Botany v bikes in bush battle

One council spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on bringing native plants and birds back to Porirua Reserve.

Now another one wants to spend hundreds of thousands more to carve mountain bike tracks through it, which a group of botanists says will ruin all the good work.

The group is demanding Porirua City Council stop work on nearly six kilometres of tracks through native forest above the city, saying it is destroying some of the North Island’s most beautiful bush.

The council says the trails, estimated to cost about $465,000, would let walkers and cyclists enjoy the forest on their way to the Rangituhi Lookout.

But botanist Chris Horne said: ‘‘They should be riding through pasture or plantation forests, not native bush.’’

Kohekohe trees sprouting flowers from their trunks, and a forest floor carpeted with nikau seedlings, were testament to the lack of pests in the reserve, the keen tramper said.

Greater Wellington Regional Council spent two decades and $300,000 on pest eradication in

ON YER BIKE

Porirua’s newtrail, the Up Track, will be 5.2 kilometres long: Section 1: Camp Elsdon to Vantage Point: 1.2km long and 1.5m wide, average gradient of less than 5 per cent. Two-way for bothwalkers and cyclists. Section 2: Vantage Point to Easy Downhill Junction: 1.8km long, average gradient of 5 per cent. Twoway forwalkers, uphill only for cyclists. Section 3: Easy Downhill Junction to Lookout: 2.2km long, average gradient of 7 per cent. Two-way for walkers, uphill only for cyclists.

A 4km track, the Lookout Down Track, will take mountain bikers down to the park entrance on Raiha St. what was now designated a key native ecosystem site, he said. The work had seen an ‘‘outstanding’’ regeneration of plants and birds that were now in danger.

‘‘The atmosphere in there is stunningly full of life, and it’s criminal to ruin that.’’

The group feared plant removal and excavations up to 1.5 metres deep would damage animals in small streams winding through the forest, and increase sediment in the harbour.

The 218 hectares of reserve are protected under the Reserves Act. They are owned by the Crown, and managed by Porirua City Council.

Mayor Mike Tana said he was proud of the high standard the tracks were being built to, and believed they would protect the forest by keeping people to a planned path.

‘‘I think it’s fabulous, and exactly the thing that makes people go out into nature.’’

He sympathised with the botanists, but said the council had made certain the trail would not damage the environment. ‘‘I fully agree that, if we had pine forests, we’d be going up there. But we don’t.’’

Council parks manager Olivia Dovey said work began last month, and was expected to take six months to complete, and the track had been designed after ecological advice. It met all criteria for the protected land, she said.

‘‘We’ve been through a very robust process to ensure environmental controls are in place during the construction, and these are being actively monitored.’’

Regional council biodiversity manager Tim Porteous said it was satisfied the Porirua council had adequately assessed any potential impacts on the forest’s ecology.