to an array of extraordinary animals that live in abundance around volcanic ‘black smoker’ chimneys, which belch mineral-rich fluids into this deep dark ocean world. These mineral deposits were in the sights of international mining companies but now this area has been declared offlimits due to the creation of the ocean sanctuary.

This wonderful win for nature followed a joint campaign by Forest & Bird, WWF New Zealand, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. The tremendous support from Forest & Bird branches and members had a real impact and really helped get this across the line.

The Minister for the Environment Nick Smith even said he was getting sick of having Forest & Bird’s postcards coming across his desk, and complimented us on a textbook campaign.

But there’s more to do. We are preparing for the release of a discussion paper on the Marine Protected Areas Bill, which the Government is due to announce soon. It’s critical that we get this piece of legislation right. We continue to work towards our goal of a comprehensive and representative network of marine reserves. To find our more, or make a donation, see www.forestandbird.org.nz/ marinereserves. *Exciting new seabird discoveries on Raoul Island, see p24. *Father of marine conservation, Bill Ballantine tribute, see overleaf.

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Conservation news

Going backwards A comprehensive ‘state of the environment’ report highlights the failure of government agencies to adequately protect nature, writes Megan Hubscher.

The things that New Zealanders most care about – rivers, oceans, forests, and our unique animals and plants – are still being seriously degraded by human activity, according to the recent ‘state of the environment’ report.

The Environment Aotearoa 2015 report highlights the failure of local and central government authorities to use existing conservation legislation to adequately protect the environment, says Forest & Bird’s Campaigns Manager Kevin Hackwell.

“New Zealand already has some good environmental laws like the Resource Management Act and the Conservation Act, but we have a serious shortage of authorities who do a good job of implementing and enforcing those laws,” he said.

“When Statistics NZ says that two-thirds of the key environmental indicators went backwards in the decade up to 2012, it’s time for our central, regional, and local governments put some serious effort into ensuring that our environment is properly managed and protected.”

The report was jointly launched by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand in October. The document draws together the most reliable and up-to-date data covering five ‘domains’: air, atmosphere and climate, fresh water, land, and marine.

Freshwater quality and greenhouse gas emissions were two of the areas showing negative environmental trends.

According to the report, New Zealand’s emissions grew by 42 percent since 1990, while nitrogen levels in rivers increased by 12 percent over the same period.

“Large increases in nutrient application and runoff from intensive farming, particularly dairy, has led to 50 percent

of freshwater sites having increased nutrient levels that could lead to damaging nuisance algal growth,” says Kevin Hackwell.

“Forest & Bird urges New Zealand’s local, regional, and central governments to properly monitor and enforce environmental standards, and not leave it to the community and NGOs to stand up for New Zealand’s natural heritage.

“Eighty percent of our native land birds are now threatened with extinction, as are 90 percent of our lizard species, and 40 percent of our larger plants. This is not so surprising when 94 percent of the country is affected by possums, rats and stoats and around 100,000 ha of indigenous vegetation and important habitat for our native wildlife was lost between 1996 and 2012,” says Mr Hackwell.

“It is still not acceptable that 14 of our commercial fish stocks are being overfished and that fishing bycatch is a major contributor to 35 percent of our seabirds and 27 percent of our marine mammals being threatened with extinction.”

The Environment Aotearoa 2015 report is the first of its kind to be produced independently by Statistics NZ and the Ministry for the Environment following the recent passage of new environment reporting legislation. The last set of ‘state of the environment’ statistics were published eight years ago.

The report also detailed positive changes. Air quality has improved, largely driven by regulations on home heating, and there has been a documented decrease in sea lion and seal bycatch in commercial fishing.

“We are pleased to see the level of rigour that has gone into this report and believe that it will be a good benchmark for future state of the environment reporting,” added Kevin Hackwell.

What’s flowering now?

New Zealand mistletoe Mistletoes grow in many countries around the world but New Zealand is home to eight unique species. Three are called the beech mistletoes because they primarily grow on southern beech trees. They have large, showy red or yellow flowers that are pollinated by native birds. Two closely related species, the green mistletoes, have small (2–5 millimetres) greenish-yellow flowers that are pollinated by insects. The remaining three species are called dwarf mistletoes because of their very small size.

Peraxilla tetrapetala, red mistletoe, taken by Sally Tripp at Wilderness Lodge, Cora Lynn Station, near Arthur’s Pass. The owners Dr Gerry McSweeney and Anne Saunders are committed to caring for nature. They successfully combine farming, tourism and conservation, so this species receives intensive pest control to protect it from possums and mustelids.

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Conservation news

Ruahine land swap

a worrying precedent Ruahine revocation: Rare braided river habitat and possible wetland area that would be swapped (and swamped). Photo: Amelia McQueen

What does the Ruahine land swap decision mean for the future protection of conservation land? Sally Gepp explains why Forest & Bird is taking the fight to the High Court.

Nearly a third of our land area is protected and managed by the Department of Conservation on behalf of all New Zealanders. Most is stewardship land but nearly one million hectares across the country are classified as “specially protected” areas, providing essential habitat for our native wildlife.

Until recently we all thought that “specially protected” meant just that – protected – but, according to DOC, it doesn’t mean that at all.

On 5 October 2015, Lou Sanson, Director-General of the Department of Conservation, revoked the conservation status of 22ha of Ruahine Forest Park, in Hawke’s Bay, so it could be ‘swapped’ for approximately 170ha of land owned by the Public Trust, a Crown entity.

Ruahine Forest Park is deemed to be “specially protected” as conservation park. But the area in question lies within the footprint of the proposed Ruataniwha Dam. Protection of the habitat found within the conservation land – wetlands, braided riverbed (acutely threatened land environments) – is a national priority according to DOC policy. Yet it will now be inundated by metres of water should the proposed dam go ahead.

In light of the continual loss of biodiversity we face every day in this country, Forest & Bird is concerned about the precedent this revocation sets for specially protected

conservation land (all forest parks, conservation parks and ecological and wilderness areas in New Zealand).

Is this land truly protected, or can it be privatised for development, which will destroy the very high ecological values present?

Forest & Bird’s stance from the outset has been that this revocation is illegal. The decision runs counter to the Conservation Act, which clearly and deliberately limits such swaps to stewardship areas only.

The key issue is whether an area legally protected by the Conservation Act as conservation park can be demoted to stewardship area (land that has not been formally classified as having significant biodiversity or recreational value), to allow it to be removed from the Park. If the answer is yes, then the same can happen to any “specially protected” land.

The question of whether the Ruataniwha Dam should go ahead has, up until now, largely been a regional conversation on sustainable farming practice and water quality. But almost overnight, this issue has become a nationally significant question about New Zealand’s specially protected conservation estate.

Forest & Bird has asked the High Court to review DOC’s decision and decide whether it is legal. The judicial review application was lodged in midOctober and is expected to be heard within the next few months.

Fernbird, long-tailed bat and red mistletoe are among the threatened species making their home on the Ruahine land to be swapped Photo: David Hallett

Not a good deal On the face of it, it sounds like the Department of Conservation got a good deal; the conservation estate is going to increase by nearly 150ha. But the Crown-owned land that has been offered in exchange has been logged and is nearly a quarter pasture.

In contrast, the 22ha of Forest Park to be ‘swapped’ (and swamped by water should the dam proposal go ahead) has important conservation values including an oxbow wetland, braided riverbed and threatened red mistletoe. It also a habitat for several threatened animal species, including the New Zealand falcon, the fernbird and the long-tailed bat.

Almost overnight this issue has become a nationally significant question about New Zealand’s specially protected conservation estate.

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Conservation news

The father of marine protection As Forest & Bird was going to press, we learned of the passing of Dr Bill Ballantine, at the age of 78 years.

Bill, who was a distinguished life member, received Forest & Bird’s Old Blue award in 1989. He was instrumental along with Professors Val Chapman and John Morton, in achieving the passage of the Marine Reserves Act in 1971.

He also played a key role in the establishment of the Cape Rodney-Ōkakari Point Marine Reserve, the first marine reserve in New Zealand and possibly the world.

Andrew Cutler, President of Forest & Bird, was among many who paid tribute to Bill’s contribution to marine protection.

“Bill was incredibly generous with his wisdom, time and knowledge. During the campaign to create the Taputeranga (Wellington South Coast) Marine Reserve, I spent a day with Bill at the Marine Lab at Leigh. Our campaign wasn’t going well; entrenched opposition was blocking us at every step and our energy and enthusiasm was flagging.

“Bill fixed that! He quietly but clearly explained why we had to refocus and keep campaigning, and how we could communicate the benefits of marine reserves to the communities and stakeholders in Wellington. He shared a small part of his deep knowledge and wisdom with me, and just as importantly he shared his passion and determination, and lifted our morale just when we needed it.”

Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith also paid tribute to Bill’s legacy: “Bill was the father of marine conservation in New Zealand. Our 1971 Marine Reserves Act – an international first – was his brainchild, as was our first notake reserve at Leigh.

“He remained a forceful advocate for the protection of our marine environment and leaves behind a proud legacy.

The first step that Bill persuaded us to take as a country 40 years ago has to be acknowledged as the seed for New Zealand’s strong reputation today as a world leader in the responsible use and management of our ocean environment.

“It was therefore particularly special that Bill was able to attend the event last month marking the announcement of the new Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.”

New KCC website

Fishes of New Zealand

The Kiwi Conservation Club is proud to announce the launch of its new kid-friendly website. It has been completely redesigned to make it more accessible but is still jam-packed full of interesting conservation stories and activities.

We are calling on Kiwi kids to become conservation reporters and share with Aotearoa their knowledge and thoughts about nature. Our junior reporters and bloggers will be able to upload pictures, articles and short movies, which, after moderation, will be added to the website.

We hope this will engage our KCC members in conservation, help develop their leadership and communication skills and inspire others. Check out the new website at: www.kcc.org.nz

“The more we can share our knowledge about New Zealand’s extraordinarily diverse fish fauna, the better we can conserve it,” says NIWA chief executive John Morgan in his forward to an important new book The Fishes of New Zealand. This huge encyclopaedic guide brings together more than 20 years of fish collection, collaboration and research. Te Papa scientists Clive Roberts, Andrew Stewart and Carl Struthers have compiled and edited the contributions of 44 world-recognised fish experts from New Zealand and overseas.

For the first time, all known New Zealand fishes – a total of 1262 species – are fully described and illustrated, with scientific and common names, using accounts of 245 families and keys to 1367 species, and information on taxonomy, nomenclature, distribution, habitat and biology. Remarkably, given the importance of fish and fisheries to New Zealanders, this is only the second descriptive catalogue of our fish fauna.

The first, compiled by Frederick Hutton and James Hector in 1872, outlined 148 mostly coastal species. *The Fishes of New Zealand edited by Clive D Roberts, Andrew L Stewart and Carl D Struthers, Te Papa Press, RRP$250.

*KCC membership costs $24 per year and would make a great Christmas present for grandchildren or young friends of the family. Members receive four magazines a year and the opportunity to attend KCC events and outings.

You can sign up at www. kcc.org.nz/join-us/ 12

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Christmas book giveaway, see p28

Cover story The whēkau or laughing owl used to be common in New Zealand, living in open country and forested areas. But it hasn’t been seen since 1914 and its distinctive call – “a loud cry made up of a series of dismal shrieks” can no longer be heard in our forests at night.

Laughing owls coexisted with early European settlement, but the introduction of stoats, ferrets and weasels and loss of habitat is thought to have led to their extinction, along with nearly a third of New Zealand’s endemic land and freshwater birds.

The whēkau is just one example of what is at stake if we don’t reverse the tide of biodiversity loss. Habitat loss is still happening and fast. The recent independent Environment Aotearoa 2015 report showed 100,000 hectares of indigenous vegetation has been lost since the 1990s.

On land, in our rivers and oceans, biodiversity loss is the biggest issue facing New Zealand conservation and at the heart of everything Forest & Bird is doing to protect and restore nature.

“The problem isn’t confined to

Northland forests or the Canterbury Plains, this country’s unique biodiversity is under threat on multiple fronts, in multiple locations.

It’s not affecting just one species, or habitat, or geographic location. It is everywhere,” says Kevin Hackwell, Forest & Bird’s campaigns and advocacy manager.

“And now we have the added threat of climate disruption. In the coming years this will be a critical threat to NZ’s indigenous species and ecosystems,” he added.

The scale of the problem across New Zealand is huge. Nature is vanishing in every habitat type – forests, rivers and oceans – as our examples overleaf show.

Biodiversity loss no laughing matter

Laughing owl ‘1914’ by John Pusateri created in 2014 on the 100th anniversary of its extinction. Colour pencil, archival digital print and charcoal on paper. Courtesy of the collection of Adele Fitzpatrick.

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Drone footage of Whangaroa Harbour native forest near Lane Cove shows advanced native forest collapse with skeletons of dead and dying pūriri and pōhutukawa.

Nearby kōwhai are also heavily mauled by possums.

Photo: Toby Ricketts

Ghost forests

By Dean Baigent-Mercer, Forest & Bird’s Northern Conservation Advocate

M

any older people of Northland can remember flocks of kākā, kākāriki and kūkupa during the 1950s and also first time they saw a possum.

That’s because during the 1960s the possum invasion of Northland began.

The devastating impacts of possums along with stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats and feral cats has been gradual and happened mostly at night. Now native trees and wildlife within the majority of Northland’s native forests are into a well-progressed and slow motion collapse.

Forest & Bird recently released drone footage that revealed dying and dead pōhutukawa, pūriri, tōtara and northern rātā to draw attention to the plight of these National Park-quality forests. Kākāriki have probably become extinct in Northland over the past decade and other native bird populations have crashed in areas with no sustained pest control.

It’s been 20 years since many significant northern native forests have had any multi-species pest control. The collapse is the glaring example of what happens when native forests are left to pests – and this is without taking

Advocacy in action: Dean Baigent-Mercer spearheaded Forest & Bird’s recent Forest Collapse campaign which was widely reported in mainstream media.

Still commonly seen in flocks during the 1950s, Northland’s mainland kākāriki have probably become extinct throughout the region over the past decade due to the lack of large-scale multi-species pest control. Photo: Luis Ortiz-Catedral

account of the devastation of diseases killing kauri. These forests also need to be in the best health possible to cope with changing climatic conditions.

