Huks track warning, but walkers ignore signs
Walkers appear to have ignored a two-day closure of the popular Hakarimata Summit Track.
Contractors employed by Department of Conservation, Northland Park Care Ltd, said people had been walking over the closure signs and mesh barriers.
The walkway was temporarily closed for track upgrades in a bid to prevent the spread of kauri dieback disease.
It has now been reopened for Easter weekend but upgrades will continue from May 1-3.
The track is likely to be closed again during that time.
DOC Waikato operations manager Ray Scrimgeour said they do not know how many people have walked through the track while closed, but any number is too many.
‘‘If necessary we would employ security; although this would be disappointing as money spent on security could be better spent on upgrading other tracks,’’ he said.
DOC Waikato community ranger Jane Wheeler said people should not walk through the track while work is ongoing for health and safety reasons, and when wet and muddy, using the track can spread the disease.
‘‘It’s also so that the contractors can actually do their job efficiently and get it done quickly and safely because otherwise they have to stop every few minutes.’’
Track upgrades include resurfacing wet and muddy sections of the track with geo-webbing material that has worn down due to high use.
Contractors will also be installing barriers on the sides of the track before the steps. This is to prevent people moving offtrack and infecting kauri roots.
Kauri dieback is caused by microscopic fungus-like organisms called phytophthora agathidicida.
Scrimgeour said the spores live in the soil and infect kauri roots, damaging the tissues that carry nutrients and water within the tree, effectively starving the tree to death.
Wheeler said DOC is encouraging people to clean their shoes before and after leaving the track, as people play a big part in spreading the disease.
‘‘With kauri dieback those spores are microscopic and it doesn’t take much to infect the trees.
‘‘When you come out of somewhere you don’t know what you’ve picked up on your shoes or your gear so you need to clean them,’’ Wheeler said
‘‘We could lose the iconic kauri. We are trying in the places where it isn’t, to keep it so that the trees aren’t infected and are healthy.
‘‘Once infected there is no cure, so we are faced with the prospect of not having kauri anymore. It’s quite a special tree for New Zealanders.’’
One track in the Waikato, the Kauri Route in Te Kauri park, has been permanently closed due to the difficulty of track upgrades to prevent kauri dieback spread, Wheeler said.
Waikato Regional Council’s biosecurity pest plants team leader Darion Embling said there are currently six sites infected by kauri dieback in the Waikato region, all on the Coromandel Peninsula.
Four are on private land in Whangapoua, one site on public conservation land in Hukarahi, and one site on private land in Tairua.
The number of sites infected hasn’t changed since June 2018, Embling said.
The council has recently completed further helicopter surveillance of the surrounding bush near Tairua to see if the disease has spread. The results will be due in a couple of weeks, he said.