New Zealand's clean green image personified in the Strath Taieri ~ photo Southern Light
For the third summer running now in Mt Aspiring National Park, I interact with many tourists intent on being the overseas equivalent of a New Zealand tramper.
Most know our “Clean Green” marketing ploy is not what it seems, and that New Zealand is perceived as just one big farm. To think otherwise ignores the profound “connectedness” the Internet has on the sharing of information world wide.
We’ve got an awful lot of work to do in some areas to live up to the marketing, but really I hope our motivation is otherwise with more of a flavour of health and well-being!
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This aside ‘tho it’s kinda weird that politicians are still stuck in a retro ten to twenty year time warp, totally out of touch with our visitors. The inference being also out of touch with our landscape!
At the end of the NZ school year many schools opt to do a final school camp at Aspiring Hut in Mt Aspiring National Park.
Also at the same early summer time, there are always a handful of oversea’s groups of student specifically here in the country to study our unique environment. These students are highly motivated also doing volunteer work for DOC ranging from Nelson to Fiordland
In this post I want to present two views – neither particularly extreme. Lets have the good news first:
Water quality good for summer swimming | Otago Daily Times Online News
Upper reaches of the Taieri River in Central Otago ~ photo Southern Light’s Donald Lousley
Water quality in Otago has been good so far this summer, Otago Regional Council (ORC) seasonal recreational water quality testing shows. Three sites have had alert/amber warnings at certain times since the summer round of testing began at the beginning of
… which reinforces my experience that Regional Councils and associated environmental dept’s, ie Environment Southland, many farmers, and New Zealand’s Dept. of Conservation do an extremely good job not only keeping us safe, but in the facilitation of our summer enjoyment. Much of this work goes unnoticed and unsung!
Healthy rivers also mean healthy habitats for our birds!
This white-faced heron in the lower Cardrona river-bed near Wanaka is an Australian immigrant which began breeding in New Zealand only in the 1940s, none-the-less the lesson is obvious! ~ photo Southern Light’s Donald Lousley
By contrast, and almost on the same day, we have the below opinion on our “Clean Green Image”. After reading it please leave a comment with your views or experiences in your neighbourhood
Dialogue: An environmental crisis second to none – Environment – NZ Herald News
It’s the time of year to get close to nature. Forest & Bird has thoughtfully released a list of 10 places (“New Zealand’s hidden treasures”) where families can do just that. Except that none of the country’s numerous lakes, rivers or streams are named among them.
The Lord of the Rings actor and New Zealand tour guide operator Bruce Hopkins is not surprised, calling our rivers and lakes “gutter holes” and “sewer pipes”. He slams the “clean green” image behind the 100% Pure New Zealand promotion.
Acting Tourism Minister Paula Bennett has defended it, saying: “It’s an award-winning campaign that is working brilliantly for New Zealand with record growth in visitor numbers.”It’s not, and never has been, an environmental measure.”
Hopkins believes “we are leaning towards being deceptive around how we sell ourselves as a tourist destination”.
Rare in New Zealand, with a population of just 100–120 birds, the elegant white heron or kōtuku posed for photographer Donald Lousley last winter at the bottom of the Snow Farm road in the Cardrona Valley.
Kōtuku have a mythical status for Māori because of their rarity and beauty.
top: Members of the Matukituki Trust planning trapping operations at Aspiring Hut 10 days ago
Many of you know that I’ve been involved with many others giving native bird populations a leg up via the Matukituki Trust for the last 4 or so years. Progress has been very steady and positive due a good base plan concept, followed up by proven methodology.
Taking a wider view the good news is that four Trusts inc. the Matukituki Trust, several landowners, tourism operators and DOC, are now working collectively in the area from the mid slopes of Mt Aspiring to Wanaka.
Traps [in green] recently installed from Wanaka on the left, to Mt Aspiring on the right. Plans are well evolved to fill the obvious gaps in the next few monthsData obtained is being entered into a centralised database that monitors approx. 1600 traps, [Matukituki Trust 620], which enables all to look at and plan for the bigger picture.
A high density of traps of all types around Aspiring Hut in the West Matukituki valley, Mt Aspiring National Park [map approx. orientated north]
Traps of all types upstream from Aspiring Hut in the West Matukituki valley, Mt Aspiring National Park. Liverpool valley on the left, upper west Matuki. and Scott Bivy rock in the center, and French Ridge on the right.
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Many traps are above the winter snow-line in these three areas, with many being of the self resetting variety
I can’t comment yet on all the “kills” but in the last 6 months the Matukituki Trust’s traps have caught 911 predators: cats, rats, hedgehogs, stoats and possums. Mice, despite not directly being predators, are included.
It’s estimated that each predator kills 2 wildlife per week [birds, lizards,, bats insects etc] thus the above kills amount to 47,000 wildlife saved to-date.