Forest & Bird is urging the Government to commit to a 10-year funding package that will work in the unique cultural contexts of Northland to turn this situation around and restore Northland’s top 20 native forests. We would like to see this as part of a nationwide increase in pest control where five million hectares comes under sustained multispecies control.

Our campaign applies to public and private land throughout Northland that has had little or no consistant pest control for many years.

See the drone footage from above the Whangaroa, Otangaroa and Russell Forests here: forestandbird.org.nz/ stopforestcollapse QUICK FACT: There are estimated to be 10 million possums in Northland – that’s up to 72 possums for every person in the region, according to Northland Regional Council. Northland’s possums chew their way through nearly three tonnes of leaves, twigs and berries a night. They also eat the eggs and chicks of native birds.

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Cover story

Kahurangi under pressure Kahurangi National Park is protected in law but predators know no boundaries.

Debs Martin, Forest & Bird’s regional manager based in Nelson, explains.

DOC only actively manges 7 percent of conservation land.

It’s not enough.

K

ahurangi National Park is a park of superlatives – not only for its striking marble and karst geology, and its ancient lineage as the oldest landmass in New Zealand, but also because of its sheer diversity and range of plant and animal life.

Kahurangi is the second largest of New Zealand’s 14 national parks and covers 452,002 hectares at the top of the South Island. But although Kahurangi is large and protected in law, this doesn’t stop the onslaught of predators like rats, possums and stoats who know no borders.

With over 80 percent of our alpine species, and half of our nearly 2,500 native plants, Kahurangi is a mecca for botanists. Its fauna are as diverse, including giant land snails, a mass of curious invertebrates, and 18 of our native birds, including kākā and whio. Long-tailed bats frequent some of the richly forested valleys.

In recent years, Forest & Bird’s bat surveys have failed to locate short-tailed bats in the Oparara area, a population once considered substantial. Other species scramble to survive and are dependent on the efforts of large-scale pest control.

Being heavily forested in beech, Kahurangi National Park was exposed to the full fury of the rat explosion in last year’s beech mast year. Prior to the aerial 1080 operation in the Park, rat-tracking rates were tipping 90 percent.

The magnitude of this threat cannot be overstated – rat densities over 30 percent can be catastrophic for many of our threatened species. After Battle for our Birds, the rat densities dropped to an average of 8.5 percent – low enough for a successful breeding year for birds like the rock wren.

Forest & Bird works with other groups like Friends of the Cobb and Friends of Flora to protect critical species in habitats around the fringes of the park – but the huge core expanse needs regular and extensive pest control, which is beyond the capability of volunteer groups.

Kahurangi is a wildlife mecca with giant land snails, bats and rare birds making it their home.

Aside from the beech mast year, DOC actively manages only seven percent of our conservation land – some of it for pest control. At a time where predators are one of the single biggest threats to our biodiversity, seven percent is not enough.

Forest & Bird is seeking an annual increase in DOC’s core funding for landscape-scale aerial predator control, so we can witness flourishing populations of our birds, bats and other species across New Zealand. Then the superlatives of places like Kahurangi National Park will be ensured.

What do we mean by biodiversity?

Biodiversity is shorthand for “biological diversity”– the number and variety of organisms found within a specified geographic region and the variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species and within and between ecosystems.

Key elements of biodiversity include: • Genetic diversity – the varied genetic make-up among individuals of a single species • Species diversity – the variety of species within a particular geographic area, such as the birds, fish, insects, bacteria and plants that live there, particularly those that are only found there.

• Ecological diversity – the variety of ecosystem types (such as forests, deserts, wetlands, grasslands, streams, lakes and oceans) and the communities within them.

These communities interact with each other and with the non-living environment.

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Where have all the mussels gone?

Healthy mussel reef. Photo: Shane Kelly

Part of the sea floor where mussels once lived. Photo: Shaun Lee

Important nursery habitats have been destroyed throughout the Hauraki Gulf, as Katrina Goddard, Forest & Bird’s Marine Conservation Advocate explains.

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he Hauraki Gulf has a great diversity of marine habitats and species thanks to its complex coastline, numerous offshore islands and unique geology and hydrology. However, the health of the Gulf has been declining and what we see today is not a healthy functioning marine ecosystem.

Biogenic habitats are threedimensional habitats, such as seagrass beds, kelp forests and sponge gardens. They are critical habitats as they can act as nursery grounds for fish like snapper, trevally, blue cod, terakihi and leatherjackets and likely offer food and refuge from predators and water currents. Loss of these key Katrina Goddard in habitats can result in major changes in her natural element. species assemblages and recruitment.

Extensive mussel beds once carpeted the inner Gulf, but only remnants remain today. These historic mussel beds would once have been able to filter all of the water in the Firth of Thames in a single day, now there are so few left it would take two years. So where have all the mussels gone?

In 1910 a commercial dredge fishery for mussels was established. Back then mussels were so abundant, it was thought the mussel reefs were inexhaustible. The mussel dredge fishery continued for nearly 60 years before it collapsed. Another 40 years on and NIWA’s surveys found the dredged beds have failed to recover. But why should we care?

Mussels are known to be an ecosystem engineer – they filter water, remove plankton, deposit pseudo-faeces, control nutrient re-cycling (reducing algal blooms) and improve water clarity while also providing habitats and food for other species.

We need these filtering systems now more than ever.

Water quality in the Hauraki Gulf is deteriorating with the increasing load of pollution and sediment it receives from

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discharges and runoff from farmland and urban areas.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Forest & Bird is working to enhance our marine habitats, to protect and restore them alongside a sweep of other measures. For example, we are involved in developing a first-of-its-kind Hauraki Gulf marine spatial plan. This involves working closely with other stakeholders and agencies to find innovative solutions to the complex problems facing the Hauraki Gulf.

There is more hope for mussels too. Revive our Gulf (www.reviveourgulf.org.nz) has been working alongside researchers to trial mussel restoration, and results so far are positive.

We want to see these historic mussel beds restored so they can filter the dirty water of the Hauraki Gulf as they used to, which will help fish stocks and other ecology recover.

Mussel reef restoration. A crane is used to swing a one tonne bag of mussels over the water before releasing them onto the sea floor.

Photo: Shaun Lee

QUICK FACT: *About 80 percent of the earth’s biodiversity is in the oceans, but only a tiny proportion of New Zealand’s coastal marine environment is protected from fishing and deep-sea mining.

Cover story

Waikato River wetlands riddled with ‘cancer’ Internationally important wetlands are being polluted in the Waikato, as Al Fleming, Forest & Bird’s Central North Island Regional Manager, explains.

Lake Waikare in 2014 with discolouration caused by algae. Photo: Fairfax Media/Waikato Times

N

ew Zealand’s wetlands can be described as the “lungs” of land and water and support a greater diversity of native birds, fish, invertebrates and plants than most other habitats. But the Waikato River’s lungs, which are made up of a peat and shallow lake mosaic surrounded by peat domes, are riddled with cancer.

Decades of “smoking”– land reclamation and the use of the wetlands as farm drainage ponds – have resulted in Waikato’s wetlands being classified as anywhere from eutrophic (polluted – high levels of nutrients and algae) to hypertrophic (really polluted – supersaturated in phosphorous and nitrogen).

This extensive wetland system includes Whangape, Rotokauri and Waikare lakes and the internationally significant Whangamarino wetland. This wetland system is one of the most important freshwater habitats in New Zealand.

Home to raupō/bulrush and harakeke/New Zealand flax, the Waikato wetlands provide habitat and food to native birds including the North Island fernbird, spotless crake and the Australasian bittern. Longfin and shortfin eel dwell alongside mudfish. Dabchick, greyduck and grey teal live on and near the water.

Many of these species are in trouble from not only pollutants but also land- and water-based animal pests.

Mustelids and rats predate them on the nest and koi carp muddy the waters and predate on their young (a voracious omnivore!). Plant pests such as willows monopolise fringing vegetation space while the weed parrot’s feather creeps along the water’s edge.

The Waikato River wetlands are a focus for the Healthy Rivers project. Let’s hope we can give up “smoking” our wetlands and kick the habitat back into life.

The Healthy Rivers planning process in the Waikato is just one freshwater initiative Forest & Bird is involved in around the country. The Society also manages wetland and swamp reserves, and advocates for the implementation of the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management.

Dabchick. Photo: Luc Hoogenstein

WETLAND WOES Over 90 percent of New Zealand’s wetlands have been drained or filled. Wetlands perform vital ecosystem services such as improving water quality and reducing flood risks. They are also essential in managing climate change. Healthy peat bogs are year-round sinks of two to five tonnes of carbon per hectare – locking it up in their soil indefinitely.

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Cover story

Dryland devastation

Giant irrigators on farmland in Otago

Drylands are disappearing rapidly, say Sue Maturin, Otago Southland regional manager, and Jen Miller, Canterbury and West Coast regional manager.

D

rylands contain some of the least protected and most threatened native ecosystems and species in New Zealand. We’ve already lost more than 70 percent of the country’s original drylands, and only three percent are legally protected.

New Zealand’s dryland zone is located in the rain shadow east of the main mountain ranges and includes parts of the East Coast, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, NelsonMarlborough, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

These areas have undergone huge changes in land use in the past century with a historical emphasis on pastoralism, but more recently on dairying, cropping, viticulture, horticulture, forestry and lifestyle blocks.

Today they are disappearing before our eyes. Every time we travel through Central Otago or the Mackenzie Country, we see bulldozers flattening the indigenous herbs and grasslands, and resculpting the landscape for huge travelling irrigators that are now ascending slopes and terraces, as well as covering the lowlands.

In the Mackenzie country it is estimated that more than 6,000ha of dry outwash plains and herb fields have been converted to green irrigated exotic pastures in the last three years, and that’s on top of the huge losses that have occurred over the last decade.

There has been a massive decline in our moth fauna, many of which are endemic to the drylands. Some of these have flightless females or larvae that only feed on our native grasses and herbs. We don’t have the data to know if any have gone extinct, but it is highly likely. Endemic dryland species such as grand and Otago skinks face extinction within 10 years without active management.

Many more indigenous species are regionally threatened, concentrated in small refuges, with reduced

Photo: Carey Knox/EcoGecko

QUICK FACT: Nearly half of New Zealand's most threatened species are found in our naturally dry landscapes.

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regeneration. Their regional genetic diversity is being severely compromised, further limiting their resilience.

Forest & Bird is campaigning for large landscape scale protection in the Mackenzie Basin. We want the Government to do its job by protecting the significant values of the drylands, including outstanding landscapes, through tenure reviews in the South Island high country.

Too often councils are not properly enforcing rules in their own area. They may have inadequate provisions in their plans or are simply unaware that developments are destroying what little remains of our dryland plants and animals.

We are keeping a close eye on councils to make sure they adequately recognise and protect drylands in their policies and plans, and ensure what remains of their indigenous biodiversity is maintained. Forest & Bird has recently taken legal cases to get councils to enforce their district plans.

How can you help?

As we enjoy our natural home this festive season, we celebrate wins for the environment and look to the future.

Please give the best gift to nature this Christmas by making a donation at www.forestandbird.org.nz/ naturesgift to help protect nature now and for the future.

A big win for the environment is the Government’s recent commitment to create the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. This will protect an area of ocean more than twice the size of New Zealand!

This wouldn’t have happened without your support and generosity.

But while we celebrate, we have fresh evidence that the environment is in trouble. Environment Aotearoa 2015, a new state of the environment report produced by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand, contains sobering figures about our native species.

Forest & Bird has an ambitious vision to combat the decline of our native species and with your support it can be achieved.

The vision sets priorities for nature over the next five, 10 and 25 years, pinpointing conservation goals and identifying the practical strategies that will protect and restore nature in New Zealand now and into the future.

Please give generously to Forest & Bird, see www.forestandbird.org.nz/naturesgift.

A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR NATURE Developed with input from members, supporters and experts, Forest & Bird has published a new 25-year strategic plan. Here we explain why you need to get your hands on a copy.

We have a plan for our Society, for nature, for New Zealand

We know the conservation challenges facing our environment

We will create a future where ecological resilience is at the heart of everything we do

Our plan looks ahead to 2040 and identifies specific five, 10 and 25 year goals that will protect and restore nature in New Zealand

These are great goals. They will help our society focus resources in the right places

Forest & Bird can inspire and lead New Zealanders to create a sustainable, resilient economy and environment

You can request a copy of Forest & Bird’s Strategic Plan for Nature by emailing office@ forestandbird.org.nz or download a copy from www.forestandbird.org.nz/strategicplan

Photos: Rob Suisted except girl planting photo: Alexandria With

Young conservationist

Giving Māui’s dolphin a voice Forest & Bird member Libby Christophers, 15, from Auckland is campaigning to save Māui’s dolphins from extinction. She tells her amazing story.

“

Māui’s dolphin are crying out for the world to help bring them back from the brink of extinction, but people can’t hear them over the cacophony of trawling, set netting, and dangerous oil and gas exploration. I want to change this. I want to give the Māui’s a voice.

My name is Libby Christophers and my great passion is Māui’s dolphin conservation, I want to save the smallest, rarest and most unique marine cetacean in the world.

Earlier this year I received an international Young Eco Hero of the Year award and in October I went to San Francisco to speak at the Action for Nature conference and tell the global audience about the danger of extinction for the Māui’s dolphin.

For as long as I can remember, I have had an unbreakable passion for the environment and all the creatures that live there. My whole life, I have been fascinated by the natural world and all of its wonders.

I frequently participate in local projects around Auckland and the islands of the Hauraki Gulf where I do lots of tree planting and beach clean-ups. I do this with Forest & Bird and my school’s enviro group. I love participating in this way – making a Libby Christophers is a former Kiwi Conservation Club member and has just returned from speaking at the Nature in Action conference in the US.

difference for people and wildlife in my ‘backyard’. My dream is to build a career from my passion someday.

In 2012, when I was in year 8, my life changed and I embarked on my biggest conservation effort so far. A teacher at my school delivered a presentation about Māui’s dolphin, the incredibly rare marine mammal that lives off the west coast of the North Island. I was shocked as I thought I knew about all the endangered species around New Zealand. I knew I had to do something, and fast. At the time, there were just 55 dolphins left.

