Kauri on danger list: DoC
They’ve towered over our native forests for 20 million years — yet now kauri are officially threatened. The ancient giants have been given the classification for the first time by the Department of Conservation (DoC), as a disease killing the trees continues to spread through forests.
Soil-borne kauri dieback disease has become prominent in the past decade, spreading throughout the Auckland region, Coromandel, and to Waipoua Forest in Northland, the home of our most celebrated kauri — Tane Mahuta.
Another major scourge threatening our native trees — wind-blown fungal disease myrtle rust — has prompted DoC to classify around 30 myrtle species as a precautionary measure.
They included ma¯nuka, ra¯ta¯, ramarama and our cherished national Christmas tree, po¯hutukawa.
They weren’t the only sad changes to the New Zealand Threat Classification System, which tracks the conservation status of 2785 known species or types of native vascular plants, among them flowering plants, conifers, ferns and club mosses. Vascular plants have a system of tubes that connect all parts of the plant to transport water and nutrients.
About 80 per cent of our native plants are found only in New Zealand — and an increasing number are in trouble, according to DoC’s acting terrestrial ecosystems director, Matt Barnett.
Fourteen per cent of our vascular plants are now nationally threatened — up from 11 per cent just eight years ago.
There are now 113 more plants classified as “threatened” compared with the last assessment in 2012, which means there are now 402 plants in this category.
Those in the “at risk” categories have increased by 101, to 851 plants, although Barnett said some of these changes were due to new understanding rather than documented decline.
“Threats like kauri dieback, browse by possums, goats, rabbits and other animals, and changes in land use, particularly in the eastern South Island, have caused the observed decline of 61 plant species, which are now in a worse state than five years ago.
“There has also been a marked deterioration of populations of rare plants, such as sedge, cress and broom species, in the drylands of the Mackenzie and Waitaki basins due to land being modified for agriculture, as well as the impact of rabbits and hares.”
More than 200 plants — most as-yet unnamed — have been assessed for the first time in the revised report. New information also led to 39 plants gaining an improved status.