$15.7m for Lake Brunner's Mt Te Kinga to go predator free

Friday, 29 May 2020

A $15.7 million, five-year project is aiming to make the forests at Mt Te Kinga on the West Coast predator-free.

The Lake Brunner project is the seventh large landscape project to be co-funded by the Government through Predator Free 2050 Limited, and was announced by Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau on Friday.

“This is a legacy project designed to completely remove possums from the mixed podocarp forests of 3700-hectare Mt Te Kinga, and protect them from reinvasion,” Sage said.

Tabuteau said the project would reduce the need for repeated 1080 use, by following the innovative methods of predator control being developed by Zero Invasive Predators (Zip).

**READ MORE:

On The Detail, Sharon Brettkelly meets two people who are doing their best to help achieve New Zealand's Predator-Free 2050 goal. (Video first published November 2019)

* No fences: Holding land once NZ predators are gone

* DOC funded $790,000 to test new predator-control drone

* Commitment made to a predator-free Rakiura

Zip uses aerial control (1080) initially, then trapping and monitoring to maintain a barrier to keep pests out. Detection devices, traps and natural features like rivers and mountains are used to maintain the barrier, reducing the need for regular aerial control.

Work to make Lake Brunner's Mt Te Kinga predator-free will get under way soon.

Zip has almost eliminated predators from one 12,000-hectare block in the Perth River Valley in South Westland and is monitoring a neighbouring block where about only six rats and possums survived a recent aerial 1080 operation.

The $15.7m Te Kinga project includes $4.4m from Predator Free 2050 Ltd and significant in-kind contributions from the West Coast Regional Council and community groups such as the Lake Brunner Community Catchment Care Group.

The work will be completed by the regional council over five years.

Sage said the project would give a much-needed helping hand to the area’s threatened birds, including the roroa/great spotted kiwi, kea, kaka, whio, fernbird, bittern, black billed gull, kakariki/parakeet, rifleman and brown creeper.

It would directly create 12 new jobs, enabling conservation trainees from Greymouth's Tai Poutini Polytechnic to work alongside predator control contractors, farmers and community volunteers and get practical experience in the field, she said.

West Coast Regional Council chairman Allan Birchfield said the Mt Te Kinga work was 'part of a broader vision for the region'.

“This project will provide for a field-based classroom, an anchor project for a planned Conservation Centre of Excellence.

'Given the impacts of Covid-19 on our economy, this is a project that will deliver new nature-based employment for our community.”

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae chairman Francois Tumahai said the project would enable the West Coast iwi to be involved in protecting native taonga like roroa (great spotted kiwi), which had recently been found on Mt Te Kinga.

“It is an area that [is] known for a richness of wildlife.'

The project will cover 38,541ha of the Lake Brunner basin and includes wetlands, podocarp forest, braided river beds and tussock.

Federated Farmers chairwoman Katie Milne, who lives in the area, said predator control on surrounding farmland would provide an important buffer for the new sanctuary.

Lake Brunner Community Catchment Care Group chairwoman Rosalie Shaffrey said the local community had long wanted to protect and restore Te Kinga.

“The new initiative builds on previous water quality and pest control work in our catchment and we’re delighted to have attracted such a big boost for this area.”