To cut a long story short, my passion that developed for this plucky little dolphin over the last four years is immense and has led me to do so many amazing things. These include: creating a website, blog and Facebook page to launch my first global campaign; starting up a conservation group at school specifically for Māui’s dolphins; giving speeches to schools and events around the area, which was a big thing for me as I was not a confident public speaker; and lobbying politicians, appearing on national television and engaging with eco-activists such as Pete Bethune.

At the end of 2012, I was recognised for my conservation efforts when I received the Ash Newth Award. In 2013, I was selected as the New Zealand representative for CoalitionWILD, a global, social movement of under-30 year olds working to help make the world a wilder place.

I apologise for the incredibly long story, but I don’t apologise for my passion. It has helped me become more confident, work hard and stay focused, and has opened up phenomenal opportunities. And I truly believe my adventure will continue. It is far from over.

Maui’s dolphin is New Zealand’s most endangered species.

It is estimated we have just 5-10 years to save them.

Libby Christophers.

*Check out the Kiwi Conservation Club’s awesome new website at www.kcc.org.nz 20

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”

Conservation in history

Happy birthday

Hauturu

Photos: Andris Apse

Forest & Bird member Lyn Wade’s family has been associated with Hauturu/Little Barrier for more than 80 years. She explains the island’s special role in preserving New Zealand’s biodiversity.

H

auturu: resting place of the winds. This rugged, mystical island guards the entrance to the Hauraki Gulf, and how well I remember my first visit there as a four year old, in 1956. We stayed on the island for three weeks, climbing to the summit through lush forest with a troop of whiteheads twittering in the treetops above us.

From the top we could see the museum in the Auckland Domain. And every day we swam off the boulder beach. I was hooked.

However, the family connection goes further back to 1932, when my father Max Hamilton conducted the first scientific survey of the island’s vegetation, which he later presented as a thesis at Massey Agricultural College, gaining first class honours as part of his M.Agr.Sci. An excerpt from my father’s diary of that trip helps you understand the reason why Hauturu became a wildlife sanctuary in 1895: “We camped between two fine kauris for the night. In the evening we were visited by numerous birds – bellbirds, tuis, whiteheads, pigeons, parakeets, kakas, stitchbirds and one rifleman, and, just after dusk, about 1,000 petrels that made music all night long.”

As a young scientist my father was employed by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR).

Over the years he returned many times to Hauturu keeping in touch with all the rangers and providing a continuum to the knowledge of the island. He even took his new wife there for their honeymoon. My mother, no sailor, remembered a calm evening’s boat ride and then being carried ashore over the boulders in the moonlight.

In 1956, as Director General of DSIR, my father took a small group of scientists to Hauturu to research for a text that would be the culmination of scientific knowledge of

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the island at that time (DSIR Bulletin 137). On retirement to Warkworth in 1971, he led a number of Forest & Bird trips to Hauturu when groups were allowed to stay overnight.

My father’s last visit to the island was by helicopter in 1988, aged 79, when the Summit Track was renamed the Hamilton Track in his honour. He was a Forest & Bird member for many years in Warkworth.

Our family’s connection with the island continues as I also carried out research on the island as part of a B.App. Sci. degree, studying the island’s freshwater fauna. I am also a trustee and Chairperson of the Little Barrier Island/ Hauturu Supporters’ Trust that was formed in 1997 to provide support for Hauturu to achieve its full potential as a wildlife sanctuary of international stature. Over the last 18 years the Trust has accessed significant funding to support the Department of Conservation with projects on the island, in particular weed eradication.

This year we celebrate the 120th anniversary of Hauturu becoming a wildlife sanctuary. It was established in 1895 and is the oldest nature reserve in New Zealand. The Crown began negotiating to purchase the island for a wildlife sanctuary in 1881. Delays were experienced during which time some timber was felled on the island. The Crown became concerned that the island would lose its value as a wildlife sanctuary and in 1894 legislation was passed in order to complete the purchase transaction.

The first permanent ranger was appointed in 1897. One of Mr Shakespear’s jobs was to shoot feral cats, which along with kiore are the only pests to have made it to the island.

Now thankfully both have been eradicated. Over the years the portions of the island that were either burnt or cleared of timber have regenerated naturally. Giant kanukas now

Described as the most intact ecosystem in New Zealand, Hauturu’s biodiversity makes it one of the most important nature reserves in the world.

over 120 years old are beginning to be dwarfed by the kauris they protected as seedlings.

The year 1980 saw the last cat removed from the island.

Hauturu became an “ark”, with species under threat elsewhere being brought to the island for safety – kōkako, kākāpō, black petrel and saddleback, all successful reintroductions. One negative was the explosion in kiore/ rat numbers. The newly formed Hauturu Supporters’ Trust helped advocate for their removal. This eradication finally took place in 2004. The outcome of this saw an increase in numbers of many species including wetapunga, reptiles and Cook’s petrel.

Since 1989 there have been over 50 translocations of different species from Hauturu to the burgeoning restoration projects around the country. In 2011 the New Zealand Government signed a Treaty settlement with Ngāti Manuhiri in regard to Hauturu. The iwi generously gave the island back to the people of New Zealand to be maintained as a nature reserve.

And the future?

I would like to think that the Department of Conservation, iwi, Hauturu Supporters’ Trust and the people of New Zealand will work together to cherish this jewel. To ensure that it remains a safe haven for threatened species of flora and fauna and a prime example of a virtually intact ecosystem.

And that it continues to be protected into the future – so in another 120 years our descendants will thank us for our care. *For more information see the Hauturu Supporters’ Trust www.littlebarrierisland.org.nz or email: info@littlebarrierisland.org.nz.

Hauturu/Little Barrier Island celebrates 120 years as a nature reserve this year. It is believed to be New Zealand’s oldest nature reserve.

Te Hauturu ō Toi Fiona McKenzie, of the Manuhiri Kaitiaki Charitable Trust, explains the island’s special significance to Māori.

Hauturu ō Toi/Little Barrier is a place of iconic importance for Ngāti Manuhiri and associated iwi. Until 1896 Hauturu was a permanent home for Ngāti Manuhiri, a refuge and important burial place for Ngāti Manuhiri rangatira.

Gardens on Hauturu and the resources from the surrounding sea sustained many generations of Ngāti Manuhiri. Efforts to prevent alienation of Hauturu from the iwi by the Crown were ultimately unsuccessful.

This ongoing grievance was settled between the Crown and Ngāti Manuhiri through the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act 2012. Part of that settlement included the vesting of 1.2ha of land on Hauturu to Ngāti Manuhiri. We are also working on a co-governance agreement with the

Department of Conservation, the Crown representatives who currently manage the island.

Today Ngāti Manuhiri recognises and appreciates the value of the island and its status as a world-class nature reserve. Our aspirations for the island include maintaining and enhancing these environmental values, while also restoring iwi links to this ancestral home as well as its cultural values for everyone to understand and appreciate.

It is intended to achieve this through building a whare on the land vested back to the iwi which will be a place for hui and wānanga. It will also store Māori treasures from the island.

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Biodiversity loss

Fragile future Jo Priestley travels to Mangawhai where a battle over harbour access is threatening the future of the New Zealand fairy tern.

T

he New Zealand fairy tern is possibly the world’s rarest seabird. There are fewer than 40 of them left on earth. With just four breeding sites, all located north of Auckland, its habitat and feeding grounds are critical to its ongoing survival.

I recently visited Mangawhai Harbour, north of Auckland, which supports about half of the entire New Zealand fairy tern/tara-iti population.

It is ground zero for the tiny bird’s ongoing survival and is shaping up as an important battleground for its conservation.

The first thing we saw and heard when we arrived was a large digger that was scraping up mangroves and hauling them across to a large bonfire in the mud. I was surprised by the scale of the devastation, particularly as I knew what it meant to the New Zealand fairy tern and other birds that feed in and around the mangroves.

The future of the fairy tern is linked to the mangroves in this harbour.

Love them or hate them, mangroves

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are native and are home to the small fish, such as gobies, that fairy tern feed on. Therefore a recent decision by the Environment Court to allow widespread clearance of mangroves at Mangawhai Harbour, stunned environmentalists and bird lovers.

The initial application by the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society to remove 87 hectares of mangroves was strongly opposed

by Forest & Bird, the Department of Conservation and Northland Regional Council. The High Court initially declined the application, but this was later amended by the Environment Court which allowed 17.4ha to be cleared.

Forest & Bird advocate Karen Baird says our organisation fought hard to prevent the mangrove removal, as it was felt the critical situation of the birds would not be improved by the removal of feeding grounds and the disruption of nearby breeding sites.

“The NZ fairy tern are already up against it with predators being their main source of mortality. However

adding in further habitat disturbance on this scale could be the tipping point for this species,” she said.

According to its website, the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society is a community-based organisation administered by volunteers who work to “restore the harbour and its surroundings to create an environmental, recreational and historic resource”.

The Society’s view is that mangroves were not previously in the Mangawhai Harbour and thus can be legitimately removed. This is in contradiction to evidence produced

by Forest & Bird showing mangroves were present at Mangwhai in the 1800s, albeit in smaller numbers.

“Forest & Bird does not have an objection to controlling the expansion of mangroves through seedling removal, but we have a strong objection to the unnecessary clearance of mangroves, putting our rarest bird at risk of extinction,” says Karen.

Karen added: “The recent mangrove removal has mobilised

huge amounts of sediment, and fairy tern being a visual predator needs clear water. Feeding in chicks is not instinctive, and their parents have to teach them. Muddy water and reduced availability of fish could make it harder for adults to feed their chicks as well as later when teaching their fledglings how to fish. Water turbidity and general disruption may impact on the breeding success of fairy tern at this site.”

The Department of Conservation has a recovery plan for the New Zealand fairy tern, which is supported

by Forest & Bird and the NZ Fairy Tern Charitable Trust. The Trust’s volunteer coordinator Jane Vaughan says they monitor the breeding sites of the bird over its summer nesting period, encouraging people to stay away from the nests and to keep dogs on a leash.

Ms Vaughan says she can’t understand why the mangroves are being removed.

“I mean, we’re not going to get golden sands any time soon. It’s just so destructive. Another declining species, the banded rail, likes rushes and scrub but there is none of that left now at Mangawhai, as it’s all been turned into houses. The banded rail are using mangroves to hide in and catch fish and crabs.”

Mangawhai Harbour has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because of its critical importance as habitat for the New Zealand fairy tern. IBAs are of global significance and should be protected to ensure species survival.

Forest & Bird is working with planning authorities and will engage in current regional planning review processes to try to ensure as much protection as possible for the Mangawhai Harbour ecosystem.

New nesting site There are just four known breeding sites for tara-iti in New Zealand – and therefore the world.

There is hope that a recently restored historical breeding site in Kaipara Harbour will attract the New Zealand fairy tern back to breed this summer. The project, which is being managed by Forest & Bird, saw 12 tonnes of shell grit favoured by the birds for nesting being delivered to the site by helicopter.

Known locally as Bird Island, the site is a narrow peninsula that becomes an island at high tide and is only accessible to humans by boat.

“We know from surveys carried out in the Kaipara Harbour that this is an excellent foraging ground for these terns. Many of them overwinter there and non-breeding

birds seem to spend much of their time there,” says project manager Nick Beveridge.

But there’s no guarantee the birds will choose to nest there.

“You can’t just pick up this subspecies of tern and transfer them to an alternate location, the best we can do is prepare a site, remove all predators that might feed on eggs and chicks, and cross our fingers they will see it while flying over,” he added.

To increase the chance of the birds finding the new breeding site, decoys and bird calls are being used to try and attract them to nest there.

The Department of Conservation, Foundation North and the Central Auckland Branch of Forest & Bird, are now quietly excited that the hard work will start to make a difference.

*For more details see www.forestandbird.org.nz/fairy-tern-project.

New Zealand fairy tern facts This small, dainty coastal tern is the most threatened of New Zealand’s endemic birds. The relict population of fewer than a dozen pairs survives between Whangarei in the north and Auckland to the south. The tiny population is gravely threatened by introduced predators, human disturbance and coastal development.

Source – www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz

*If you want to help, please contact Northland Regional Councillor, Craig Brown, who is the community voice for Coastal South and ask him to help us protect the New Zealand fairy tern. His email address is craigb@nrc. govt.nz. Alternatively you could write to your local MP.

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Community conservation

The battle for

Cheesman’s Bush

Graham Cheesman in his treasured forest. Photo: Chris Stott

The pressure of Auckland’s growing population is threatening one of the finest examples of taraire-puriri forest in the Auckland Region. Mélissa Irace reports.

T

he battle for Cheesman’s bush began two years ago after Auckland Transport announced it wanted to build a 32km dual carriageway through one of the last remaining stands of lowland forest in the region.

Officials said the road expansion, part of the SH1 Southern Motorway network from Manukau to Papakura, would cater for an estimated doubling of traffic volumes due to urban development – new housing – expected by 2041.

Part of the road expansion included building a bridge over land at Mill Road, Totara Park, Manukau, which was owned by Forest & Bird member Graham Cheesman.

Only 0.8 percent of the ancient taraire/pūriri forest that once dominated this area remains today. For nearly 20 years Mr Cheesman has nurtured and protected four hectares of this precious biodiversity on his private land.

The new road proposed to cut across part of this rare mature forest canopy – removing 1,500m2 of it and building a bridge across a further 500m2, felling approximately 20 canopy trees – diverse ecosystems in their own right that support a range of invertebrates, lichens, fungi and epiphytic vascular plants – and topping several more.

Cheesman’s Bush is also an integral component of the proposed South-East Wildlink, which will connect the biodiversity hotspots of the Hunua and Waitakere Ranges, as well as the Hauraki Gulf Islands.

Ancient taraire to be topped for road bridge

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When he discovered the full impact of the road, Graham and the South Auckland Forest & Bird branch joined others to raise awareness. The Redoubt Ridge Environmental Action Group’s “Save Graham’s Bush” campaign saw nearly 6,000 people sign their online petition.

