Death of kauri ‘would mean the death of our people’
Edward Ashby does not mince words when talking about kauri dieback, particularly in Auckland’s Waita¯kere Ranges, the rohe of his iwi, Te Kawerau a¯ Maki.
‘‘If the kauri goes extinct, our forests as we know it will die and our wellbeing as an iwi is directly tied to that, so we also lose as a people.
‘‘The worst case scenario is the death of this treasure, the death of these forests and, in a way, the death of our people.’’
Kauri’s importance is reflected across Aotearoa – where they grow exclusively – from Ma¯ori culture revering the trees as ra¯kau rangitira (tree chief), to an international icon for New Zealand.
The straight and knotless trunks of kauri have been valued for everything from ancient waka building, to colonial mast and house building – so much so that more than 95% were harvested.
Remaining kauri are now vital for carbon sequestration and provide an important habitat for other plants and fungi that will die as kauri die. Kauri dieback, Phytophthora agathidicida or PA, was first noticed in trees on Great Barrier Island in 1972, but the fungus-like pathogen was only recognised as a unique phytophthora in 2006 and named in 2015.
Delay in recognising the pathogen, and then taking action to protect kauri, led to its
spread, with kauri dieback now found across virtually all of kauri lands, an area from Kawhia north. There is no known cure and PA can be spread by just a pinhead of soil, killing most of the kauri it infects.
There is still so much that is not known, including how many kauri trees there are in New Zealand, what percentage are infected,
where the pathogen is present and how long it takes to kill a tree.
But the research so far is ‘‘quite alarming’’, says Auckland University PhD candidate Toby Elliott, who is researching if kauri will survive the threat of PA.
In a diseased site at Huia, nearly 14% of trees died within six years, compared with less than 1% in a site without symptoms, according to his research presented to the Kaurilands Summit in May.
The data will need to be modelled and extrapolated out, given kauri live for an average of 600 years and up to 2000 years, Elliott said.
Auckland Council’s latest Kauri Health Monitoring Survey showed while 16.5% of kauri trees in the Waita¯kere Ranges had symptoms consistent with kauri dieback, the heart of the ranges was free of disease.
Te Kawerau a¯ Maki read ‘‘report after report’’ saying the kauri were dying from kauri dieback, but failed to see any leadership to turn infection rates around, Ashby said. In December 2017, the iwi made a stand, laying a ra¯hui or ritual prohibition in Te Wao Nui a¯ Tiriwa (Waita¯kere forest).
Following the ra¯hui, the Government announced a National Pest Management Plan for PA and it will soon be implemented.
Auckland Council also closed its high-risk tracks and committed $107 million to fighting kauri dieback.
While kauri are an iconic symbol of Aotearoa, they are also a canary in the coal mine for how this country treats its threatened endemic species, he said. ‘‘We’ll spend $1 billion on a new motorway and it’s nationally important infrastructure, but we’ll only spend $1 million towards a forest providing a carbon sink and producing the air we use to breathe.’’