KEY POINTS:
Wouldn't it be great if the Department of Conservation got a little more enthusiastic about the national park around which the vast majority of its taxpaying funders live. I'm talking about the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.
It should be DoC's showcase reserve. Somewhere to demonstrate the department's conservation skills to those of us who pay the bills. To say nothing of raising much-needed funds off fee-paying tourists. But nearly eight years after the Conservation Minister at the time, Sandra Lee, signed legislation marking what she declared was our first "national park of the sea", it still hasn't been formally opened.
If it hadn't been for constant pressuring over subsequent years of ministers such as Lee and Chris Carter, with the odd shove from Prime Minister Helen Clark, one suspects that what progress there has been would not have occurred.
If I'm sounding a tad gloomy, put it down to DoC's foot-dragging over the eradication of pests from Rangitoto-Motutapu. Back in March 1994, Auckland University conservationists Craig Miller, John Craig and Neil Mitchell wrote a paper, Ark 2020: A conservation vision for Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands. They advocated the poisoning of introduced mammals and the restoration of the islands as an oasis of pre-human New Zealand biota.
They acknowledged the operation would be "extremely ambitious" and "there may be some reluctance by the Department of Conservation to attempt it". But the scientists emphasised the advantages. "One of the most powerful advocacy tools available to conservation managers is the promotion of recreation on conservation lands ... Increasing numbers ... want to experience conservation first hand."
They said that "On Rangitoto and Motutapu ... members of the public could combine recreation with doing something that gives them a sense of achieving something of worth for New Zealand. By capitalising on this ethic, the Department of Conservation can educate the public and enhance their conservation awareness ... "
In June last year, the Prime Minister and Mr Carter embraced this vision, jointly declaring "the Labour-led Government wants Rangitoto and Motutapu to be pest-free. At 3800 hectares in total, they have the potential to provide the largest combined animal pest-free habitat in the Hauraki Gulf."
Possums and wallabies had been eliminated a decade before, now it was to be the turn of rats, mice, stoats, cats, hedgehogs and rabbits. DoC warned that feasibility planning alone would take two years, because of complexities.
But six weeks ago, with Steve Chadwick hardly in her seat as the new minister after a Cabinet reshuffle, word leaked that with Mr Carter off the scene DoC wanted to throw in the towel. It was all too difficult. There were tourist concessionaires on Rangitoto to worry about, and graziers on Motutapu to compensate. Woe is us.
To their credit, the politicians fought back and late last week Ms Chadwick was in town to announce, presumably through gritted teeth, that initial investigations by her department "have been very positive" and the removal of all pests from the two islands is "ready to start from June next year". She emphasised that "restoring the islands and repopulating them with rare native species is a flagship project for the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park".
Unfortunately, it's not to be the poisoning that starts next June. First comes "installing the infrastructure required to carry out pest eradication". The crucial aerial bait drops would be "within the next three years". Word is, 2009.
Now call me a worry wart, but by then Nick Smith or one of his National colleagues might be the new minister in a new National government, and conservation innovation has hardly been that party's strong point. Without Ms Chadwick or Mr Carter to keep DoC's enthusiasm up, who's to say it won't take advantage of the change to dump the project back in the too-hard basket?
In 2004, the present Government spent $8 million to ensure Kaikoura Island became part of the public estate. A year later, it put forward $2 million over four years for Project Hauraki, which was to help raise the profile of the gulf as a visitor destination and centre of island conservation. But these acts pale in comparison to the opportunities the eradication of pests from Rangitoto and Motutapu would present.
There's no time to muck around. If DoC can't get its act together in time to bomb the critters next June, when they're at their hungriest, then the politicians must "persuade" it to try harder. Or bring Marx Jones, the Springbok Tour Eden Park barnstormer, out of retirement for the day.