Forest & Bird’s legal team also stepped in to help, with Peter Anderson presenting legal submissions at the Notice of Requirement hearing in September this year.

Evidence was also called by independent ecologist Nick Goldwater and South Auckland Branch Committee member Lindsey Britton.

Peter Anderson said: “The fate of Cheesman’s Bush was something the hearings panel were obviously grappling with. They appeared to accept the evidence from Forest & Bird and others about the high ecological value of Cheesman’s Bush but there was no simple alternative.

Rerouting the motorway away from Cheesman’s Bush would have significant cost and logistical implications.

An alternative was to raise the bridge and lengthen the span. Nick Goldwater told us that the effects could be dramatically reduced by doing so, but again this came at a significant cost. We await the decision with interest.”

Whatever the outcome of the hearings, South Auckland Forest & Bird branch members are clear that a road should never have been suggested for this site in the first place.

South Auckland branch member and Old Blue recipient Graham Falla said: “New Zealand does not have very many man-made ancient monuments. Most of our monuments are built by nature, wonders that visitors come from across the globe to see.

“Cheesman’s Bush deserves to be classified as an ancient monument, a living one, and treated accordingly. Can we imagine cutting off the head of a Greek Venus de Milo sculpture or putting a road through a medieval cathedral?”

*Graham Cheesman passed away while this article was being written and before finding out the fate of his beloved ancient forest.

Books

Christmas books Here is a round up of recently published conservation and nature-related books to consider for your loved one this Christmas. We have negotiated a 10 percent discount on all the titles PLUS we have an fantastic Christmas reader giveaway, be in quick though – the competition closes on 16 December!

POTTON & BURTON BOOKS Great Walks of New Zealand by Craig Potton, Potton & Burton $49.99

You can get a 10 percent discount off all the Potton & Burton titles on this page AND an amazing 20 percent of your order will go to Forest & Bird to support our work! To take advantage of this offer, go to www.pottonandburton.co.nz and enter the code Forest15 on the first screen when prompted to ‘Use Coupon Code’. The discount is available until 31 March 2016.

This book is a tribute to New Zealand’s eight finest walking tracks, by renowned wilderness photographer and Forest & Bird ambassador Craig Potton. Based on the best-selling Classic Walks of New Zealand, this book has been updated and revised to focus on our Great Walks. Including 3D overview maps from Geographx and up-to-date track information, it is bound to rekindle memories of past trips and inspire readers to new experiences on these magnificent tracks.

Christmas giveaway

James Hector: Explorer, Scientist, Leader by Simon Nathan (Potton & Burton) $45.

Forest & Bird has teamed up with publishers Potton & Burton for an extra special Christmas book giveaway.

We have three different prize gift packs to give away to three lucky readers. But you need to enter quickly on as the closing date is Wednesday 16 December so we can post your books in time for Christmas.

James Hector is mainly remembered in the 21st century for his association with Hector’s dolphin, but his enduring legacy is the scientific infrastructure he set up for New Zealand.

The five organisations he founded and led for many years still exist today: GNS Science, Te Papa, the Royal Society of New Zealand, ESR and the Wellington Botanic Garden.

FUNDRAISING PROMOTION

The Family Pack Something for everyone in the family this Christmas (value $135) Great Walks The Coastal Garden In the Bush Whose Beak is This?

To be in to win email draw@ forestandbird.org.nz with your name, address and the keyword FAMILY.

The Outdoors Pack Grab these titles before heading out tramping this summer (value $80) Tramping in New Zealand NZ Backcountry Cooking To be in to win email draw@ forestandbird.org.nz with your name, address and the keyword OUTDOORS.

For the Coffee Table (value $80) Moment & Memory To be in to win email draw@ forestandbird.org.nz with your name, address and the keyword COFFEE. *Entries for all three giveaway prizes must be recevied by 5pm on Wednesday 16 December 2015.

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The Coastal Garden by Isobel Gabites, Potton & Burton, $49.99 The Coastal Garden is for gardeners and garden designers interested in native plants and wanting to reconnect with their location, using plant and site knowledge to stimulate design and planting ideas. Not just information about individual species, but ideas about communities of plants and the conditions they are responding to. Approaches to small gardens, large gardens and restoration projects along the coast vary, and there are tips for dealing with irrigation, nutrients and pests to suit. Gabites is an awardwinning ecological consultant.

Moment and Memory, by Craig Potton, Potton & Burton, $79.99 This revised edition of Moment and Memory contains a collection of Craig Potton’s finest photographs, personally selected to give a unique view of the New Zealand wilderness. The images range from lush, intense forest interiors and sweeping seascapes to his famous brooding and powerful images of Milford Sound. The photographs are accompanied by a series of reflective essays that offer insights into the impulses, influences and philosophies that underpin his life and approach to photography, and express his concerns about the ongoing threats to wild nature.

New Zealand Backcountry Cooking

by Paul and Rebecca Garland, Potton & Burton, RRP $39.99 This outdoors cooking guide is written especially for trampers and campers wanting interesting and lightweight food options that can be created by using simple cooking techniques, mostly under camp conditions. It will also appeal to hunters, fishers, kayakers, mountain bikers, boaties, day walkers – anyone who wants easy, nutritional options when they are out in the great outdoors. It contains over 70 recipes with preparation advice, packaging suggestions and cooking instructions.

Tramping in New Zealand by Shaun Barnett, Potton & Burton, RRP $39.99 Each tramp includes bird’s eye maps that offer a superb way of showing a tramping route in three dimensions.

The 40 most popular tramps in New Zealand are featured, each illustrated with a map, colour photographs and route information. The tramps covered include our best-

known Great Walks, such as the Milford Track, the Routeburn and the Tongariro Crossing, and many others, such as the Queen Charlotte Track, the ReesDart near Queenstown, and the Pinnacles Hut on the Coromandel.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS In the Bush, by Gillian Candler and Ned Barraud, Potton & Burton, $19.99 paperback; $29.99 hardback This is the fourth title in the popular and award-winning ‘explore & discover’ series. It focuses on the New Zealand bush and its iconic animals and plants.

Young readers will find out more about familiar creatures as well as discover other intriguing plants and animals and see how they relate to each other in the forest ecosystem.

Whose Beak is This, by Gillian Candler and Fraser Willliamson, Potton & Burton, $14.99 paperback; $24.99 hardback This fun book lets children guess the identity of iconic New Zealand birds from the pictures of their beaks, while finding out some facts about the birds along the way.

Being encouraged to look closely at the pictures teaches observation skills and helps children realise how diverse bird species are.

Order online and get a special

10 percent Forest & Bird discount off all the books on these pages www.pottonandburton.co.nz use the code Forest15 at checkout

newhollandpublishers.com/nz/ (use code provided under title)

NEW HOLLAND BOOKS Te Araroa: Walking New Zealand’s 3000-kilometre trail, by Mark Watson, New Holland $49.99 Adventurer Mark Watson set off from Cape Reinga to walk and photograph the entire length of Te Araroa – a journey that would take him almost six months through constantly changing landscape and weather, along urban pathways, farm tracks, beaches, roads, and through regional and national parks.

His spectacular visual record of the trail’s scenery is presented in nine geographic sections with introductory text and captions describing the landscape, culture and history of each region.

Forest & Bird members can take advantage of an exclusive discounted price of $45 including postage and packaging (normal RRP $49.99) on Te Araroa by entering the promo code fbm2015 when you order the book online via the New Holland Publishers website http://newhollandpublishers. com/nz/

Coastlines of New Zealand by Rob Suisted, New Holland, $19.99.

Rob’s photos regularly appear in Forest & Bird magazine and this neat little publication showcases his talent for taking memorable landscape images.

With over 15,000 kilometres of coastline there is a breath-taking range of locations to experience and landscape photographer Rob Suisted captures many of them in this – the eighth in his successful series of compact format souvenir pictorials.

Forest & Bird members can take advantage of an exclusive discounted price of $18 including postage and packaging (normal RRP $20) on Coastlines of New Zealand by entering the promo code fbmcoastline when you order the book online via the New Holland Publishers website http:// newhollandpublishers.com/nz/

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Marine

The forgotten species

Ecklonia radiata, a common brown seaweed, creates a miniature forest habitat underwater.

Photo: Paul Warren

Seaweeds are so much more than sushi or compost. Emma Richardson explains why we need New Zealand’s 900 species of algae more than they need us.

I

’m submerged in the sea when white water rises and flows around my face. All I see is foam. It’s August and I’m snorkelling around the rocks at Leisure Island (Motoriki), off the coast of the Bay of Plenty at Mount Maunganui.

It is cold, very cold. Feeling the overwhelming weight of the chill, I reach out to the rocks, grateful as always for my wetsuit gloves and hood.

From out of the watery fog, what looks like a thick brown web appears. When its elongated, arm-like strands touch my skin, it feels soft and leathery. Gradually I focus my eyes on it: a brown, stringy mat of plant material, swaying in the undulating water. It is a marine algae, Ecklonia radiata, commonly known as brown seaweed or kelp. This seaweed is an old friend.

I duck dive down and look up at the mass above me.

Suspended there for a second, I think of the words of New Zealand’s authority on marine algae, Wendy Nelson: “Seaweeds have an immense beauty.” I agree. As a marine scientist, my heart was lost long ago to these algae due to their diversity and unusual appearance. What’s more, seaweed helps me re-connect with the natural world. From when I first pick up a piece of kelp, I work out how, in my mind, it relates to other marine creatures. What interests me most of all is the connection one piece of seaweed has

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with its environment, and making sense of how seaweeds are important.

But while they fascinate me, algae don’t get a lot of attention from scientists or the public. “People don’t see them,” Wendy Nelson says. “[Seaweeds] are competing for attention with dolphins and sharks and are not so obvious in the water.” Their obscurity comes partly from our limited knowledge of them, and partly from the fact that they are so difficult to identify and understand.

So why should you care about them? Well, seaweeds are integral in our daily lives – and not just to decorate sandcastles or to wrap around sushi – but to feed many fish species, sustain ecosystems and support multimillion-dollar international industries. We need seaweed a lot more than it needs us.

You might think you know what seaweed looks like, but you’re probably only imagining one of approximately 900 species in New Zealand waters alone. Seaweeds are immensely diverse, with some species growing up to 10cm per day, while others are no bigger than my fingernail. They can be green, brown, red and black. No wonder Wendy Nelson has described them as “biologically intriguing.” They survive easily in their watery habitats, and

The seaweeds that are essential to our lifestyles are under threat from many directions. even though most of us think that they are just plants of the sea, they are unrelated to land plants. They first appeared well before the dinosaurs.

Just about every living thing in the ocean needs seaweeds: for food, habitat and protection from the sea itself. Imagine walking through a forest, but being able to float and glide. Well, snorkeling through a kelp forest feels a bit like flying through the Amazon jungle. Like trees in a forest, which provide canopy and shade for animals, and space for life to settle and grow, seaweeds provide the foundations to many food webs and give the whole ecosystem its structure.

In the Bay of Plenty, Ecklonia is the dominant seaweed.

It grows in vast forests on rocky shorelines, mostly around 10-20m in depth, and up to 1.5m in length. Many fish (such as leatherjackets and butterfish) and invertebrate species (such as isopods and molluscs) depend on it. Ecklonia also enjoys the turbulent exposed surge from waves and tides, and so this underwater jungle can act as a shock absorber in storms, protecting the land.

Ecklonia also helps feed the spiny sea urchins known as kina (Evechinus chloroticus), which in turn feed snapper.

Imagine the snapper, Ecklonia and kina populations as a child’s seesaw. When the populations are relatively equal, there is a balance: seaweed diversity is high and populations of kina and Ecklonia are maintained. When the seesaw is out of balance – for example, when snapper is overfished – gangs of kina rampage over the kelp forests.

Conversely, in a marine reserve where there is no fishing, snapper numbers increase, kina gangs are small and Ecklonia flourish, supporting other marine algae species.

Back on land, algae in New Zealand have the potential to be big business. Seaweeds have an incredibly broad range of uses, such as being an ingredient in MSG, toothpaste, ice cream, the soft centre in some chocolates and even DNA-fingerprinting technology. Any laboratory undertaking biochemical testing will be using a derivative of algae known as agar. Agar, once processed, can make up to $50 per kg on world markets. However, because of time and expense, harvesting of algae is currently only small scale around New Zealand’s coastline.

Unfortunately, the seaweeds that are essential to our lifestyles are under threat from many directions. For starters, sedimentation reduces the clarity of water and makes it more difficult for algae to absorb sunlight through the water. Also, chemicals from sewage and fertilisers pollute the water, which can have devastating effects for some seaweed populations, and cause a population explosion for others (for example, sea lettuce). Other human developments such as building marinas and houses, reclamation of land, dredging, and shoreline erosion can all negatively impact on seaweeds.

In recent years, the main threat has come from invasive algae species taking over New Zealand species’ habitat and replacing them. With the continued march of globalisation, shipping traffic has increased and extra migrants that are difficult to detect can easily arrive. The main culprit is Undaria pinnatifida or wakame, originally from Japan.

According to Wendy Nelson, the problem is two-fold: Undaria is fertile all year round in New Zealand (unlike in Japan), so can spread quickly and, once established, provides a darker forest canopy, affecting the ability of other organisms to survive in that habitat.

Another major threat is the old adage that we don’t know what we don’t know. As Wendy Nelson points out, many seaweed species have yet to be thoroughly studied in New Zealand, and many of the species that have been discovered have only just been named.

What’s more, predictions about sea levels rising and sea temperatures increasing in response to climate change may lead us to look towards these macro algae: ancient species which have experienced such stresses before and may adapt easily. For instance, algae may be used to help buffer climate change by taking in extra carbon from oceans.

Also, species that survive in warmer waters may begin to populate those regions and become the basis of their food webs. In fact, odds are that seaweed will help solve problems that haven’t even been posed yet. *Emma Richardson is a marine biologist based in Bay of Plenty with 19 years experience of working. Her experience with seaweed and marine systems includes 19 years work in New Zealand and overseas. Most recently she has turned to her love of words and is writing about the natural world.

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Legal watch

Action on the Auckland Unitary Plan Biodiversity v development was the focus of Auckland’s Unitary Plan hearings, as Caroline Wood reports.

