Local Focus: Meet the Mauao Ranger

With one million visitors annually, Mauao is an iconic landmark not just in the Bay of Plenty, but across New Zealand.

Residents and visitors traverse the 232-metre mountain all year round and it's the job of Mauao ranger Josh Clark to ensure it's preserved for future generations to enjoy.

It's his dream job.

"I come from a family of hunters and people who are really engaged in the bush," he said.

"I wasn't really into hunting growing up myself but had that awareness of our natural environment.

"I went through college not really on that track but after college and a few years of work experience I decided to follow the passion of conservation and that mainly started at Toi Ohomai in Tauranga."

After finishing his studies, Josh got his first taste of real-life work on Motuihe Island next to Waiheke Island in Auckland.

"It's a predator-free island so essentially I was living on the island doing pest plant control and monitoring for kiwi.

"I really got that full circle of what it took because I'd do [everything from] sea collecting to nursery work to organising the volunteers to go out and do pest plant work or planting days."

It was while working on Motuihe Island that Josh spotted the vacancy for the Mauao ranger position.

"That showed me exactly what I was aiming for in my career," he said.

"To be honest when I saw it I didn't think I was going to get the job because it was the pinnacle of what I wanted.

"I must have interviewed really well and yeah, here I am sitting with the coolest job."

Classified as a historic reserve, Mauao is owned by three local iwi - Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Pūkenga and Ngāti Ranginui.

"The three iwi formed what is called the Mauao Trust, which has two representatives from the three iwi," trust representative Dean Flavell said.

"Their job is to set the governance of how the mountain is managed."

Josh works closely with the trust and Tauranga City Council to meet the goals set out in the Mauao management plan.

The core aspects of the job include looking after the mountain's ecology, culture and heritage and managing the community's expectations on the quality of walking tracks.

"Every three to four months we meet collectively on the management board, Ngā Poutiriao o Mauao," Josh said.

"That is where I can deliver and talk about the progress of those plans and what I've achieved over the last three months."

Part of the plan is how to maintain the mountain as visitor numbers increase, Dean said.

"On average for the last five to six years a million people a year would visit the mountain, whether they're walking around the base track or to the top.

"From a management perspective that's wear and tear on the tracks, which is part of what the ranger has to consider in regards to how the mountain is used and when to bring aggregate in and when to repair."

One issue early management plans didn't factor in was the ecological impact of the "selfie".

"When you have so many people on a mountain like this, everyone going their own way can create quite a bit of damage," Josh said.

"We've seen this at the summit with one of these selfie spots just for an unofficial desire-line walking track down to a rock."

A barrier has since been put in place to deter the public from getting too close to the edge of the mountain.

"It created a massive erosion channel from thousands of people doing it, and that became such a risky situation that we essentially had to act on a health and safety basis," said Josh.

Local pride in Mauao is so strong that the community often polices itself.

"There's many times where I've had a report of a dog going up Mauao and I head up there just to have a conversation with these people and they're already on their way down because our community has informed them of that," said Josh.

"I think we have enough people in the community who use Mauao to be sensible enough to advise 'you shouldn't be doing these sorts of things'," added Dean.

For the tasks too difficult to complete on foot, Josh takes to the air.

"There's two main areas that we'd use a helicopter," he said.

"On our steep tracks, Waikorire and Oruahine tracks, when we're renewing the tracks from all the use we can put between 60 and 100 tonnes of aggregate back on to those tracks in a full renewal.

"It's backbreaking work if we were to do that by wheelbarrow."

As well as looking after Mauao, Josh keeps an eye on other walking tracks around Tauranga.

"You've always got to be thinking 'what's going to be needed next?'.

"When we've done a planting we've organised that a year in advance, we've got to get those plants bought and growing on at least a year before.

"There are a lot of facets in this job that you have to have your eye on and not just concentrate on one aspect," he said.