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Warning of a looming “tsunami” of weeds that could have a devastating impact on native bush, the Friends of Okura Bush group is seeking funding for a community engagement worker to help coordinate a response.
The group plans to start advertising for the position towards the end of this month.
In a presentation to the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board late last year, FOOB representatives Chris Bettany and Dale Connelly said an incursion of weeds from surrounding areas may jeopardise the ecologically significant Okura Bush and Karepiro forest.
Connelly said weeds such as the moth plant, climbing asparagus, privet, Taiwanese cherry and Japanese honeysuckle “crowd out, smother, strangle or outcompete” native species, and prevent the regeneration that is required to ensure their survival.
The result could be the loss not only of trees, but entire ecosystems within the Okura and Weiti catchments related to the forests and surrounding land.
“The window of opportunity to effectively and affordably control the offending species is narrowing,” FOOB said.
“Once established, these pest plants will be impossible to eliminate from the area – and that’s predicted to be within a few short years if action is not taken.”
The group wants to hire an outreach worker to liaise with the community and work alongside FOOB’s pest plant and predator control coordinators, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the most incursive weeds on public and private land while that is still possible.
FOOB said that because different weeds need different methods of elimination, and since some seedbanks take several years to control, the project would extend over a period of five to ten years.
Despite the group’s hopes that the local board would support the plan and provide resources towards hiring a liaison officer, Connelly said funding was not approved.
FOOB however, managed to get some funding – $7000 from Pub Charity – but as the total cost for the project is $21,000, it continues to seek support.
Explaining the significance of the area, the group said in its earlier presentation that the Okura Bush and Karepiro forest “protect the riparian margins of streams which feed into the Okura estuary, part of New Zealand’s largest estuarine marine reserve, reducing sediment and other contaminants from entering the estuary.”
“Healthy forests are essential in reducing harmful impacts of climate change, absorbing carbon from the air, and sequestering in the root systems.”
Classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as an endangered type of forest, the Okura Forest is “the last significant stand of coastal broadleaf and kauri forest between Coromandel peninsula and just south of Whangarei”.