Forest & Bird’s legal team has spent nearly two years and more than 1,500 hours preparing and presenting Forest & Bird’s case on the Auckland Unitary Plan – making sure that New Zealand’s unique biodiversity is protected in our biggest city.

The Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) replaces the existing Regional Policy Statement and 13 district and regional plans. It will determine what can be built and where, how biodiversity should be protected from the adverse effects of various activities, how to create a higher quality and more compact Auckland, how to provide for rural activities, and how to maintain the marine environment.

It was important for Forest & Bird to be involved to ensure the provisions of the Auckland Unitary Plan adequately protected biodiversity, given the constant pressure for development in the Auckland Region.

“We have often found ourselves as the only ‘large’ party arguing for provisions that would appropriately protect biodiversity,” says Erika Toleman, Forest & Bird Environmental Lawyer.

“While we have often been in alignment with the Auckland Council in this regard, its position would have been much weaker had Forest & Bird not been there to support them, given the constant pressure they are under to make the Plan’s provisions more enabling for development.

“The AUP has been a very intensive process with significantly compressed timeframes (as compared to the normal Schedule 1 RMA process for plans). The commitment involved in taking part was huge, there were

more than 50 different topics under discussion. This made it very hard for smaller groups or individuals to engage in the process, which made it all the more important that Forest & Bird was involved.”

Forest & Bird worked with lawyers from the Environmental Defence Society, splitting the topics to share the workload for what was a huge and complex hearing process.

For example, Forest & Bird managed Topic 10: Regional Policy Statement Heritage and Special Character, which dealt with the high-level policy direction for biodiversity, natural character, landscape, urban trees and the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area. Because this high-level policy would determine the kinds of activities that would be allowed under the PAUP, it was important to try and get them right.

We called evidence on seabird values and threats, marine ecology and terrestrial ecology (significance criteria and biodiversity offsetting). Key issues included ensuring that the criteria for identifying significant ecological areas were robust, ensuring that biodiversity offsetting provisions were appropriate, protecting outstanding landscapes and features and arguing for additional policies to protect marine biodiversity including Maui’s dolphin, Bryde’s Whale and seabirds.

Auckland branches helped fund the cost of the legal team’s involvement with the support of grants from Forest & Bird’s Environmental Defence Fund.

The hearings are now largely finished and the outcome of Forest & Bird’s submissions is expected to be released in the middle of 2016.

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Focus on flora

The New Zealand

tree project

Ecologist Catherine Kirby investigating epiphyte communities in the forest canopy.

Ecologist Catherine Kirby talks to David Brooks about the New Zealand Tree Project.

To turn the old cliché around, it’s true that generally you can’t see the trees for the forest. A beautiful mature tree will be obscured by surrounding vegetation, and from the ground only a distorted view of the canopy is possible. But thanks to a group of adventurous conservationists we can now see a native tree like we’ve never seen it before.

New Zealand Tree Project members spent four weeks in the Pureora Forest, northwest of Taupo, earlier this year, taking many thousands of photos to show a mature 41-metre rimu in its full glory for the first time. More than 150 of these photos, taken at different heights and angles, were combined to form the final four metre-high portrait which is being launched this month (December) and will be displayed around the country. “We want people to say, ‘wow look at that!’ and help to ignite a passion for our forests,” says project coordinator Catherine Kirby.

Catherine came up with the idea in 2014, inspired by a similar National Geographic project in California in 2009 to produce an image of a massive 100-metre-high giant redwood tree by stitching together 84 photos. Her idea quickly caught on and she was joined by photographer Steven Pearce, project coordinator Jen Sanger, climber and technician Andrew Harrison as well as other volunteers and sponsors.

Hamilton-based Catherine, who specialises in studying epiphytes and environmental education, said the team spent four weeks in the Pureora Forest to complete the tree portrait photography and video work for a documentary. Pureora was chosen because of its proximity to Hamilton and for its rich natural and cultural history, including being the focus of a anti-logging protest in 1978 when campaigners climbed trees to save them from being cut down.

The portrait tree was chosen because it was next to another mature tree that had fallen down and cleared a line of sight. “We were lucky it is an extremely beautiful tree, although we didn’t realise it initially from the ground.

This rimu is more or less a lollipop shape with a nice round canopy, which is quite unusual.“ A cable was rigged between two adjacent trees, which

allowed cameras to be lowered from 40 metres to ground level to take photos with the correct perspective. Shots were taken at various times at sunrise and sunset to ensure good lighting on all parts of the tree.

All the hard work was worthwhile. “I’ve seen the final image, it’s quite incredible,” says Catherine. Following this month’s launch, the image will become part of an exhibition to be shown in museums and galleries throughout New Zealand. Already there are bookings up to 2018.

Catherine hopes there will be an opportunity later to capitalise on the publicity surrounding the tree to study it more closely and find out more about the plant and animal species that rely on it and to produce educational materials. To find out more go to www.nztreeproject.com

Project member and arborist Andrew Harrison in his tree-top office.

On the shoulders of giants The NZ Tree Project team interviewed scientists, protestors, former loggers and local iwi for a 30-minute documentary, which showcases the natural beauty and importance of the forest. On the Shoulders of Giants explains the unique social history and ecological importance of Pureora, a forest rich in diversity and wildlife that has also played a pivotal role in the conservation of forests throughout New Zealand.

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Seabirds

Return to Raoul

Photo: Chris Gaskin

Predator control has seen tiny seabirds return to the Kermadecs, as Chris Gaskin discovered when he visited remote Raoul Island in October.

R

emote, truly oceanic, the Kermadec Islands crown a long submarine ridge that stretches from the North Island to Tonga. All volcanic, two of them active, the islands are home to millions of seabirds: petrels, shearwaters, storm petrels, tropicbirds, boobies, terns and noddies, a special sub-tropical-temperate mix of species. Seabirds provide a seamless link between land and sea. While they breed on land they are truly marine creatures, birds perfectly adapted for life at sea. The newly announced 620,000km2 Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is their realm.

And yet by the end of twentieth century the largest island in the Kermadec group, Raoul, with an area of 2,943ha, was all but devoid of seabirds. What must have been one of the world’s great seabird islands had all but been annihilated, lost to the ravages of cats and rats following scattered periods of human occupation.

When invasive aliens (rats, cats, etc) make their way to an oceanic island like Raoul, it is the little birds that are most likely to disappear first – easy prey, especially for rats, including Pacific rats or kiore. There is no historical record of two of the Kermadec’s smallest seabirds, the Kermadec little shearwater or Kermadec storm petrel, ever breeding on Raoul prior to the final eradication of predators in 2004. So these two species can be presumed to have disappeared from the island by the nineteenth century.

The timing of our October 2015 visit, courtesy of The Great Humpback Whale Expedition led by Rochelle Constantine, University of Auckland, was determined by the southern migration of the whales and their reported stopovers at Raoul Island. Not the best time for most

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seabirds breeding at the Kermadecs as some species were totally absent during our visit, that is, they were yet to return from migration to breed. But it proved timely nevertheless as we got to grips (literally) with three of the region’s special species.

Every restoration island has its own dynamic, in particular the speed and ways in which species recolonise naturally in the wake of the eradication of pests and predators.

A convenient set of predator-free islands close by helps speed up the process and, in Raoul Island’s case, the Meyer and Herald Islands just a few kilometres away provided just that. Teaming with seabirds, these rugged little outliers have proved to be precious avian life boats, a familiar story throughout New Zealand.

In recent years staff members at the DOC base on Raoul have reported seeing Kermadec petrels around headlands including nesting birds and chicks.

We achieved our aim of collecting blood samples to investigate whether there are two genetically isolated populations, separate summer and winter breeding Mark Miller and DOC ranger Sarah Matthew weighing and populations, as has been measuring a Kermadec petrel previously speculated. chick. Photo: Chris Gaskin

One pair of Kermadec little shearwaters had been found nesting on a headland on Raoul in 2011. Our find of a colony of over 50 pairs on Raoul, likely more, indicated a huge step forward for Raoul’s restoration as a seabird island. But it was the discovery of tiny Kermadec storm petrels at the same site which is the big discovery from our visit. Totally unexpected, but confirmation gold for those who advocate eradication of mammalian predators on islands; there is a strong sense of ‘putting things right’ as my colleague Mark Miller expressed when we left.

While we were ashore the whale team, busy tagging whales to track them on their southern migration, saw good numbers of Kermadec storm petrels (their favourite bird). They were feeding around whale activity or, in one case, a dead whale calf that sharks and other seabirds were feeding on.

Maintaining the pest- and predator-free status of these precious island sanctuaries is vitally important.

Monitoring post-eradication changes over the long term must also be a high priority but not just on land. Seabirds, as marine creatures, have a vital role in helping develop our understanding of the complex marine world of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.

To find out more about October’s Kermadec expedition, see http://kermadec.aucklandmuseum.com/blogdiscoveries/ *More seabird news: Black petrel success – see p45.

Kermadec little shearwater. Photo: Mark Miller

Kermadec storm petrel. Photo: Mark Miller

Specialists in Nature Tours since 1986 New Zealand South Island Wildlife and Wilderness Expedition

Kimberley Wonders

15 Day Accommodated Tour – Departs 13th February 2016 This unforgettable tour looks at the natural history of the breathtakingly beautiful lower South Island, Stewart Island plus three of the countries national parks and the unspoilt coast of the Catlins region and the Otago Peninsular.

Sri Lanka Wildlife, History & Culture 18 Day Accommodated Tour – Departs 14th March 2016 HIGHLIGHTS: Yala and Bundala National Parks, Kitulgala and Sinharaja Rainforests, historic Sigiriya and Polonnarawa.This trip has it all a diverse array of mammals from Whales, elephants to squirrels plus each year we record sightings of over 200 species of birdlife.

When you add this to the local culture, food and wonderful historic sites plus being lead by one of countries top naturalist guides then this a trip not to miss.

Pilbara Reef & Ranges Expedition 15 Day Camping tour – Departs 5th April 2016 Experience Ningaloo Reef, Abrolhos Islands & Karijini National Park. Join us as we explore the wildlife of the Western Australian coast including the Abrolhos Islands, Shark Bay and the Ningaloo Reef before travelling in land to experience the spectacular Karijini National Park.

Kimberley Discovery 15 Day Camping / Accom Tour – Departs Broome 4th June 2016 Enjoy a wonderful outback experience as we discover the Kimberley’s wildlife, spectacular outback scenery, and many wonderfully refreshing waterholes as we explore Purnululu N.P, the many gorges of the Gibb River Rd, El Questro and Mornington Stations.

12 Day Camping Tour – Departs 25th June 2016 A different twist on the Kimberley, we include the best of the Gibb River Road but add a visit to the Mitchell Plateau. On the plateau experience the spectacular Mitchell and Mertons Falls plus great examples ancient rock art along with the regions wonderful flora and fauna.

Kununurra to Alice Springs Expedition 14 Day Camping Tour – Departs Kununurra 14th July 2016 This trip is packed with highlights including a Lake Argyle cruise, the Keep River National Park, Duncan Highway, Wolf Creek Crater, Lake Stretch, the Tanami Road, New Haven Sanctuary and the West MacDonall Ranges.

Rudall River Expedition 15 Day Camping Tour – Departs Perth 30th July 2016 Join us as we head to the very remote, harsh, yet beautiful Rudall River National Park. Experience the wildlife that the very remote, harsh yet beautiful Rudall River National Park has to offer. Situated approximately 400 Km east of Newman in Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert this is truly one of the most remote wilderness areas in the world.

Lake Eyre Basin and Flinders Ranges Expedition 15 Day Camping Tour – Departs Alice Springs 3rd August 2016 This tour covers some of South Australia’s most historic outback locations in the Lake Eyre Basin and the spectacular Flinders Ranges. Both regions offer vastly different examples of our great country and offer an opportunity for a wide range of wildlife sightings.

Visit our website and sign up for our email newsletter for the details of our full 2015 tour program.

Phone: (61 8) 9330 6066 Web: www.coateswildlifetours.com.au Email: coates@iinet.net.au GSA Coates Tours Licence no 9ta1135/36

Nature in the city 5mm

Insect detective

New discovery: Mature female Gahnia coccid scale on the underside of cutty grass.

Finding, new, insect species is relatively easy, even in the city, explains entomologist Nicholas Martin.

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he best way to find a new-to-science insect species is to look for something else. At least that is my experience. Two of my most recent discoveries were made in Auckland city reserves, when I was there looking for something else entirely.

Since retirement, I have been collecting insects and their predators and parasitoids in order to photograph their life stages for an online factsheet series called Interesting Insects and other Invertebrates, see www.nzacfactsheets. landcareresearch.co.nz/Index.html. This work takes me out and about in our local Auckland reserves.

Two years ago in the Alice Eaves Reserve, Orewa, I was collecting specimens when I noticed an old broken puparium of a whitefly on the underside of a leaf. Whitefly had not been found on Astelia before.

Over the next 12 months I regularly searched plants of the two species of Astelia in the reserve. Very low numbers of whitefly nymphs and puparia (the last stage before adults) were present on the underside of leaves of kauri grass, A. trinerva. Examination of microscope slide preparations of the puparia confirmed that the Astelia whitefly was a distinct previously unknown species in the genus Asterochiton.

I have started preparing the drawings that will be used in a scientific paper that I am writing, which will describe the distinctive characters of the Astelia whitefly and how it differs from other whitefly in the genus Asterochiton.

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Part of the process is giving the newly described species a scientific name (see panel).

I discovered another previously unknown insect species three years ago, again when I was looking for something else entirely. I was in the Chatswood Reserve, Birkenhead, collecting for a colleague some previously unknown tiny flat mites that live in the grooves on the underside of cutty grass, Gahnia, leaves.

One plant that I examined had old female scales and juveniles of scale insects in the family Coccidae, which had not previously been found on Gahnia species. Nine months later I went looking in several other Auckland suburban reserves for young females that are needed to identify this kind of scale species.

When I located a few in Avondale South Domain, at Blockhouse Bay, a colleague Juliet Richmond, who works for MPI, prepared microscope slides and found the specimens did not match any known New Zealand genus of Coccidae. Specimens were sent to an expert in the United Kingdom who is now describing and naming the Gahnia coccidae, which has been found in low numbers on only one species of Gahnia in three Auckland reserves.

