Kate Graeme from Forest and Bird and Lake Rotoiti Scenic Reserves Board member Ted Taiatini. Video / Laura Smith
"Iconic" pōhutukawa are being grazed to death by possum at Lake Rotoiti but the local community is fighting back with a new way to tackle growing pest numbers.
The restoration project was launched at the urupā at Otaramarae this week with a karakia and introductions from those involved.
It is a collaboration between Forest and Bird with the Lake Rotoiti Scenic Reserves Board, which contains members of Ngāti Pikiao, who gifted the reserves around the lake about 100 years ago.
Lake Rotoiti Scenic Reserves Board members Keith Waaka (left), Ted Taiatini, Tawhiri Morehu and Joe Tahana with Kate Graeme from Forest and Bird (middle). Photo / Laura Smith
Te Arawa Lakes Trust, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Department of Conservation representatives were also involved.
It aimed to manaaki (conserve) the pōhutukawa that were dying due to possum browsing.
The project came about when Forest and Bird representative Kate Graeme, while spending time on the lake, noticed several "skeletal" pōhutukawa trunks at the lake's edge at Te Arero Bay.
She showed her ecologist parents, who then pointed out the surviving pōhutukawa were also under pressure, with thinned canopies and looked "sick and distressed".
Pōhutukawa on Lake Rotoiti's edge have been dying from browsing possum. Photo / Supplied
She said possum numbers were large and growing. The pest species would select a tree to go back to night after night.
She said the trees, about 100 years old, were a significantly iconic part of the Lake Rotoiti landscape, and were irreplaceable.
Graeme said that as well as the amenity value the trees provided, the pōhutukawa also protected the lakeside and significant archaeological sites like the food storage caves, which will be susceptible to erosion if the trees die.
Lake Rotoiti Scenic Reserves Board member Ted Taiatini. Photo / Laura Smith
Lake Rotoiti Scenic Reserves Board member Ted Taiatini worked with Graeme to develop the project.
His whānau has lived in the area for generations with its whenua on the edge of Lake Rotoiti close to the urupā.
"The important thing today is we are all contributing to our whenua in terms of the nature of our awa, the lake. We've got to look after our whenua."
Taiatini's advice to non-Māori was to listen to the indigenous people, who had lived there for a long time.
"We know what should be done and shouldn't be done."
The most important thing today was to nurture the forest, trees and bush, he said.
"Because the plants are the ones that are our survival. They give us oxygen, it completes the circle in terms of human beings living on this earth."
