There's a quiet battle being waged in the Kawekas, and it will probably go on for years. A group of volunteers are taking on a formidable enemy — the wilding pine.
"Wilding pines are as tough as 'forever chemicals'. Their seeds can lie dormant for decades before springing into life, to stifle native flora. As elsewhere across New Zealand, they are rampant in the Kaweka Range," says Wilding Pines Community Group member Julia Mackie.
The local effort springs from an idea created by this group of like-minded conservationists wanting to help the Department of Conservation with ongoing wilding pine control (primarily Pinus Contorta) in the Kaweka Forest Park.
Volunteers tackle smaller trees with handsaws, applying herbicide to stumps and using hand-pulling techniques on saplings. Their work is complementary to other ongoing pine control in the forest park, previously undertaken under the National Wilding Pine Programme.
"DoC allocated us an area near the lakes at Kuripaponga, which had larger trees aerially sprayed between 2019 and 2021, with ground control done by a contractor in 2020."