Part of the trick is to know whether what you have found has already been ‘discovered’. There is an online database, www.plant-synz.landcareresearch.co.nz/index.asp that lists invertebrate herbivores associated with a plant species, which provides a good starting point.

Naming new discoveries Every year in New Zealand several dozen previously unknown species of insects are discovered – most of which will remain unnamed for many years.

The process of naming insects and other invertebrates has special rules. For example, you cannot name a species after yourself. However, if you give the specimens to an expert of that group, they may name the species after the discoverer. As a result, there are several martinis [named after the author] lurking in the country’s foliage.

For example, you may find the Myrsine mealybug, Rastrococcus namartini Williams & Henderson, 2005 on the underside of a leaf of Myrsine australis (red mapou, red matipo). I discovered this species in the Hunua Ranges, Auckland.

A full insect name consists of four parts, the genus, specific epithet, author, and year.

In the example above: n the genus is Rastrococcus – this is the name given to a group of closely related species n namartini is the specific epithet – there can be only one organism with that name in a genus n the people who named it – Williams & Henderson – were scientists with expertise in mealybugs. n The species was described and named in a scientific journal published in 2005. If the author and year are in brackets – it means the species has been placed in a different genus from that designated by the original author.

Named after the author: A colony of myrsine mealybugs, Rastrococcus namartini

Planting trees like kōwhai and cabbage trees will bring native insects to your garden

Encouraging native insects Most native insects only live on native plants so planting natives is the best way to encourage them to live in your garden.

The following plants are beautiful and support a variety of native insects: n Kōwhai, Sophora species. n Coprosma species, especially C. robusta. n Pittosporum species, especially P. crassifolium, P. tenuifolium and P. eugenoides. n New Zealand flax, Phormium species. n Native Austroderia species (toetoe). n Cabbage trees, Cordyline species. n Manuka and kanuka. n For moth caterpillars: Hoheria, Sophora, Hebe, Pittosporum, Pseudopanax, Cordyline, Leptospermum and Macropiper.

If you are planting native plants with the aim of increasing the numbers of native invertebrates living in your garden, there are two things you need to be aware of. The first is that the insects feed on the plants and some can cause unsightly damage, for example the cabbage tree moth caterpillar.

The second proviso is that not all native invertebrate herbivore species that could live on the plants in your garden will do so. Many species rarely leave the forest environment where they usually live. They appear to require the special environmental conditions within their native habitat to successfully live and breed.

*Nicholas Martin is Secretary of Auckland Branch of the Entomological Society of New Zealand and before retirement he worked for Entomology Division of DSIR, then Crop & Food Research and for the last few years at Plant & Food Research.

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Community conservation

Magical Makarora

Caroline Wood gives a brief round up of news from the South Island gathering at Makarora, on the edge of Mount Aspiring National Park.

(From left) Jackie Stevenson with ‘Spur’, Vanessa Horwell and Lauren Kelley check out the new Strategic Plan, Mark Ayres. All photos: Kimberley Collins

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t’s possibly the first time a real live bird has attended a Forest & Bird annual gathering as a guest. North Canterbury branch member Jackie Stevenson (pictured above) brought this little fellow – a spur-winged plover – along to the South Island Gathering because he is still being hand-fed his special baby bird diet and needs 24hour care.

He stayed two nights in a specially adapted nest box before she brought him out on the last morning, much to the surprise of other people attending the South Island gathering, which was held at Makarora Tourist Centre.

Jackie hand-reared ‘Spur’ from two days old. He will be returned to the wild when he fledges. Jackie takes up to 30 rescue birds at any one time and is known locally in Christchurch as ‘bird lady’.

This was one of many stand-out moments during a successful gathering, which took place in October, with members attending from all corners of the South Island to talk conservation, catch up with old friends, and explore the stunning surroundings of Makarora and the nearby Mount Aspiring National Park.

We were hosted by members of Central Otago-Lakes branch of Forest & Bird, who did a brilliant job of organising the weekend and making sure everyone was well looked after. Chairperson Mark Ayres told us about how they have been running a volunteer predator control programme for the past 18 years at Makarora, which has resulted in mohua/

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yellowhead being released into the nearby forest.

The branch has big plans to create a self-funding predator-free environment at Makarora, which is located north of Lake Wanaka, for endangered and rare native animals and plants to thrive in. During the weekend they showed us some of the treasures in this wild and sparsely populated area – the ancient beech forests that are home to mohua/yellowhead and the sparkling blue pools of the nearby Makarora braided river, habitat of the wrybill among other birds.

President Andrew Cutler and Chief Executive Hōne McGregor gave a presentation about Forest & Bird’s new strategic plan and took questions about the vision and direction set out for the next 25 years. Kevin Hackwell gave an update about our successful campaign to create a Kermadec ocean sanctuary and Jo Priestley gave a presentation on how to run a successful local media campaign.

We heard talks about bird identification from bird expert Peter Gaze, while Nick Ledgard gave us an update on the successful conservation efforts on the Ashley-Rakahuri braided river. There was some good-humoured rivalry going on between certain branches as they shamelessly pitched for votes in a bid to secure the winning bird in our Bird of the Year campaign.

Thank you to Mark and the team for putting on a memorable South Island Gathering.

Winning bird: Bar-tailed godwit wading by Christopher Durant.

For more of his stunning bird drawings see: www.facebook.com/ TheArtworkOfChristopherDurant/

Bird of the Year The 11th Bird of the Year competition was Forest & Bird’s most successful campaign yet, as organiser Kimberley Collins reports.

After three weeks of close competition, heated campaigning and scandal the bar-tailed godwit (kūaka) has been crowned New Zealand’s Bird of the Year.

These lunatic long-distance fliers have the longest migratory flight of any bird in the world, and travel over 11,000 kilometres from Alaska to reach New Zealand in less than ten days.

Every year between between 80,000 and 100,000 godwits begin arriving in the country from late September, with most heading for the Kaipara and Manukau harbours, the Firth of Thames, Farewell Spit and the Avon– Heathcote estuary.

Campaign manager for the bar-tailed godwit, Keith Woodley from the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre, says the long flight takes its toll and birds will lose half their body weight during the trip.

“When they get here, they look absolutely exhausted. The first thing they do is have a drink to rehydrate and then they go to sleep. Eventually, they start feeding to make up for the huge amount of weight they lose during their flight,” said Woodley.

However, being tired is the least of the godwit’s problems, as their numbers are dropping.

“Godwits coming to New Zealand from Alaska are declining by 2 percent a year,” says Keith Woodley.

“Habitat loss is a massive problem for these birds, especially in east Asia where most of them stop to refuel. And of course, like many of our native species, climate change will pose challenges for them as well.”

Bird of the Year is one of Forest & Bird’s most popular annual events.

It aims to raise awareness of New Zealand’s unique native birds and the threats they face by asking people to vote for their favourite species.

This year saw over 13,000 people vote for their favourite bird, with the kōkako coming in a close second with 1814 votes, followed by the kākā with 988 votes.

Keith hopes the Bird of the Year title will raise awareness for the godwit, other shorebirds and threats to their habitat.

He says it fits perfectly with the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre’s ‘Year of the Godwit’ theme.

“This year is actually our 40th anniversary, so it’s fitting that these longhaul champions have also been crowned the 2015 Bird of the Year!“ Forest & Bird

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Predator-free New Zealand

Island hopping Pest eradication in Fiordland has provided safe haven islands for native species. Jo Priestley goes to the deep south to assist in the relocation of mohua to Coal Island.

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eing woken up at night by screeching kākāpō and the slightly panicked-sounding call of a female little spotted kiwi is an unique experience and one that too few New Zealanders experience in their lifetime. Lying in a tiny tent in a campsite on remote Chalky Island in Fiordland National Park surrounded by such vociferous birdlife was both exhilarating and disconcerting. Trying to get warm enough to go back to sleep, I reflected on the beauty of such islands, and the joy to be had from such simple pleasures as hearing a bird call.

Chalky Island is managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) and is integral to its Fiordland Islands Restoration programme, which focuses on eradicating pests from islands and providing a safe haven for endangered species. It’s part of a fleet of islands at the southwestern-most tip of the South Island that are increasingly being seen by conservationists as the answer to species recovery.

I was asked to be part of the mohua/yellowhead translocation team by the South West New Zealand Endangered Species Charitable Trust, a group of dedicated volunteers, including Forest & Bird members, who are leading a restoration programme on nearby Coal Island/ Te Puka-Hereka (see panel). The mohua translocation was funded by the Mohua Charitable Trust, which is based in Christchurch.

Translocation team leader Hannah Edmonds and seven other experienced bird-catching staff and contractors met up on the mainland where we all underwent a very thorough biosecurity procedure. Backpacks were turned inside out and vacuumed, boots examined for seeds

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Photo: Craig Potton

and washed, and clothing examined before we were allowed on the helicopter, which was flown by trust member Dale Green, of High Country Helicopters.

It has been said that the essence of Fiordland is water, and that was certainly my experience of it. Rain lashed the helicopter windscreen and dripped inside as we flew through the mist. I could see the major role water has had in shaping the character of Fiordland, with snow, fiords, lakes and rivers, waterfalls and a glacier-carved rugged landmass. Stunning scenery, even in the mist and rain.

Upon landing it was straight into mud – lots and lots of mud – and a short tramp along a well-marked path to our campsite. As well as myself, there were four teams of two, with a goal of catching 20 mohua per team the next day. There were a few hours of daylight left so the teams were dispatched with poles, mist nets, and rope to set up several catching sites, ready for an early start. There were mohua circling our campsite so we were fairly hopeful of a successful catching day.

I was paired with DOC rangers Hannah Edmonds and Megan Willans, both experienced bird catchers and very slick in their technique. They worked together putting the poles up and testing the nets for wind before moving on to the next site. Back at camp, hot pumpkin soup was washed down by bacon and egg pie and a welcome hot cup of tea. The temperature dropped and we were serenaded by

ISLAND SANCTUARY

Team members gently remove mohua from trapping nets.

robins, mohua, kākāriki, tīeke and, during the night, kiwi and kākāpō.

At first light we rolled out of our sleeping bags and started preparing for a busy day of catching mohua. But first we had to find them. Armed with speakers and a sound recording of mohua we set up speakers either side of the net and sat down and waited for mohua to fly in. We caught the first seven mohua pretty quickly and then, as sometimes happens, it was if there were no birds of any description anywhere on the island. We wandered through to our next catching site but it was tomb-like quiet. Our spirits sank as the hours went by without any more mohua being heard or sighted. A quick radio call to the other teams showed similar results. We blamed the wind and headed off to set up more sites in different locations.

It wasn’t until a few hours before we were due to leave that suddenly mohua appeared from hiding and we caught a total of 37 for translocation to Coal Island that day. Each bird was processed, and banded with a different number stamped onto a metal ring, before being placed carefully into a bird box with a perch and some meal worms.

The flight to Coal Island took only a few minutes, and we carried the birds a short way into the bush. They were

Predator-free Coal Island/Te Puka-Hereka has “open sanctuary” status, which means that any member of the public can visit at any time without a special permit. However, the remoteness of the island limits its accessibility, which is largely via helicopter or a lengthy boat trip.

While Coal Island is administered by Department of Conservation, it’s been the focus of a restoration programme by the South West New Zealand Endangered Species Charitable Trust since 2004.

The trust has raised money for pest eradication and public advocacy programmes on Coal Island, with the support of DOC and local iwi. Many of the trust are long-time Forest & Bird members keen to raise the profile nationally of the work being carried out on Coal Island, and of its success in pest eradication.

Trust member Ian Buick says it relies heavily on sponsorship and fundraising to undertake restoration work, a large majority of which is predator control.

At 1,189ha, the island is big enough to provide habitat for self-sustaining or managed populations of a wide range of threatened species. The relatively unmodified forest, as well as freshwater and coastal habitats, offer a range of possibilities for recovery and translocation of various species. Birds currently found on Coal Island include South Island kākā, Fiordland crested penguins and the NZ falcon.

released into their new home after a short karakia/prayer for their safe journey and good health.

The future of mohua on Coal Island rests on the sustained pest control efforts. Finding fit and able volunteers to lay and monitor trapping lines is always a challenge. To volunteer or find out more see www.coalisland.co.nz.

MOHUA/YELLOWHEAD Mohua are a nationally vulnerable species and an integral part of the South Island beech forest ecosystem. They were relocated to Chalky Island from Breaksea Island in 2002 and the population is now deemed to be at – or close to – maximum capacity, allowing for the September translocation of 80 mohua to Coal Island. The translocation of species between islands such as Breaksea, Chalky and Coal helps reduce the risk of extinction and speeds the recovery of mohua populations.

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Our people

Never giving up Sir Alan Mark has been at the centre of many of the key conservation issues and campaigns for more than 50 years.

The former Forest & Bird president, distinguished life member and one of the society’s three ambassadors has recently released a memoir, Standing My Ground: A voice for nature conservation (Otago University Press). This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of New Zealand conservation over the last five decades.

His work spans the world of academia, government advisory work and conservation activism, a sometimes uneasy mingling of roles. He has been a frequent target of criticism and even of occasional calls for his dismissal from Otago University, where he has worked since 1955 and remains Emeritus Professor of Botany.

But the common thread in all his work has been scientific integrity. “I’ve been reassured by the honours I’ve had, the knighthood and the honorary doctorate of science degree from Otago University as recognition of the scientific basis I applied to conservation,” Sir Alan says.

His pioneering research into the value of upland high country snow tussock grasslands in producing valuable water

in the South Island’s east led to better protection of these areas. He played a key role in the campaign five decades ago to prevent the raising of Lake Manapouri and Te Anau.

As Forest & Bird president, he worked for the creation of the Te Wāhipounamu – South West New Zealand World Heritage Area, which was established in 1991.

There have been disappointments along the way too, including the failure to win protection from open-cast mining on the Denniston Plateau near Westport. But he has never been tempted to give up. “You can’t afford to become discouraged. You’re certainly disappointed but to give up would be wrong. I know many of my adversaries in conservation would be delighted to think I had given up,” he adds with a chuckle. n David Brooks

Welcome Megan Wh-eely good Megan Hubscher has recently joined Forest & Bird as a Communications Officer.