Possums do eats chicks and eggs, but this aside 20 of them will eat 2 tons of vegetation per year, so this means that 18 tons are not eaten. That’s 9000 full shopping bags that stay on the trees to benefit the birds.
A new kid on the block – one of many of the south island robin reintroduced some years back. Breeding has been so successful last spring that it’s hard estimate if we’re talking scores or hundreds of birds that have been bred by about 20.
In the last few weeks contractors have been in the valley to set up transects for annual bird counts, but so far exactly how many has not been released yet.
A brief history of the Matukituki Trust:
First we installed about 170 tracking tunnels in the West Matukituki valley to establish what predators were about that have been compromising bird breeding numbers. Answer: too many opossum and mice.
And on another front the means to scientifically establish how much seed the resident silver, red and mountain beech forest produced every three months. Answer: lots!
So-much-so, on both counts that the valley became “eligible” if you like for the Dept. of Conservation, partners with the Trust, to schedule a 1080 poison operation. This was carried out about 2 years ago. Interestingly I literally lived in the midst of it I
Knowing it’d be successful like in other areas like the Routeburn in “buying time” for more native birds chicks to reach maturity, work began in earnest on installing what now amounts to about 620 traps or various types in the valley [mostly high quality DOC 250’s], so that as the predator numbers inevitably increased, we’d be ready with other means to make sure the balance of bird v. vermin, swung in favour of the former.
One of the pair of black stilt/kakī that were recently sighted – the left bird is the more common pied stilt. Photo credit DOC
Above left: One of the pair of black stilt/kakī that were recently sighted – the left bird is the more common pied stilt. Photo credit DOC
This is pretty exciting and it rather amazes me that these birds have crossed the Southern Alps at presumably their highest point across Aoraki Mt Cook National Park, flying presumably against the predominant westerly winds and at considerable altitude that would average 2500 meters
A pair of New Zealand’s rarest birds the Kakī / black stilt has been sighted on the West Coast and DOC staff are asking the public to report further sightings.
The two kakī were spotted by a farmer on a dairy farm in the Arahura Valley. The farmer suspected they were rare and reported the sighting to the dept of Conservation, who confirmed the birds were black stilt/kakī.
Kakī are critically endangered, with less than 100 adult birds in the wild. Once common throughout New Zealand, kakī are now found on the braided rivers and wetlands of the Mackenzie Basin
View of the Upper Clutha Valley from the Grandview Mountains
top: View of the Upper Clutha Valley from the Grandview Mountains
Very happy to hear this news. A group of us volunteers trap an extensive steep rocky area in the Grandview Mountains between the Lindis, Tarras and Wanaka to protect the same species. Recently about 80 were captured and translocated to other areas in Otago.
The eradication of a “suite” of predators has quadrupled the Otago skink population within pest-proof fences at Macraes Flat. Department of Conservation ranger John Keene said it was difficult to estimate the total number of Otago and grand skinks in the area. However, five pest-proof fences around […]
top: Up close and personal with a local mountain stone weta
A lake with an island in Lake Wanaka – it’s much higher btw
The Mou Waho Island Restoration Project is centered around a very special island on Lake Wanaka.
A feeling of magic prevails helped in part by it having an island on a lake on the island!
Twenty or so years ago it was infested by wilding pines which have been successfully cleared as part of a plan by the Dept. of Conservation to restore the island to a natural state. This included the re-introduction of the buff weka, which were translocated to a another island on Lake Wanaka from the Chatham Islands, where chicks were raised in a large purpose built aviary.
A cliff over looking the lake on Mou Waho
It is now estimated [it’s terrain is very rugged] that there are 160 birds on Mou Waho. Trapping is carried out to ensure that any predators that swim there will be caught.
DOC is also in a very successful partnership with Eco Wanaka Adventures and Chris and Lee do a wonderful job of assisting in managing the project – even getting tourists who sign up for their regular boat trips and guided walks/picnics to plant a tree, and making sure they meet the local weka, weta and geckos
Today we completed yet another annual planting – about a doz. of us planted about 80 natives trees. The trees were carried on the DOC boat, and the rest of us travelled in the Eco Wanaka Adventure boat.
Click on any link to see the photos by Southern Light
A boat load of native trees
A lake with an island in Lake Wanaka – it’s much higher btw
A cliff over looking the lake on Mou Waho
A very old and mature native lancewood growing on the remote western side of the island
Eco Wanaka Adventures boat at the Mou Waho jetty – check out the water quality under the boat!
Traps of all types upstream from Aspiring Hut in the West Matukituki valley, Mt Aspiring National Park. Liverpool valley on the left, upper west Matuki. and Scott Bivy rock in the center, and French Ridge on the right.
A new kid on the block – one of many of the south island robin reintroduced some years back. Breeding has been so successful last spring that it’s hard estimate if we’re talking scores or hundreds of birds that have been bred by about 20.
