Council triples budget for pest control
Auckland Council is proposing spending $307 million over the next 10 years to rein in the region’s pests – more than threefold its current $88 million budget.
The battle to curb kauri dieback and Dutch elm disease was at the heart of the funding increase, getting 10 times more than the $5 million currently allotted to it.
Meanwhile, $40 million would go towards culling possums. The council’s environment and community committee will vote to approve the plan for public consultation on Tuesday.
Its biggest spend would be $154 million on parkland pest management.
Keeping the status quo would lead to ‘‘wide-spread canopy collapse’’ in Auckland forests, the committee’s agenda said.
The Waitakere and Hunua Ranges, Auckland’s biggest forest tracts on the mainland, would be prioritised, with the council, transport corridor operators, and private landowners coordinating efforts to protect the parks’ ecosystems.
The kauri dieback programme would work towards stopping the disease reaching the Hunua Ranges and Hauraki Gulf Islands, and slowing its spread elsewhere. Kauri dieback is already rampant in the Waitakere Ranges, with nearly a quarter of trees either affected or possibly affected.
Human movement is the disease’s main spreader and earlier this year there were calls to close the park to the public to give the forest time to heal. Great Barrier Island, Waiheke Island, and Kawau Island, all within Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, would get a more than $40 million boost to manage their respective pest spreads.
Despite extensive networks of traps and more than 40 commercial transport providers gaining ‘pest-free warrants’ to lessen the risk of stowaways, pesky flora and fauna was still getting in, the agenda said.
The council aimed to eradicate rats, stoats, and pigs from Waiheke Island, as well as wallabies from Kawau, as part of the proposed plan, with financial help from philanthropists and corporate partners.
Kawau Island’s wallaby population was the only one in the region and posed a risk to the mainland, the agenda said. The plan would also target rabbits across the region and ban the sale of pest plants and animals.