Based in Wellington, Megan will be helping the communications team make sure that our campaigns and projects stay in the national – and local – spotlight. She’ll also be providing expertise to our ‘offline’ communications, by supporting great conversations between our national office, branches and members.

Megan has a professional background in social justice and environmental communications. Her post-graduate years involved travel in Asia, Europe and South America, and she returned to work at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Megan went on to work in the Green Party’s media team, campaigning on issues including fisheries management and bycatch, environmental regulation and monitoring, and dirty dairying, among many others.

From the Green Party, Megan moved to Global Focus Aotearoa, a NZ Aid-funded education centre, which focuses on poverty, inequality and globalisation. Most recently, Megan spent five years with the Sustainability Trust, helping develop and deliver urban sustainability solutions for Wellington region.

Megan says one thing has remained clear in all her roles – that the solutions for human wellbeing are also the solutions for environmental wellbeing. She is looking forward to working towards both at Forest & Bird.

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Wellington Forest & Bird member Katie Underwood has always worked hard for nature but probably never as hard as when she cycles the 3,000km length of New Zealand early next year aiming to raise $30,000 for our freshwater campaign.

The Wellington real estate agent will be combining her love of personal challenges and of our native heritage when she sets off from Cape Reinga on 23 February. Katie spends a lot of time working for nature as a guardian and volunteer at Zealandia, and as a regular volunteer for the Department of Conservation.

She is fascinated by long-fin eels and other freshwater species and believes their decline doesn’t receive nearly enough attention. “I think the longfin eel is one of the most amazing creatures we have in New Zealand. They only breed once at the end of their lives, are declining rapidly in numbers but even so aren’t protected by legislation and are commercially fished.”

She would welcome any Forest & Bird members and supporters who want to ride with her as she passes through their area. But the most important thing you can do is go to https://give.everydayhero.com/nz/cycling-for-freshwater to help Katie reach her fundraising goal and ensure better protection of our freshwater. n David Brooks

Arnold Piesse tribute Arn (Arnold) Piesse has joined the ranks of the great tōtara we have lost in the last few years. Arn and his wife Judy, who still lives in Thames, have been great lifelong Forest & Birders, first in Auckland and then in the Coromandel.

They were among the first recipients of the Society’s Old Blue Award.

Arn and Judy were great supporters of the national campaigns for Manapouri and the forests of Whirinaki and Pureora. Many budding conservationists learned about the trees of these forests from Arn. In the 1970s, Arn together with Ronald Lockley, Professor John Morton, Dr Michael Taylor, Chris Barfoot and others campaigned to save the sandspit at Glen Innes from being used as Auckland’s main rubbish dump (before the polite days of ‘landfills’). Their efforts were rewarded with the establishment of the Tahuna Torea Nature Reserve in 1973.

In the 1970s, Arn and Judy with Prof Morton and others worked to establish the Miranda (now Pukorokoro Miranda) Shorebird Centre on the Firth of Thames.

Judy was the first Secretary of the Shorebird Centre.

Arn and Judy were also instrumental in forming Auckland Minewatch in 1981 and both he and Judy were involved in the anti-mining campaigns in the Coromandel from the early eighties until the present day. Arn was Forest & Bird’s representative on the Coromandel State Forest Advisiory Committee in the 1980s and was instrumental in getting that committee to reverse a vote on a 1982 mining right application for the Kauaeranga Valley, near Thames.

Unfortunately the Minister chose to ignore this vote and granted the pemit anyway!

Arn and Judy moved to Te Kouma, Coromandel Harbour, in 1985. There they were involved in the founding of the Upper Coromandel Branch of Forest & Bird, and Arn became a trustee of Barry Brickell’s Driving Creek Wildlife Sanctuary Trust and was involved in the Northern Coromandel Historical Writing Group, authoring a history of Whanganui Island.

Arn’s was a life devoted to conservation and we feel privileged to have known him. n Peter Maddison & Clive Monds *Arnold Piesse, 91, passed away in October, in Thames.

Debs Martin moves roles Debs Martin has resigned from her role as Regional Conservation & Volunteer Manager based in Nelson to take up the role of Project Manager, Bat Recovery Project in the Top of the South, a project that Forest & Bird manages.

Debs spent the past decade fighting for nature at the top of the South Island, where she was involved in some of Forest & Bird’s most important campaigns, such as saving the Mokihinui and fighting for Denniston.

Chris Todd, group manager for conservation and volunteers, said: “On behalf of all of us at Forest and Bird, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Debs for the great team member she has been and for the strong support she has

shown to the branches and her colleagues at Forest and Bird.

“We’re grateful for her commitment and passion for environmental protection and for the experience and skills she has brought to her role and shared with the team; and of course we would like to acknowledge all the terrific work Debs has done protecting the Mokihinui, the Orari, Denniston Plateau, the Cobb, Kahurangi National Park and so many other special places.”

Julie McLintock, chair of Forest & Bird’s Nelson/Tasman branch said Debs was highly respected in the region, and always willing to share her knowledge.

“Debs really knows her stuff when it comes to environmental legislation, she would use this to get information about things like the district plan. It was invaluable for us as a branch as we don’t have that kind of knowledge. At council meetings, she was very highly respected, they really listened to her, and always asked her opinion.

“Her contribution has been enormous and I will miss her.”

Deb took up her new job in early November and will be transitioning out of her regional manager role in December.

Still wild: Debs Martin, pictured here on the Mokihinui River in 2010. She spearheaded Forest & Bird’s successful campaign to stop the river being dammed for hydro electricity.

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Our partners

The Collective good The Collective, which creates fresh natural premium yoghurt, is the new sponsor of KCC. Kiwi founder Angus Allan explains why they admire KCC's work to educate tomorrow’s conservationists.

Here at The Collective we’re super proud to be the new primary sponsor of the Kiwi Conservation Club and supporting Forest & Bird. Helping Kiwi kids and families to love and care for their natural world is a big deal for us.

Being a small grassroots company, formed by two New Zealand chefs, we have always had big dreams of helping to preserve our environment and this is an opportunity to champion the country’s next generation of conservationists.

We’ve always admired the work of Forest & Bird and KCC in protecting and restoring our native plants and wildlife. The Collective aspires to be a part of this movement and we’re excited to take the first step with you.

The Collective has recently teamed up with Terracycle to establish the ‘NZ Suckies Brigade’, a national recycling programme where customers can post in their empty Collective yoghurt packaging for free to be recycled – raising money for their chosen charity, school or organisation in the process.

This means KCC members can get involved and raise funds for their individual branches by collecting Collective pouches and sending them to Terracycle. So our suckies will fuel your KCC peeps on all-natural fresh probiotic yoghurt (with no added nasties like cane sugar or artificial preservatives) while they’re doing some good for the environment.

The Collective’s co-founder Angus Allan (centre) and some of his staff (Very Important Peeps).

Educating our kids about native wildlife was a key goal when teaming up with Forest & Bird and KCC. And what better way to educate than when you’re snackin’ on the good stuff! The Collective’s suckies range will feature a collection of New Zealand native birds with fun facts and activities to engage kids.

We’ll also be spreading the word about KCC to bring more youngsters into the programme and getting into nature.

Cripes, we can’t wait to get amongst it… no bull! n Angus Allan, The Collective, Auckland *To find out more about The Collective, see www.thecollective.kiwi

HealthPost helps out New Zealand’s favourite online supplier of natural health, skincare and household products is delighted to be working with Forest & Bird in December as part of its Better World donation programme.

HealthPost has a number of initiatives to help the environment: it offsets its carbon footprint, generates electricity from solar panels on its warehouse roof, has an annual staff tree-planting day and donates a dollar to charity for every on-line order.

Spokesperson Rebecca Campton said: “Forest & Bird’s great work fits perfectly with HealthPost’s ethos. We believe the health of the individual is inextricably tied to the health of the community and the natural environment.”

During the whole of December, HealthPost will donate $1 every time a customer nominates Forest & Bird at the checkout. This is part of its Better World donation programme, which has given over $500,000 to New Zealand charities. You can start shopping at www.healthpost.co.nz.

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Seabirds

Black petrel protection Commercial fishers are working with conservationists to protect the rare black petrel and other seabirds, explains Janice Molloy, of Southern Seabird Solutions Trust.

Most New Zealand fisheries have regulations in place to protect seabirds from bycatch, but successful implementation needs buy-in from the whole of the industry – companies, skippers and crew.

The Southern Seabird Solutions Trust is rolling out a fourth year of its ‘Seabird Smart’ Training programme for commercial inshore skippers and crew. The programme builds on fishers’ knowledge of seabirds and allows them to discuss best practice mitigation amongst peers.

The Trust also arranges for fishers to visit Great Barrier/ Aotea and work with black petrel researcher Biz Bell. These experiences have helped fishers understand and connect with the seabirds they see around their boats.

Adam Clow, skipper of a snapper longliner based in Whitianga, who has taken part in the Trust’s training programme says: “To be effective, most seabird protection measures need to be properly used and continously tweaked during fishing. This means having a highlymotivated skipper and crew.

“We always need to be on the watch and adjusting the bird scaring tori-line—so it stays above the fishing line and isn’t pushed sideways by the wind. And if it gets really bad we stop fishing until the birds lose interest and fly off.”

The Trust has also initiated a new ‘culture of care’ programme with the bottom longline fleet that operates between Northland and Bay of Plenty. This involves Forest & Bird, WWF New Zealand, the Hauraki Gulf Forum, Government, iwi, fishers and key fishing companies. They have pledged to work together to look after one of New Zealand’s rarest seabirds – the black petrel.

As part of the pledge, Leigh Fisheries, Sanford Ltd and Aotearoa Fisheries now require skippers that they buy fish from to attend Seabird Smart Training. Tom Searle, Operations Manager of Leigh Fisheries, says the companies are also ensuring every vessel has a Seabird Risk Management Plan on board.

Karen Baird, Forest & Bird’s Seabird Conservation Advocate, is pleased with the progress being made.

“Sanford, Leigh Fisheries and Aotearoa Fisheries are setting a new benchmark for New Zealand fleets – ensuring skippers are seabird trained, and requiring fish to be caught in a seabird friendly way. This is very positive.” *For more information: see www.southernseabirds.org.

Black petrel. Photo: Cameron Long

Black petrels Black petrels used to breed in vast inland and coastal colonies across the North Island and the top of the South. These colonies disappeared following the wave of introduced predators that spread across the country. Now the only known breeding sites are on Aotea/Great Barrier and Hauturu/Little Barrier. The black petrel is ranked number one in the Government’s commercial fishing risk ranking and most of this risk comes from the bottom longline fleet.

Adam Clow, skipper.

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A climate for change

Big world, small planet How do we go about communicating that the whole of the biosphere (and humanity) is at stake? Prof David Teather looks for answers in the book Big World, Small Planet.

It’s only by saving the natural environment, on which we wholly depend, that the future of humanity can be assured.

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All photos: Mattias Klum

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onvincing others to care for the natural world is a matter for both heart and mind. Careful description and reasoned analysis of the need to conserve a particular landscape, an ecosystem, or the habitat of a threatened species are usually accompanied in Forest & Bird magazine by stunning photos. A picture can be worth a thousand words.

But how should we go about this communication task, of showing as well as telling, when the whole of the biosphere is at stake? Where the reasons for concern are as diverse as climate change, atmospheric pollution and interference with the natural cycling of major nutrients?

Big World, Small Planet is an attempt by a worldrenowned scientist Professor Johan Rockström, of the University of Stockholm, and award-winning National Geographic photographer, Dr Mattias Klum, to reach out internationally to explain the latest thinking about our place on planet Earth.

In 120 pages of narrative, complemented by 80 of photos and graphics, it provides an accessible account of the world’s greatest complexities. It engages with readers both intellectually and emotionally.

Throughout the last 10,000 years climatic fluctuations have been minimal and conditions for the development of human civilisations particularly benign. But the authors argue that we’ve now entered the Anthropocene period – an era of massive human impact on the Earth. This is marked by rapid increases in population and affluence, which are changing the global climate and degrading the ecosystems on which we depend.

The first half of Big World, Small Planet summarises our predicament. The key is to keep our impacts on the Earth below the limits beyond which the biosphere might flip into a different and, for us, undesirable state. The authors call these limits “planetary boundaries” and identify nine of them: n Climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and ocean acidification. These three are sharply defined global thresholds, with direct implications for the whole planet. n Biodiversity loss, land-use change, freshwater consumption, and interference with the natural cycles of major nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus). All undermine the resilience of the biosphere.

n

Air pollution (by soot and other particles), and chemical pollution of the biosphere (by heavy metals and persistent organic chemicals).

The authors then redefine the focus. “Our grand challenge is not about saving a species or an ecosystem. It’s about saving us. It’s about making it possible for humanity to continue pursuing economic development, prosperity and good lives.”

It’s only by saving the natural environment, on which we wholly depend, that the future of humanity can be assured.

In the final section the authors provide thoughtprovoking examples of sustainable, nature-based solutions.

For example, the discovery in Sardinia that oil from a common weed, the artichoke thistle, can be used to make plastics led to the conversion of an old petro-chemical plant into one of the world’s most advanced bio-refineries.

They point out that such solutions are often blocked by perverse incentives and by lack of clear regulation. It’s far too easy to plunder natural resources, ecosystems and the atmosphere for short-term economic gain.

By calculating the true costs of pollution and planetary abuse and establishing regulations that enable economic development within planetary boundaries, they claim we can protect the Earth’s remaining ecosystems without impeding development.

Indeed, they claim such measures would unleash innovation by making it worthwhile to invest in sustainable, nature-based solutions. Correcting massive global market failures would lead to a “good” Anthropocene.

Big World, Small Planet is an important and beautiful book. *For more information on sustainable global development, see www.stockholmresilience.org.

Author Professor David Teather has been a Forest & Bird member for over 40 years and currently lives in Australia.

He was inspired to write this article after reading Big World, Small Planet: Abundance within Planetary Boundaries

by Johan Rockström and Mattias Klum, Max Ström Publishing, Stockholm, $39.

