Oral Submission Presentation by Blake Foster - New Zealand ...

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Developments from Rural Delivery website for program on wilding control at Pukaki Downs Wilding Pine Control October 8, 2011 Pukaki Downs are using the carbon credits from a core area of wilding pines now in the Emissions Trading Scheme to fund wilding control over the rest of their property. After Lake Pukaki was raised for the second time – by 37m in the 1970’s – there were areas of wilding conifers along the lake front shore, indicating this spread had come from plantings around the now submerged early homesteads. Over 10,000 mixed pine species, including Pinus contorta, were planted on the lake front of Lake Pukaki in the 1970’s for erosion control by the Ministry of Works. It’s a very good climate for growing trees. This species is most prone to spreading, and they have, and they are very costly to control. And until now there’s been no money floating around to help landowners with pine control. The rest of the farm is used for grazing sheep and cattle, organic grain cropping and organic lavender production. Eco-tourism and other forestry ventures are being developed. Blake is also treasurer of the Lake Pukaki Wilding Tree and Management Trust that has been formed by a number of station holders in the area to try and get funding for wilding control. Pukaki Downs has a huge problem with wilding pines on its property but the problem has only increased in the last 15 years. By the middle of last year, wilding Pinus contorta had spread so much that it covered 30 or 40% of the property and had turned into a forest. Much of the remaining area has widely scattered outlier trees and if left unmanaged, wildings would dominate the majority of the property. It’s a very visual weed in an area with high landscape values, and the major tourist route of Mt Cook Road runs through the property for about 8km. The spread is mainly from the lakeshore plantings, and the seed has been blown by strong northerly winds. When the owners were looking at ways they could self-fund wilding conifer control, the ETS was coming into play.
We talked with MAF people in Wellington who said the wilding pines fitted the definition of a forest under the ETS, and could be entered into the scheme. The ETS seemed to be a self-funding way to deal with the situation, and provide an income stream for us to contain it, including planting a tree buffer zone and chip away at the forest area over a number of years, replacing it with a different species. The whole idea is to get rid of the wildings, so we drew a line in the sand surrounding a core area of trees, and put that area into the ETS. We use the funds from the sale of carbon credits to clear all the outliers around it. We are planting 40,000 non-spreading trees around the core area to act as a buffer. These trees will gradually form an effective natural barrier to prevent the airborne spread of wild conifer seed. Gradually we also plan to replace the core wilding area with a hybrid species, a cross between Pinus radiata and P. attenuata, (knobcone pine) which is less prone to spreading. That’s because the knobcone pine’s cones only open as a result of fire, and radiata pine is a low-spread risk for us. Our core ETS area is 1100ha, which is approximately a quarter of the property. The remainder of the property has wildings spread across it. Last year we made huge inroads, clearing 500ha. You have to get them while they are young and haven’t produced cones, which is after about five years. After receiving our first round of carbon credits and selling some of them, we then knew we had the funds to be proactive with the problem. We were fortunate to be able to obtain help from Nick Ledgard of Scion to do a detailed report which identified where the spread was coming from, where we should start control from and what the high and low risk areas were. That’s how we came to put the low spread risk area into the carbon sink. We have followed his recommendations. This way we have a self-funding project, and last year we employed a gang of nine for five weeks who used scrub bars. We had another crew of four. And we have purchased a mechanical slasher at a cost of $150,000 to slash small trees. The control work costs us $15,000 a week, and it is going well. It’s pretty hard work for the team. We also clear the road frontage back to the forest edge in areas that are clear of trees.
Page 1 and 2: Oral Submission Presentation by Bla
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Page 6 and 7: REPORT TITLE AUTHORS CLIENT CLIENT
Page 8 and 9: Recommendations On Pukaki Downs it
Page 10 and 11: Project and client In April, 2010,
Page 12 and 13: History of wilding spread Pre 1970s
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Page 16 and 17: most depleted existing cover and it
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Page 20 and 21: ~ Herbaceous cover. Wildings have d
Page 22 and 23: event indicates that once the Twize
Page 24 and 25: Above. The clear corridor (pink-str
Page 28 and 29: We have sold the carbon credits thr

Oral Submission Presentation by Blake Foster - New Zealand ...

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