It’s time to dig deeper for DOC

For the past few years, I’ve tried to do one Great Walk over the holidays. Heaphy, Kepler and Waikaremoana have provided memorable holiday experiences, topped off by a close encounter with a kiwi one night near the Iris Burn hut on the Kepler track.

The Department of Conservation was granted just over $600 million in the 2019-2020 Budget to care for the sprawling conservation estate. It sounds like lots of money, but it’s thinly spread. This year, in particular, DOC has faced some big challenges.

A ‘‘mega mast’’ or heavy seeding in our forests provided a bounty of riches for native birds, but also the rodents, stoats and possums that prey on them. DOC had to extend its pest-control programme to 1 million hectares, the largest area covered yet.

That meant more aerial drops of 1080 poison than ever before, which sent anti-1080 activists into a frenzy. Threats and assaults against DOC workers intensified this year.

It is appalling what they have to put up with, and for me, it reinforces the need for better biological and genetic tools to tackle pests.

DOC also had a crisis on its hands when the Aspergillosis fungal infection started killing ka¯ ka¯ po¯ on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island.

Ka¯ ka¯ po¯ experts scrambled to save the birds but two adult females and seven chicks and juveniles died. There are only 213 ka¯ ka¯ po¯ alive, so the disease poses an existential threat to one of our most endangered species.

Deadly infection threatened another of our taonga, the mighty kauri. Kauri dieback disease has no cure and can be easily spread.

That’s why walking tracks through some of our native forests were shut this year.

The Budget in May gave $20.8m towards research to fight dieback.

Science is at the heart of solving these problems and the myriad others that will threaten the conservation estate. It will increasingly be hit with increased tourism, intensified land-use and climate change.

We all have our role to play in the conservation effort – even if it is just accepting that more of our taxpayer dollars need to be invested in protecting and preserving the treasures we have.

It is appalling what DOC workers have to put up with, and for me, it reinforces the need for better biological and genetic tools to tackle pests.