Forest & Bird

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In the field Bearhat Mountain overlooking Hidden Lake. Photo: Basil Graeme

Glacier National Park

and must have frightened the newborn fawn, which had been left asleep by its mother.

Oh, and there was the mother bear and another cub! We were delighted, but the Institute staff were less so and they urged us back to the path. Bears are not to be treated lightly. The staff carried cans of bear repellent and they would, if thought necessary, fire a cloud of tear gas between us and a bear. I was slightly disappointed that we never got to use them.

Back to the course: the approach was systematic. We learned to identify plant families rather than species, to use simple identification keys and recognise the cornerstone species of montane forest, temperate rainforest and drier steppe. Field trips were devoted to conifers, shrubs, ground plants, fire succession, insects and birds.

We made notes and drew careful sketches in our hand books and on the last day we had a field test. It was a novel experience but everyone rose to the challenge, wandering around the neighbouring trees, peering at leaf arrangements and muttering as

Ann Graeme encounters bears, berries and bluebird days while on a master naturalist course in Montana’s Glacier National Park.

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he road clung like flypaper to the mountain side as we travelled along the Going-tothe-Sun Road – yes that really was its name – up to a mountain pass, where we would spend the day learning about alpine flowers. It was a ‘bluebird’ day, in fact every day was a bluebird day during June, which is early summer in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. The field trip was part of a five-day ‘Master Naturalist Course’ run by the Glacier Institute.

My motive for attending the course (and dragging our American and New Zealand friends with us) was to learn about a northern hemisphere ecosystem that is so different to our own. On the first morning, after a substantial breakfast, we gathered

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with our instructors, Brian and Greg, and were given our handbooks. These were attractive, spiral-bound books with drawings and identification keys interspersed with pages designed for our own observations and drawings.

They became an extension of our persons as we recorded and drew, with varying degrees of skill.

Our first field trip involved sketching the details of the conifers, the dominant trees species in western Montana. We were clustered around a young fir tree examining its tiny leaves and buds – easily confused with the unrelated Douglas fir – when a speckled fawn raced squealing across the clearing. There on the edge of the clearing was a young black bear! It was looking for berries

Ann Graeme with gauze containers for captured insects (later released). Photo: Bruce Andre

To each their own

Instructor Brian explains the parasitic plant called pinedrops. Photo: Bruce Andre

Pasque flowers and yellow glacier lilies Photo: Ann Graeme

they counted the number of pine needles in a cluster. I was terrified.

What if I flunked the test, me with a degree in biology! But we all performed creditably thanks to our thorough grounding in observing and keeping notes.

Note-taking and record-keeping are the foundations of learning and of scientific progress. We need written or drawn records to remember and to compare and build on our observations from year to year. And beyond simple note-taking, our instructors encouraged us to keep journals. A journal is more than scientific facts. It is a personal record of experiences, encounters and pleasure in the natural world.

For me, learning about the northern forests highlighted the differences with our own native forests. In both, the tallest trees were the gymnosperms, but where we have kauri, rimu, tōtara and matai, the northern forests have pine, spruce, cedar and hemlock. And in the northern forests we saw an abundance of flowering plants of the kind we are more used to growing in our gardens – flowers like roses, lilies, columbines, carnations, daisies, snapdragons and anemones.

The northern winter is much longer and more severe than our own and

the flowering plants cope in different ways. The trees and shrubs are deciduous, saving their tender leaves for the spring and summer. The ground plants over-winter as seeds or die down to emerge in spring like refugees from bomb shelters.

Anemones poke out of the snow with their flower buds unfolding. Plants grow quickly for the growing time is brief and they need to make food and set seeds for the winter ahead.

Our alpine flowers are beautiful, but they pale beside those of the Northern Hemisphere. Apart from the yellow buttercups, most of our alpine flowers are white. White is the best colour to lure moths for pollination and, unlike the northern hemisphere ecosystems, New Zealand has no native honey bees or humming birds to be attracted to a rainbow of coloured petals.

Glacier National Park is a glorious place to visit and the naturalist course made our holiday a really memorable experience. As well as enjoying beautiful scenery, we were in the company of like-minded people, making new friends and learning to understand the wild landscape around us. *In the Field turns 20: Ann Graeme’s first column was published in November 1995 – 20 years ago!

Sightseeing with substance The Glacier Institute is a non-profit organisation providing hands-on, fieldbased educational studies and adventures in Glacier National Park. We stayed in the institute’s cabins inside the national park boundary, which were rustic and comfortable. For more information see www.glacierinstitute.org. Similar courses are available in some other American national parks. They are well worth checking out if you planning a visit to the USA.

The slender lodgepole pine is an iconic species in Glacier National Park. Their jagged outlines silhouette the mountain slopes and they have many uses, from furniture to firewood. So it was a shock to discover that this elegant tree is Pinus contorta, the despised wilding pine that invades our tussock lands and grows high up our mountain sides above the natural treeline. It was a reminder that every species has a place in a native ecosystem somewhere.

Fire Fire plays a big part in the forest ecosystem. We visited a forest that had been burnt in 2003. Twelve years later the ground was densely carpeted in lodgepine saplings under a scattering of tall spruce. These species have different survival techniques. The high-crowned spruce with its thick bark survived the fire and was putting out new growth up its trunk. The lodgepole pines had been killed but their cones had survived.

They had opened with the heat from the fire to release masses of seeds with saplings now blanketing the bare ground.

Forest & Bird

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Amazing facts about...

KAKABEAK

By Michelle Harnett

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ommon on Kiwiana memorabilia but rarely seen in the wild, the flashy kakabeak or kōwhai ngutukākā is named for its flower’s resemblance to the kākā’s beak or ngutu. A member of genus Clianthus, the existence of one or two species has been argued since the late 1840s although recent analysis suggests all known plants are genetically related.

Ngutukākā’s brilliant red flowers have always attracted attention. Maori grew it for its beauty, incorporated its form in art and gifted seeds as koha. Early European settlers were quick to cultivate it in their gardens. These garden

plants are probably the distant ancestors of the commercial varieties available today.

Wild ngutukākā are historically thought to have been rare, and limited to the eastern North Island from the Bay of Islands to Hawke’s Bay. This may be due to its preferred habitat of disturbed ground and a short life span. After 10 years or so, they are crowded out by other regrowth.

However their pea-like seeds, which remain viable for decades, persist in the soil waiting for a chance to germinate.

Ngutukākā is seriously threatened in the wild. Introduced browsing animals find it delicious, as do slugs and snails.

Noxious weeds like gorse and buddleia also compete for the same forest environment.

Conservation efforts have focused on preserving genetically viable populations in the wild. Recent genome analysis of plants from every known population, and common garden cultivars, is being used to determine the best conservation strategies. The analysis found the plants are all related and fall into three main geographic groups: East Cape (and the plant on Moturemu Island in the Kaipara Harbour), Lake Waikaremoana and the area around Wairoa/Ruakituri.

Most ngutukākā have red flowers, but white ngutukākā are reported to have grown wild near Wairoa. Old seeds collected from the region and discovered by chance have been germinated at Scion, the Crown research institute for forest products. Genetic analysis of the white-flowered plants showed they were closely related to red ngutukākā from Ruakituri. White ngutukākā grown from fresh seeds and cuttings were returned to local hapū in October.

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Forest & Bird

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2015 Index A

AGM, Spring 32, 34 Ants, Spring 48 Aongatete, May 12 Albatrosses, Spring 26, Amazing facts, Feb 23, May 34, Spring 45, Summer 50 Ark in the Park, May 9 Asiatic whimbrel, Feb IBC Ashburton branch, May 6, 14, 19 Ashburton Lakes, May 16, Auckland Unitary Plan, Summer 32

B

Baird, Karen, Spring 27, 36, Summer 24, 45 Baignent-Mercer, Dean, Summer 14 Ballantine, Bill, Summer 12 Banks Peninsula, Spring 24 Battle for our Birds, Feb 28, May 11, Spring 20, Summer 15 Bats, Feb 8, Summer 43 Beech mast, Feb 29, May 11, Spring 20, Summer 15 Bequests, Spring 38 Bieleski, Jocelyn, Feb 34 Bird of the Year, Spring 8, Summer 39 BirdLife International, Spring 36 Black petrel, Summer 45 Board, Spring 34 Book reviews, Feb 51, May 51, Spring 52, Summer 28 Bowden, David, May 45 Braided rivers, May 14 Bushy Park, Spring 38 By-catch, Spring 26

C

Canterbury water, May 14, 18 Chatham Rise mining, May 8 Cheesman’s Bush, Summer 26 Christophers, Libby, Summer 20 Climate change, Feb 26, May 38, Spring 22, Summer 46 Coal Island, Summer 40 Conservation Minister, Feb 14, Spring 8, Summer 15 Cowan Arthur, Feb 34 Cutler, Andrew, Feb 2, May 2, Spring 2, Summer 2, 13, 32

D

Department of Conservation, Feb 18, May 11, Spring 14, 20, Summer 40 Drylands, Summer 18

E

EEZ, Spring 11 Eastern Bay of Plenty branch, Feb 48 Edwards, Eric, May 26 Environment Aotearoa 2015 report, Summer 10 Environment Canterbury, May 14 Estuaries, Spring 25

F

Fleming, Al, Summer 17 Fungi, May 34 Freshwater mussels, Feb 24 Friends of Flora, Spring 20 Frogs, Feb 42

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G

Garden Bird Survey, May 29 Geary, Amelia, May 45 Glacier National Park, Summer 48 Goddard, Katrina, Summer 16 Graeme, Kate, May 12 Godwit, Summer 39 Golden Bay, Spring 28 Groom, John, May 45

H

Hackwell, Kevin, Feb 12, 18, 29, 36, May 10, 18, Summer 13 Harrow, Geoff, May 22 Hauraki Gulf, Summer 16 Hakatere, Spring 46 Hibiscus Coast branch, Feb 45 Honda, Spring 40 Hutton’s shearwater, May 22

I

Insect discoveries, Summer 36 Island pest eradication, May 40, Summer 22, 34, 40

K

Kahurangi National Park, Feb 38, Summer 15 Kākābeak, Summer 15 Kaikōura branch, May 23 Kākahi, Feb 24 Kākāpō, Feb 9, May 35 Kererū, Spring 50 Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, Spring 13, Summer 8 Kermadec petrel, Summer 34 Kermadec little shearwater, Summer 35 Kermadec storm petrel, Summer 34 Kirby, Catherine, Summer 33 Kiwi Conservation Club, Feb 32, May 46, Spring 50, Summer 20 Kohekohe, Spring 41 Kōkako, Feb 38

N

Nature Watch NZ, Spring 17 New Zealand fairy tern, Summer 24 New Zealand termites, Spring 23 Nelson-Tasman branch, Feb 34, May 42 Ngā Whenua Rāhui Fund, Spring 14 North Shore branch, Feb 47, Spring 30 Northland forest collapse, Summer 14

O

Ōrokonui Ecosystem, Feb 44 Old Blue Awards, Spring 32 Otago skink, Spring 45

P

Park, Tim, Feb 32 Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Spring 25 Pāteke, May 42 Penguins, Spring 44 Piesse, Arnold, Summer 43 Predator control, Feb 28, May 10, Summer 14, 15 Pittosporum, Spring 24 Prime, Kevin, Spring 14 Project De-Vine, Spring 28 Pureora Forest Park, Summer 33

R

Rance, Brian and Chris, Spring 43 Raoul Island, Summer 34 Resource Management Act, Feb 14, May 8 Ruahine Forest Park, Summer 11 Ruapehu Lodge, May 48 Ruataniwha irrigation, Feb 15, May 20, Summer 11 Russell, James, May 28

S

L

Lake Papaitonga, May 32 Land and Water Forum, May 21 Laughing owl, Summer 13 Little Barrier Island, Summer 22

Seabed mining, May 8 Seabirds, Feb 10, 16, May 22, 36, Spring 13, 26 Summer 34, 45 Seaweed, Summer 30 Shoal Bay, Feb 47, Spring 30 Sinteni, Catherine, Feb 35 Skinner, Marina, Feb 33 South Island gathering, Summer 38 Spurr, Eric, May 29 Strategic Plan, Summer 19

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T

Makarora, Summer 38 Manawatū branch, Feb 46 Manawatū estuary, Spring 25 Mark, Alan, Summer 43 Marine protection, Spring 2, 10, 13 Martin, Debs February 8, 20, May 26, Summer 15, 43 Maturin, Sue, Summer 43 Māui’s dolphin, Summer 20 McDonald, Guy, Spring 35 McGregor, Hōne, Feb 6, May 6, Spring 6, Summer 6 Miller, Jen, May 15, Summer 18 Mohua, Summer 40 Moutohorā Island, May 40 Mussels, freshwater, Feb 24 Mussels, marine, Summer 16

Te Puke branch, Feb 42 Te Kaiārahi award, Spring 35 Translocations, May 43, Summer 40,

W

Wasps, May 26 Weeds, Spring 28 Wenham, Jon, May 48 Wetlands, Spring 18, Summer 17 Weka, May 12, West Coast wind-blown forest, Feb 18 Whitebait, Feb 40

Parting shot

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here are two kingfishers that have taken up residence where the Waimanu Lagoons empty into the Waikanae River estuary lagoon, here on the Kapiti Coast.

At low tide, the mud banks of the estuary lagoon are alive with small crabs, so the kingies sit in wait on several tree stumps embedded in the mud watching for them – then quickly swoop down, grab a hapless crab, and return to the stump to eat it.

I go down to the estuary with my camera most evenings, especially when there is a low tide. I used to take photos of the kingies from a distance using my 100-400mm lens but I’ve discovered that they are usually very engrossed in their hunting. Seeing I mean them no harm, they have allowed me to get much closer than I would have imagined. At times I have had difficulty focusing my camera because I’ve been so close. I have found that about three to four metres is a distance we both feel most comfortable with.

I have taken a few hundred images of the kingfishers over the past few weeks, but have discarded any photos with flaws leaving a handful of images that I’m totally happy with.

This one – the kingfisher just about to swallow a small crab – is my favourite.

Roger Smith Kapiti Coast

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Tramping on Mt Howitt, Hooker Range, high above the Landsborough Valley Photo: Mark Watson / Highluxphoto

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