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A big environmental lobby says the Department of Conservation is axing the jobs of 56 people - including marine scientists and technicians - after the agency overspent its budget by $8 million.
Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell said DOC was announcing the loss of three marine scientists and six technical science positions among the 56 jobs.
Its marine conservation unit's work with species such as Hector's dolphins had been discontinued and the work switched to the mainstream operations of the department.
While government departments needed to stay within budgets, any job losses in conservation were of concern "because DOC is already under-funded to carry out its core conservation work", he said.
Much of the $8 million "overspend" was the cost of fighting an unusually high number of fires due to drought conditions in conservation areas, which DOC staff had to put out.
"Rather than having to fund this extra firefighting from its core conservation budget, DOC should receive contingency funding for fighting fires," he said.
Over the past 20 years the amount of land managed by DOC had doubled, but staffing levels had not increased.
"There is increasing pressure on public conservation lands through the growth of tourism, the spread of pest species, increased development and climate change ... reducing the number of staff can only increase that pressure," Mr Hackwell said.
- NZPA
