Farmer sued over plant
Environmental campaigners are taking a Canterbury farmer to court over claims he destroyed a huge swathe of an extremely rare and threatened native plant.
Kaitorete Spit, a narrow stretch of land separating Lake Ellesmere from the sea, is home to about 90 per cent of the country’s shrubby tororaro, muehlenbeckia astonii – famous for its heart-shaped green leaves – most of which can be found on a single farm.
Forest & Bird alleges its new owner sprayed, cleared and cultivated three of the farm’s eight paddocks to plant oats, destroying almost a third of the plant’s national population.
The work is said to have also killed numerous other plants, lizards and birds and ruined their habitats.
Forest & Bird has taken the farm’s owner, Brent Thomas, to the Environment Court to prevent any further destruction and to ask that a rehabilitation plan be ordered for the land.
It is not clear whether the land clearance has actually broken any laws, but the organisation believes it is illegal and is seeking clarity from the courts.
It is also taking legal action against Christchurch City Council to get a regulation under its district plan that allows clearance of indigenous vegetation so pastures can be improved declared void, saying it lacks clarity.
Kevin Hague, the organisation’s chief executive, said biodiversity was ‘‘in crisis’’ in New Zealand. ‘‘Often it’s a case of small impacts adding up to a major loss, but here a single incident has made it far more likely for a species to go extinct in the wild.
‘‘That these plants remain in people’s gardens does nothing to mitigate the impact – we have a responsibility to not let these species go extinct in the wild.’’
Thomas bought the land, near Bayleys Rd and understood to be about 800ha, recently from Michael Bayley, whose family had owned it for generations.
The area was once earmarked by Kiwi space company Rocket Lab as a potential launch site.
Thomas told The Press he acquired it to winter stock on the spit’s freedraining land.
The Department of Conservation (DOC), which along with Environment Canterbury and Ngai Tahu owns the majority of the spit, is now working with Thomas in a bid to buy a piece of land to protect the remaining shrubby tororaro population.
Thomas, whose business Wongan Hills Ltd runs his family’s land interests around the Banks Peninsula, said that before buying the land they employed experts to ensure planning requirements were met.