Walks charge floated in bid to save native birds
Call to hit tourists with a fee as rare creatures fall into a perilous state
Charging tourists more to use the Great Walks will help rescue endangered species, the Government has said after the environmental watchdog warned that New Zealand’s native bird populations were “in a desperate situation”.
Conservation Minister Maggie Barry immediately dismissed a proposal for a border tax on international visitors yesterday in response to a report by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright, which urged the Government to look at new sources of funding for conservation.
But Barry said raising the price for tourists to trek the nine Great Walks would generate new revenue which would be “ploughed back into biodiversity”.
Wright’s report, tabled in Parliament yesterday, laid bare the alarming decline of New Zealand’s 168 native bird populations.
It said one in three native bird species were at risk of following the moa into extinction, and four out of five were “in trouble”.
“The situation is desperate,” Wright said.
Barry said she was “very aware” of the precarious status of many bird species and maintained the Government was making strides towards addressing it.
She also suggested the commissioner had not noticed much of the Government’s progress on its goal to kill off all pests by 2050.
The commissioner’s suite of proposals for the Government — some of them controversial — underline the task ahead.
Wright is recommending the control or eradication of millions of feral cats, consideration of genetic techniques to control predators, and a levy on tourists to fund predator control.
She criticised the Government’s narrow allocation of conservation money for tourism infrastructure, saying more needed to be directed at native flora and fauna.
The report’s findings were based on Department of Conservation data which showed that 20 per cent of native bird species were “doing okay”, 48 per cent were “in some trouble”, and 32 per cent were “in serious trouble”.
Birds in the most at-risk category included the kea, the wrybill, the whio, and two species of kiwi.
If New Zealand was to restore abundant birdlife on its mainland, native birds needed three things — sanctuary from predators, a suitable habitat, and genetic diversity to be resilient in the long-term.
Of these, predator control was the most urgent.
The Government’s ambitious Predator Free 2050 goal launched Kiwi conservationist Dr John McLennan gives his reaction to Jan Wright’s warnings at 7.10 this morning on Newstalk ZB last year had helped focus attention on the damage done by predators, Wright said.
But the high-profile policy was light on detail and had no clear plan of action.
More money
Saving rare birds would require “a great deal more money” to be allocated to conservation.
The Government committed $76 million more funding for the Department of Conservation in this month’s Budget, though most of it was for walking tracks, toilets, car parks and tourism ventures.
“The flora and fauna that draw visitors need much more help too,” Wright said. “It is not just birds — lizards, frogs, insects and other native fauna are also in trouble. And now myrtle rust has blown across from Australia, threatening pohutukawa, rata and manuka.” The report recommended a border levy for international visitors.
Skilled killers
Another hole in the Predator Free goal was that it failed to target wild cats, instead singling out possums, rats and stoats.
“I have become increasingly concerned about the feral cats that now almost certainly number in the millions in the countryside and along forest margins,” the commissioner’s report said. “They are major killers of precious wading birds like the wrybill.”
A place to live
Protecting native birds over the longer term would require not limiting them to forests and national parks, but bringing them back to farmland, coasts, and cities.
This was one area which had shown promise, the com- missioner’s report showed.
“The QEII National Trust struggles to keep up with the demand for covenants that place permanent protection on areas of habitat on farmland.
“Similarly, Nga Whenua Rahui is engaged with placing kawenata on Maori land. And the number of eco-sanctuaries continues to grow, with many on private land.”
Genetic diversity
The eradication of pests on offshore islands was a great conservation success, the report said, and some sanctuaries had also been created on the mainland.
But there was risk of creating small, isolated populations which could become inbred and struggle to produce health chicks.
“On Tiritiri Matangi in the Hauraki Gulf, a kokako named Bandit is consorting with his grandmother,” Wright said. “This may be a happy relationship, but it is unlikely to be a healthy one.