Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Fight to save landscape from pines
In the palm of Jaquetta Bradshaw’s hand is a sapling with the power to dry rivers, start bush fires and kill off native life.
It’s a wilding pine. The same tree that helped spread fires at Lake O¯ hau village and Lake Pukaki in the last two months.
With their quick and dense growth, wilding pines aggressively outcompete New Zealand natives and habitats, turning Marlborough’s mountain tops from gold to green.
The sapling’s ‘‘mother tree’’ – now dead – likely sailed 10 kilometres on the wind from Black Birch Reserve as a seed. Some seeds germinated as far as 50km from their parents.
But not if the South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust gets its way. The trust, where Bradshaw is co-ordinator, received Government funding last month continue its battle against wilding pines, including $115,000 for The Ned, near Blenheim.
It also won $86,700 from the Department of Conservation (DOC) in August to control pines in the Ferny Gair/Black Birch area, by The Ned. This was being added to funds from Yealands Estate, as the area fed drinking water to Seddon.
During a helicopter flight over the area Bradshaw explained the threat. ‘‘People think mountain plants are hardy, but mountains are very fragile environments. Plants are slow to grow here, so when conifers come, they win.’’
The trust looks after 10 management areas in South Marlborough, each with its own pine control programme, covering about 870,000ha of ‘‘steep, dry and high’’ farm land.
The trust has cleaned up over 80,000ha to date with the help of landowners and the Lotteries Commission.
Work on The Ned, a 20,000ha area, will begin next month.
Over the mountains, in the Molesworth Station, the trust is working with the Marlborough District Council and other stakeholders to protect the 180,800ha farm from the pines – a project that received a $3.04 million windfall last month.
The trust aims to reduce wilding pine numbers in South Marlborough by 2030, in line with national objectives. It needs $100,000 alone to finish the Awatere area, where Bradshaw found the sapling.
Some pines in the Awatere had escaped from plantations.
But in the Branch/Leatham, Molesworth and Waihopai Valley areas wilding pines were planted in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent erosion.
The Branch/Leatham – which fed water into the Wairau River and therefore local vineyards – had one of the worst pine infestations in New Zealand and was next on the trust’s to-do list.
Trust chair and vineyard owner John Oswald said the pines were ‘‘thirsty’’ and could dry up downstream waterways.
Fires fed by the pines could also taint grapes with smoke.
Hours after visiting the Awatere area, Bradshaw and Oswald petitioned the Nelson Marlborough Conservation Board for funding.
‘‘The Branch/Leatham is out of sight, out of mind, so everyone says to leave it alone. But it’s a major seed source.’’
Left unchecked, wilding pines would spread to another 7.5 million hectares of land, costing $4.6 billion over 50 years.
The Marlborough Sounds Restoration Trust was awarded $355,000 by the Government last month to continue its ‘‘successful’’ pine programme, in its 12th year.
Trust co-ordinator Siobhan Browning said the funding would help it ‘‘bite off a bigger mouthful’’ of wilding pine control this year.
The council last year amended its regional pest management plan, adopted in 2018, to include a new pest pine programme which would kick-start a ‘‘regional framework’’ and support the national pine programme.
People wanting to volunteer for the trust could email info@marlboroughrestoration. org.nz.